The Top 3 Childcare Centres in Sunbury, VIC (3429)

Goodstart Early Learning Sunbury on Bennett Court is part of Goodstart and is led by a director who has run the centre for more than a decade. Licensed for 80 places, it takes children from six weeks to five years across nursery, toddler and kindergarten rooms. The centre is purpose-built, and at its most recent assessment in December 2025 it was rated Exceeding National Quality Standard.

Learning follows the Early Years Learning Framework, tailored to each child's interests, with a government-funded kindergarten program delivered by a university-qualified teacher. Daily art and music sit alongside sports and music incursions and regular community events, from grandparents' days to emergency-services visits. Goodstart is a not-for-profit. That ownership model, rather than a privately held one, shapes how it operates.

The two outdoor play areas include sandpits, cubbyhouses, a vegetable patch and worm farm, a rabbit hutch and plenty of shade. Five meals a day, including a hot lunch, are provided, and nappies and sunscreen are included in the daily fee ($167.28 up to 35 months, $160.54 from 36 months), with multi-child discounts available. Goodstart Bennett Court holds a 4.7 Google rating from 14 reviews.

Goodstart on Bennett Court is our clear first pick in Sunbury. It holds an Exceeding rating, confirmed in December 2025, and it pairs that with a long-tenured director, an all-inclusive fee covering meals and nappies, and a not-for-profit operator. For families who want an Exceeding rating confirmed within the past year, this is where we would start.

Sunningdale Children's Centre is run by Hume City Council from Dornoch Drive and is open from 6:30am to 6:30pm on weekdays, with 130 approved places on the national register. Starting Blocks lists full-day rates for every age band from birth to preschool, at $140.00 a day for all of them, with five inclusions recorded against that rate.

Its August 2023 assessment returned Exceeding National Quality Standard, up from Meeting in April 2018, with six of the seven quality areas above the standard; collaborative partnerships with families and communities sits at Meeting. A regulatory visit in September 2026 recorded no enforcement actions in the preceding two years.

One condition sits on the approval, and it is specific rather than categorical: no more than two educators without the qualification set by regulation 126(1)(a) may count toward ratios at once, and those educators must hold a mothercraft nurse qualification and have been with the service since 2009. It reads as a grandfathering arrangement for long-serving staff, not a response to a failure, and is worth asking about on a tour.

Sunningdale is second on its rating. It is Exceeding, which under our method places it above both Meeting-rated centres before fees or reviews are weighed, and it is below Goodstart only because Goodstart's Exceeding result (December 2025) is twenty-eight months newer. Its rate is $140.00 a day at every age, the same as Little Lane's. What we cannot give you is a review picture: a controlled Google Maps check did not land on this service, so there is no verified review figure, and a missing review base does not demote a centre that wins on the rating. The one condition on its approval concerns two long-serving, mothercraft-qualified educators counted in ratios, which is worth asking about but describes no failure.

Little Lane Early Learning on Horne Street is a family-owned centre approved for 91 places. Its centre page lists care from six weeks to six years, weekday hours of 6:00am to 6:00pm all year apart from public holidays, and a Reggio Emilia-inspired, play-based program. Funded kindergarten for three and four-year-olds runs from 8:30am to 4:30pm.

A new operator has run the service since 21 July 2025. Its November 2025 assessment, the first under that operator, returned Meeting National Quality Standard, with collaborative partnerships with families and communities rated Exceeding. The previous result, Exceeding in July 2021, was issued under the prior operator, so it says little about the centre as it is run today. The approval carries no conditions and no enforcement actions were recorded in the past two years.

The daily fee is $140.00 at every age. Starting Blocks lists no inclusions against it; the centre page says meals, nappies, tissues, wipes, bed sheets and hats are provided, so ask what the rate covers before comparing it with centres that itemise theirs. For the week of 19 October 2026 the register showed casual and permanent places on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday. We could not verify a Google review figure: the Maps search for this address returned no place panel.

Little Lane is third because of its fee. Its November 2025 Meeting rating sits within twelve months of Community Kids Sunbury (October 2025) and Complete Kids on Phillip Drive (November 2024), which makes the rating a tie and sends the comparison to program, fees and practical fit. At $140.00 a day it undercuts Community Kids ($173.45) and Complete Kids ($166.00), while its 6:00am to 6:00pm hours and 91 places are level with both under our thresholds. Bambini on Mitchells Lane, the previous third pick, was assessed fourteen months before Little Lane, which settles that pair on the rating. Two cautions: the current rating is the first under an operator that took over in July 2025, and the register lists no inclusions, so confirm meals and nappies directly.