Childcare and Preschool in St Ives
Lead Early Learning Centres is a long day care and preschool centre at 75 Killeaton Street, St Ives NSW 2075. If you are comparing childcare in St Ives, this page answers the three questions parents ask us most often: who will care for my child each day, what will care actually cost once the Child Care Subsidy is applied, and how will my child learn and grow before school.
One centre, one fee, the whole early childhood
We educate and care for children from 0 to 12 years: long day care and preschool for 6 weeks to 6 years across 76 places, plus before and after school care and vacation care for school-age children up to 12. We are open 7:00am to 6:00pm on weekdays. One daily fee covers five meals a day, nappies and every extracurricular activity, so your statement holds no surprise extras. The program is inspired by the Reggio Emilia approach, guided by the Early Years Learning Framework, and the centre is rated Exceeding the National Quality Standard.
Most families here are weighing a preschool year against a fourth or fifth day of care, or moving from a nanny arrangement into a centre for the first time. Whatever brought you to this page, the sections below walk through our rooms, our daily rhythm, real costs and how enrolment works, in the order parents usually ask. A good place to begin is our early learning programs, then come and watch them running on a tour.
Long day care and preschool for 6 weeks to 6 years
Lead Early Learning Centres provides long day care for children aged 6 weeks to 6 years and a dedicated preschool program for children in their two years before school, all under one roof in St Ives, weekdays from 7:00am to 6:00pm.
That single sentence matters because St Ives families are often told to choose between the two. A standalone preschool usually runs school hours and school terms, which rarely fits working parents. Our preschool program sits inside a long day care structure, so your child receives a genuine, teacher-led preschool year while you keep the hours your job requires, 52 weeks of the year.
The centre is approved for the Child Care Subsidy, which means eligible families pay only the gap between our daily fee and their subsidy. With 76 places in total, the centre is deliberately mid-sized: large enough for purpose-built rooms and a full kitchen, small enough that every educator knows every child by name, including the children they do not teach.
Why St Ives families choose Lead
Families choose Lead for three reasons they tell us again and again: one all-inclusive fee with nothing added on, a purpose-built centre that opened recently and still feels new, and educators who greet each child by name at the door every single morning.
The all-inclusive fee
Five meals a day, nappies, wipes, and every extracurricular program, from sport to language, are covered in the daily rate. Parents switching from other centres tell us the weekly difference once extras disappear surprised them.
A purpose-built centre
Our rooms are light-filled, with window seats for quiet reading, real-wood learning materials and landscaped outdoor play areas under shade sails. Everything a parent sees on a tour is the everyday environment, not a display.
Educators who know your child
Our team is led by degree-qualified early childhood teachers and supported by diploma and certificate educators, many of whom live locally. The people are the reason families stay.
Learn more about how we work in the Reggio Emilia approach that shapes our rooms, our materials and the way educators listen to children.
Our age groups and rooms
Children at Lead are grouped into four rooms by age and stage: Nursery for 6 weeks to 2 years, Toddlers for 2 to 3 years, Pre-Kindy for 3 to 4 years, and Preschool for 4 to 5 years, each with its own program and educator team.
Nursery
Babies sleep to their own rhythm in a dedicated cot room, with primary-caregiver routines matched to home.
Explore the Nursery →
Toddlers
Floor space and outdoor time toddler bodies demand, with language-rich play and gentle toilet training support.
Explore Toddlers →
Pre-Kindy
Longer project work, early writing tables and more responsibility as independence takes off.
Explore Pre-Kindy →
Preschool
The teacher-led year before school, where the School Readiness Program runs every week.
Explore Preschool →Grouping this way keeps routines age-appropriate. Moving between rooms is planned with you, never sprung on you. Your child visits their next room with a familiar educator over several weeks, and moves permanently only when they are settled, not simply when a birthday arrives. Each room page explains the daily routine, the educator-to-child ratio and what a typical day looks like. Start with our age groups overview, or go straight to the nursery room if you are enrolling a baby, or the preschool program for 4 to 5 year olds if school is on the horizon.
Our programs
Our programs run on one idea: children learn best through play that is planned with intent. Every room follows a program written by its educators, mapped to the Early Years Learning Framework and shaped by what its children are curious about right now.
In practice that means project work rather than worksheets. A toddler group fascinated by rain becomes a fortnight of water play, gutter building and puddle maths. A preschool group asking about volcanoes ends up testing eruptions with droppers and bicarb, which is exactly the kind of morning you will find in our rooms.
The School Readiness Program runs through the preschool year and builds the five skills NSW kindergarten teachers ask for: early literacy, early numeracy, self-help, focus and social confidence.
Extracurricular sessions are woven into normal weeks at no extra charge, including sport, yoga, cooking and language. There is nothing to opt into and nothing to pay; if your child attends that day, they take part. You can see every program in detail, including how each maps to the EYLF outcomes.
What is included in your daily fee
One daily fee covers everything we provide for your child's day: five meals and snacks, nappies and wipes, sunscreen, and every extracurricular and learning program we run. You pack a labelled water bottle, a hat, bedding for rest time and two or three spare sets of clothes.
Five meals a day
Five well-balanced meals and snacks, spread from early morning to late afternoon.
Nappies and wipes
Included at every age until toilet training is done, at every change.
Learning programs
Reading Eggs, Prep School workbooks, STEM and sustainability, all part of the day.
Sport and yoga
Movement sessions woven into ordinary weeks for every room.
Cooking and language
Hands-on sessions run in-room, with nothing to opt into.
A Nut Aware centre
Allergy management plans are written for individual children, and educators hold anaphylaxis training.
Nappies and wipes matter more than they sound. A child in care four days a week can use well over 100 nappies a month, and centres that exclude them shift a real cost back onto you. Because nothing is added on, comparing us with other centres is straightforward: take their advertised daily rate, add their extras, then look at our single figure on the fees and inclusions page. To see what you would actually pay after subsidy, the cost estimator gives you a personalised figure in about a minute.
Child Care Subsidy and what you actually pay
Most Lead families do not pay the full daily fee. The Child Care Subsidy is paid by the Australian Government directly to the centre, and you pay only the gap. Your subsidy percentage depends on family income, and for many local families it covers half or more of each day.
Since January 2026, the 3 Day Guarantee gives eligible families at least three subsidised days of care per week without an activity test to satisfy. That change removed the biggest barrier for families where one parent works part time or is returning to work.
Setting it up is a one-off task in your Centrelink account through myGov, and we walk every new family through it during enrolment. The official Services Australia Child Care Subsidy page explains eligibility, and our own Child Care Subsidy guide translates the rules into plain examples for St Ives families.
Because the subsidy is a percentage, the only number that matters to your budget is the gap. Enter your income band and days in the estimator and it shows your estimated weekly gap fee, not just our headline rate.
How your gap fee works
Three inputs decide what you pay each week. The estimator does the maths for you.
- QA1 Educational program and practice
- QA2 Children's health and safety
- QA3 Physical environment
- QA4 Staffing arrangements
- QA5 Relationships with children
- QA6 Partnerships with families and communities
- QA7 Governance and leadership
Rated Exceeding the National Quality Standard
Lead Early Learning Centres is rated Exceeding the National Quality Standard, the highest rating band commonly awarded under Australia's national ratings system for education and care services.
The NQS assessment is not a customer review. An authorised officer from the NSW regulator spends time in the centre, observes practice in every room, examines documentation and rates the service against seven quality areas, from educational program to governance. Exceeding means the service goes beyond what the standard requires, and that word is assessed, not self-awarded.
For a parent, the rating is the closest thing childcare has to an independent inspection you can actually read. Every service's rating is public on the national register maintained by ACECQA, so you can verify ours and compare any centre on your shortlist.
We treat the rating as a floor rather than a trophy. The practices the assessor observed, educators documenting each child's thinking, rooms set up to provoke curiosity, leadership reviewing the program each term, are the same practices you will see on an ordinary Tuesday. The full story of what was assessed sits on our quality rating page.
Our educators
Your child's day is led by qualified educators: degree-qualified early childhood teachers guide the program, and diploma and certificate III educators work alongside them in every room, always within or better than NSW ratio requirements.
Consistency is the emotional promise. Children settle when the same faces greet them, so our educators are permanently assigned to rooms rather than rotated around the building. When your baby's key educator knows exactly how she likes to be settled to sleep, drop-offs stop being hard.
Every educator holds current first aid, CPR, anaphylaxis and asthma training, along with working with children checks. You can read about the people behind the centre, including our centre director and room leaders, on our story and team pages.
| Age of children | NSW required ratio |
|---|---|
| Under 2 years | 1 educator : 4 children |
| 2 to 3 years | 1 educator : 5 children |
| 3 years and over | 1 educator : 10 children |
Ratios are the structural promise. We plan rosters so ratios hold across lunch breaks and late afternoons, not just at inspection time.
Areas we serve
Lead Early Learning Centres serves families across Sydney's Upper North Shore. Most of our families drive less than 15 minutes from St Ives, St Ives Chase, Wahroonga, Turramurra, Gordon, Pymble and Hornsby, and some commute through from Chatswood.
St Ives itself supplies most of our enrolments, and the centre sits on Killeaton Street with easy street access at drop-off time. For families in Wahroonga and Turramurra, we are a practical alternative when local waitlists run long, a short detour from the Pacific Highway school run. Gordon and Pymble families often find us on the way to the train line, dropping off before continuing to the station. Hornsby families typically choose us for the preschool program specifically, trading a slightly longer drive for the teacher-led year before school.
If you are searching from any of these suburbs, our areas we serve pages show realistic driving times, the best drop-off routes and answers to the questions families from each suburb ask most. We would rather show you honest travel times than pretend geography does not matter.
How to enrol
Enrolling at Lead takes four steps: book a tour, join the waitlist, accept your offer and complete the enrolment pack, then attend orientation visits before your child's first day. Most families complete the whole process within a few weeks.
Book a tour
Twenty minutes in the rooms tells you more than any website. Tours run on weekday mornings, and you can book a tour online in under a minute.
Join the waitlist
Genuinely a list, not a black hole. Join the waitlist and we tell you honestly how places look for your rooms and days.
Accept and enrol
We contact you as soon as a matching place opens, for 2026 starts and 2027 enrolments alike, and handle the paperwork with you.
Orientation visits
Short visits with you before day one, including Child Care Subsidy setup, so the first real morning feels familiar.
The tour comes first for a reason: it is when your questions get specific answers about your child, your days and your start date. The full process, with what to bring and how orientation visits work, is on the enrolment page. Prefer to talk it through first? Call us on (02) 7238 8668.
Parent reviews
Parents describe Lead the same way in review after review: warm, welcoming, and genuinely caring, with educators who know each child and rooms that are consistently clean and calm. Those are their words, published in public Google reviews, not ours.
"This centre provides a warm, welcoming and inclusive environment. The staff are very caring and friendly, they ensure the children's learning needs are all met and dedicate their time to each child's growth."
"A warm and welcoming place where children are truly cared for. My child feels safe, happy, and supported every day. Highly recommend to any family looking for quality early education."
"Care at this centre has been the world of difference to a previous centre. Couldn't recommend it more, the staff are all lovely and the rooms are always clean."
We publish reviews from our public Google profile, where the reviewer's identity is verified, rather than curating anonymous praise. You can read every review, including the shorter and more matter-of-fact ones, on our testimonials page or directly on Google. New reviews arrive steadily as enrolled families settle in, and we read all of them. If you visit us and something falls short of what you read here, tell us on the day. The rating only means something if it keeps being earned.
Visit us at 75 Killeaton Street
You will find us at 75 Killeaton Street, St Ives NSW 2075, open 7:00am to 6:00pm Monday to Friday. The easiest way to see the centre is a booked morning tour; the easiest way to reach us today is to call (02) 7238 8668.
Killeaton Street sits just off Mona Vale Road, which makes drop-off practical from either direction. Street parking is available near the entrance, and pram access from the footpath to the front door is level the whole way.
If you are timing a visit around work, tours take about 20 minutes and morning slots show the rooms at their busiest and best. You are welcome to bring your child; watching them react to the rooms is usually the deciding moment.
Written questions travel well too. Email stives@leadearlylearningcentres.com.au and the director replies personally, usually the same day. Or use the form on our contact page and tell us the days and start date you are hoping for, so the first answer you receive is a useful one.
Frequently asked questions about childcare in St Ives
The questions below are the ones parents ask on tours, by phone and by email, answered directly. If your question is not here, the parent resources library covers subsidy rules, settling in, illness policies and starting school in far more depth.
Is Lead a childcare centre or a preschool?+
Both. Lead is a long day care centre with a dedicated preschool program inside it. Your child gets a teacher-led preschool year in their final years before school, while you keep full-day, full-year hours instead of school-terms-only sessions.
What ages do you take?+
We care for children from 0 to 12 years. Long day care rooms are grouped by age: Nursery from 6 weeks, Toddlers from 2 years, Pre-Kindy from 3 years and Preschool for the 4 to 5 year olds preparing for school. School-age children up to 12 join our before and after school care and vacation care.
What are your opening hours?+
We are open 7:00am to 6:00pm, Monday to Friday, 52 weeks a year, closing only on public holidays. The 11-hour day is designed so commuting parents can manage drop-off and pick-up without relying on backup care.
What is included in the daily fee?+
Five well-balanced meals and snacks, nappies, wipes and sunscreen, plus every extracurricular and learning program, including sport, yoga, cooking, languages, Reading Eggs and school readiness. Families bring a labelled water bottle, a hat, bedding and spare clothes. There are no levies or activity surcharges.
Do you have vacancies?+
We are currently taking enrolments for 2026 and 2027. Availability changes room by room and day by day, so the fastest way to get a real answer is to join the waitlist or call us with the days you need.
How do I book a tour?+
Book online through our book a tour page in under a minute, or call (02) 7238 8668. Tours run on weekday mornings, take about 20 minutes, and children are very welcome to come along and try the rooms.
See the rooms for yourself
A 20 minute morning tour answers more than an hour of reading. Bring your child; the rooms will do the talking.