Goodstart Payneham

Homely nursery and preschool with a longstanding team

Family-focused, quality long day care in Felixstow.

403-407 Payneham Road, Felixstow, 5070, SA

View in Google Maps

6:30am to 6:30pm, Monday to Friday

Open every weekday of the year, except public holidays

More details

Nursery
Toddler
Preschool

See gallery

More details

About our centre

Welcome to Goodstart Payneham!

We're your local quality child care near Felixstow. Our early learning centre is built on the lands of the Kaurna people.

At our trusted service, children grow in a home-like environment led by a close-knit team of passionate, longstanding educators. Our centre feels like visiting Nonna’s house - warm, welcoming, and filled with love.

Located on Payneham Road near local schools and parks, our daycare offers approved education and care programs across nursery, toddler, pre-kindy and preschool.

Our play-based curriculum supports every stage of children’s development with care, structure and fun. Families love our welcoming, inclusive culture, diverse staff, and strong community connections.

Book Your Tour Today!

Book a tour to meet our educators and discover why local parents have trusted us for generations.

What makes our centre special:

A family-first culture where children feel at home – safe, supported, and valued
Three bachelor's degree-qualified teachers leading quality education programs
Passionate, longstanding educators with 10+ years of experience
Hindi, Mandarin and Arabic speakers who support our multilingual families
Fun, MasterChef-style cooking classes and healthy daily meals included every day
Rich, diverse programming including daily oral hygiene education for preschoolers
Events that bring our community together, like Easter Drive By and Christmas Lights Display

At Goodstart Payneham, we believe early learning works best when families feel connected and children feel known.

Our educators build strong relationships through our Key Educator approach, providing consistent care and personalised support.

Our multicultural team ensures children from diverse backgrounds feel welcomed while programs like gardening, cultural cooking and sustainability education enrich everyday learning.

We also offer a government-funded Universal Access program in our preschool room, helping children engage in excursions, incursions, and school readiness activities.

With five daily meals prepared fresh on-site and thoughtful touches like a breastfeeding room and oral hygiene education, we look after every part of your child's wellbeing.

Book a tour today or contact us to arrange a visit that suits your schedule. We'd love to welcome you into our Payneham family.

Learn more about Goodstart Payneham

At Goodstart Payneham, our philosophy centres around the belief that every child is a unique individual with their own interests and strengths. We embrace a play-based learning approach that nurtures curiosity and creativity, allowing children to explore their world in meaningful ways.
We prioritise:
1. Holistic Development: Supporting cognitive, emotional, social, and physical growth through engaging and developmentally appropriate activities.
2. Family and Community Engagement: Building strong partnerships with families and the community to create a supportive network for each child.
3. Inclusive Environment: Celebrating diversity and ensuring that all children feel valued, respected, and included.
4. Lifelong Learning: Instilling a love of learning by encouraging exploration, problem-solving, and critical thinking.
Through our philosophy, we aim to create a safe, nurturing environment where children can thrive and become confident, capable learners.
Children need to feel safe and supported to learn and grow, so we promote key educator relationships between our educators and children. Your child will have at least one educator (their key educator) who takes them under their wing and really gets to know them.
Our Key Educator relationships help children form secure attachments. Educators work closely with smaller groups and individual children to better understand each child. These relationships lead to improved outcomes for children as we foster more communication between families and educators.
We inform families regularly about their child's progress and welcome family involvement in our centre events and activities.  
At our Payneham centre, we're proud to inspire your child's love of learning with the support of our passionate and qualified early childhood experts. Teachers with bachelor's degrees run our preschool program, so children can be well on their way to excellent learning outcomes by the time they start reception. 
At Goodstart, we believe all children deserve the best possible start in life, which includes access to high-quality early childhood education and care. We offer:
- Discounts on multiple days
- All day sessions
- Discounted shorter sessions
- Fee assistance programs for families that need support.
We work closely with parents to ensure the individual needs, interests and strengths of the children are considered, developing learning goals to reflect the same. Using Storypark, a wonderful communication platform, we stay in close touch with families and ensure they are well informed about their children’s development and achievements.
Click here to book your tour or call our Family Services team to find out more on 1800 222 543

View a Sample Menu

Curious about the wholesome meals your child will enjoy? At Goodstart Payneham, we provide delicious and nutritious meals crafted to fuel growing minds and bodies. Our menu is thoughtfully designed to meet children's nutritional needs while introducing them to a variety of flavours they'll love. We cater for all allergy and dietary requirements.

View Menu

Testimonials from our Families

View the full Family Testimonial videos on YouTube.

Image 1 of 16

My son has been at Goodstart Payneham since he was 5 months old (full-time) in the nursery room. All the educators and admin staff are fantastic and amazing. They are so supportive and patient, and we’ve received millions of advice throughout my son’s development journey. It has a great environment and learning facilities. Children can play safely in the huge backyard, and my son loves planting and eating vegetables (cherry tomatoes, particularly in summer) from the garden. And he also loves nutritious lunch freshly cooked by chef, Dave. Plus many more! He started Kindergarten program here this term for 5 days and he absolutely enjoys what he learns everyday. We can clearly see his happiness and maturity which is thankfully encouraged and supported by beautiful team. I strongly recommend Goodstart Payneham to every parent, especially young families just like us.

Christina Lee

What a fabulous friendly environment 💜 The staff have been very caring and inviting and have a very family feel about them as well as teaching our kids many new things each and every day. We have done a few daycare moves over the years and our now 5yr old is loving getting ready for kindy in this new facility of hers. She has built some lovely friendships with the staff and her peers. The biggest thing for us was finding stability and at this center all the staff have been working at this address for upto 17yrs and they really do put alot of effort into our children, we even had our first parent teacher interview which we thought was great, we feel more of a connection with the staff as we could see they really do want what is best for us and our children and they want to know how they can make it better for us. Five stars all round, well done guys, wish we had chosen you alot sooner. Don't worry about the size of the rooms, the team manage the space very well and they do a fabulous job of keeping the kids stimulated.

Brooke Walmsley

Enrol now!

When every moment counts, make them Goodstart moments.

Enquire now

Jessica Vatsilas

Centre Director

Hello, my name is Jessica Vatsilas and I am the Centre Director at Goodstart Payneham.

I’ve been privileged to be part of the Goodstart Payneham family for 19 years, including 7 years as Centre Director. My journey here has been incredibly rewarding, and I’m deeply committed to providing a nurturing, safe, and aesthetically welcoming environment for every child. I firmly believe that the first five years of a child’s life are crucial, and our developmentally appropriate curriculums and programs are designed to set a strong foundation for lifelong learning.

As a passionate and dedicated leader, I focus on mentoring and empowering my team to be their best. I’m proud of the positive, collaborative environment we foster, where we work together to provide the highest quality care and education.

At Goodstart Payneham, we place great importance on building strong, trusting relationships with both children and families through Key Educator Relationships. These relationships help children feel a sense of belonging in their new learning environment. I believe every child has the right to learn and grow at their own pace, follow their interests, and make decisions that empower them to build confidence and agency.

While Goodstart Payneham might not be brand new, we are REAL, and we have heart and soul!

We look forward to meeting you and your family. Come in and say hi!

Call us on 8365 0105, or click the 'Book a tour' button above to arrange a personalised tour. If you’d like a tour outside of the offered tour times please contact me so that we can organise this for you.