Upcoming Open Day

Our open day for 2025 will be held on Saturday 17 May from 10am-12pm and we’d love to see you there! Our staff members and parent committee will be there on the day to assist with any questions you might have.

Welcome to Cara Armstrong Kindergarten

Cara Armstrong Kindergarten is an iconic play-based kindergarten that has been offering the children of Hawthorn East and its surrounding neighbourhoods a quality kinder experience and family-friendly atmosphere since 1945.

We are a not-for-profit community kinder run by a committee of dedicated volunteer parents, working to support our wonderful team of engaging and dynamic educators.

The philosophy behind our program is “learning through play” and we pride ourselves on providing a stimulating environment and a warm positive atmosphere where children can develop confidence, curiosity, communication skills, social skills and cooperative behaviour. 

Children enjoy weekly incursions including sports, yoga and dance classes, and throughout the year we have many interesting incursions like visiting bunnies and butterfly enclosures, and the dinosaur fossils from the Melbourne Museum! The 4-year-old Grasshopper class also participates in Mandarin lessons twice a week.

Our indoor/outdoor program provides flexibility and encourages the children to explore, experiment and engage with their surroundings. In our beautiful outdoor area, the children enjoy playing in our large sandpit and cubby house, playing on the slide and swings, practising their skills along the bike path, making mud pies in the mud pit, and splashing in gumboots around our new water pump. We have a climbing frame, a herb garden, a pirate ship for sailing the high seas and a sensory garden complete with a wheelchair-accessible path.

Inside, we have a large group space where we come together for stories, singing and dancing, a reading nook with couches, and individual stations set up with interesting activities and experiments each day. We also have a quiet corner for recharging batteries, a fish tank for our pet fish, and an open plan kitchen perfectly tailored for children to participate in cooking.

We pride ourselves on fostering a friendly and supportive kinder community, where everyone is welcomed, every difference is celebrated and everyone can contribute to the kinder in their own way. Children and parents also enjoy regular events to come together as a community such as picnics, fundraisers and special events.

National Quality Standard Rating

The National Quality Standard (NQS) sets a high national benchmark for early childhood education and care and outside school hours care services in Australia. 
The NQS includes 7 quality areas that are important to outcomes for children.
Services are assessed and rated by their regulatory authority against the NQS, and given a rating for each of the 7 quality areas and an overall rating based on these results. Learn more here.

We achieved an exceeding rating by the Department of Education in its most recent assessment of our kinder