Early Learning Services Archives | Early Childhood Educators' Day

Pop it in your 2026 calendar!

Believe it or not we usually receive a handful of queries in the weeks following Early Childhood Educators’ Day, seeking the event date for the next year.

For those already looking ahead, please note that in 2026, Early Childhood Educators’ Day will take place on Wednesday 2nd September.

As always, it takes place on the first Wednesday of September.

We thank you for your ongoing support in celebrating and acknowledging the ongoing important work of our early childhood educators.

We look forward to continuing this important tradition together next year.

we'd love to hear your feedback!

First up, we hope you had an amazing Early Childhood Educators’ Day earlier this month!

We would greatly appreciate some collective feedback from the team at your early learning service about the resources that the Australian Childcare Alliance produced to help celebrate Early Childhood Educators’ Day 2025 – that is, the website, the social media, the videos, the printables and the For Keeps Merch apparel and other items.

Your thoughts and experiences about these resources help us to develop practical, useful and effective resources that hit the right tone for future years.

The following survey should only take a few minutes of your time, and it can be completed more than once on the same device.

We thank you in advance for your feedback!

We've got some goodies to give away!

We love to see photos of your celebrations from across the country! Your photos build on the excitement of the day by showing how different services celebrated in their own special way, while also serving as an inspiration for future years.

So please be sure to upload some photos of you celebrations to your photo gallery this week when you have a moment!

When you upload your photos, you have the opportunity to leave your details to be in the running for some of our fun give-aways, thanks to our Sponsors.

We have:

– a $200 gift card from The Iconic, thanks to our 2025 Sponsor Child Care Super

– 3 gift packs of “Together We All Shine” merchandise from our 2025 Sponsor For Keeps Merch

Your photos need to be uploaded by 9am Monday 8th September to be in the running for the give-aways.

We’ll contact the winners directly early next week and then announce the winners in a blog article here.

We can’t wait to see your gorgeous photos!

IMPORTANT NOTE: Please sure to one use service-provided devices, and be sure to seek permissions from the relevant people before posting.

We’re wishing each and every early childhood educator across Australia a super special day on Early Childhood Educators’ Day 2025!

To help formalise and acknowledge today’s celebrations, we’re delighted to share this year’s “Australia Says Thank You” video, which features key sector stakeholders sharing their heartfelt thoughts to each and every one of Australia’s early childhood educators across the country.

We encourage you take a moment to watch the video with your team at some point during the day.

We recently reached out to Australia’s early childhood educators to ask them what inspired them to choose this rewarding sector and what they find most fulfilling about their roles.

Their stories reflect a deep passion for nurturing, teaching, and making a positive impact on young lives.

We are incredibly grateful to everyone who took the time to share their personal experiences and insights through these heartfelt videos. Your stories not only inspire others in the sector but also highlight the incredible commitment and enthusiasm that characterize early childhood education.

To celebrate and showcase these wonderful moments, we’ve compiled a beautiful video collage, generously created by our sponsor VidDay.

We invite you to enjoy this inspiring collection of reflections and celebrate the remarkable people behind our sector.

Click on the image below to hear their insights and thoughts.

NOTE: We’ll announce the winners of the give-aways in the coming days!

CReate your very own thank you video from your families to your team!

To make Early Childhood Educators’ Day even more special at the local level, the Australian Childcare Alliance has partnered with our valued Event Sponsor – VidDay – to provide every early learning service across Australia with a free, personalised thank you video!

It’s VidDay’s special gift to you and your team of educators.

If you’ve never created a group video on vidday, here’s how it works

Getting Started
Using the name of your early learning service, you can create your own invitation and send it to your families (via email or text), asking them to create and upload a short thank you video to be watched by your educators as part of Early Childhood Educators’ Day.

Families can upload their videos via the easy instructions in your invitation.

Once all of the videos have been uploaded by families who would like to get involved, the VidDay platform will then collate all of the videos into one gorgeous thank you video, from your families to your team of educators.

You and your team can then find a special moment to watch the video together on Wednesday 3rd September. Alternatively you can share it electronically with your educators, so that they can have a special private moment watching it in their own time.

Your Step-By-Step Guide

We’ve set out the steps below, just in case you need a little help setting up and sending out your invitations.

1/ From your preferred device (phone, tablet or computer/laptop), click here to get started setting up your invitation.

2/ Click on the button which says “Start Your Free Thank You Video”

3/ Enter the name of your service in the field that says “Enter recipient’s name”.

4/ Using the calendar, click on the date that you would like to set as the deadline for families to upload their videos for you.

We would recommend Monday 1st September, to allow a few days to finalise the video.

Once you chosen and saved the deadline date, click “Continue”.

5/ You will now see a template information page that looks like the image below.

You can click on the profile image to upload a photo of your team or a photo of your building from the front.

If you’re feeling creative, you may also like to use the Customise button to change colours, music, etc.

Once you have uploaded a photo & are happy with the way the invitation looks, click on the Send Invites button.

6/ You will now see a template invitation like the image below.

If you’re feeling creative you can film yourself saying hi to your families and asking them to create their own thank you video to your educators in their own words.

(This is not a must have.)

The most important step here is to amend the text in the template message.

You may like to use our suggested text below:

Hi families,

As part of our celebrations for the upcoming event called Early Childhood Educators’ Day, we’d love to create a special thank you video for our amazing team of educators, from YOU, the wonderful families who attend our service.

If you’re comfortable doing so, we’d be extremely grateful if you could use your phone to create a short video, using your own words to say thank you to our educators. You may like to include your child/children in the video. 🙂

We will combine your video with those from other families, to create a collage video as a special thank you to our team of educators.

You can RSVP now to set up a friendly reminder to do this later, or upload your video now if you’re ready to create your video right now.

Thank you!!!

7/ You can then preview your invitation page, and then get started sending your invitations by email or text.

8/ As illustrated in the image below, you can then use the invite link to paste it into one of your existing communications channels to your families. (This is probably the easiest way.)

Alternatively you can import a spreadsheet of email addresses or phone numbers and have VidDay send them out for you.

If you use this method, you may like to test that people have indeed received the invitation.

9/ Once you have sent out your invitations, your families can upload their videos by the deadline.

You will receive email updates from VidDay, telling you when videos have been uploaded and when the deadline is over.

10/ You will then receive a final email telling you how to download the final video.

IMPORTANT NOTE: You will not need to pay for your video – it is a free gift from VidDay. However you will need to click “Pay and Finalize” button.

You will then see a discount code, which negates all costs, so the total owed will be zero. 😊

Need more help?
If you have any questions along the way while making their video, you can reach out to live chat support or email support@vidday.com. The team at VidDay are happy to help!

Enjoy creating heartfelt memories!

We hope your families enjoy getting involved, and that your team of educators appreciate the final gorgeous video!

To families with children attending an early learning service, we want to hear from you!!!

This year as part of the celebrations for Early Childhood Educators’ Day 2025, we invite you to create a short video of thanks to Australia’s early childhood educators.

We will include this footage in our “Australia says thank you” video, to be aired nationally during the week of the event.

It’s your chance to get involved, perhaps share some insights into what you and your child or children love about your early childhood educator(s), and how they may have made a difference to your child’s healthy development.

How to create and upload your video

It’s so easy – just use your smart phone to make a short video talking to one or more of the points below, & upload it to our VidDay platform by Friday 22 August.

We encourage you to give some thought to the questions below, and talk to one or all of them in your video:

In your own words, in what ways have early childhood educators positively influenced your child / our youngest generation’s development? (Be as general or specific as you like!)
In what ways do educators support your child’s individual needs and interests?
How have early childhood educators helped your child develop social skills and friendships?
Can you share a story where an educator’s support made a difference in your child’s life?
What words of appreciation or thanks would you like to share with Australia’s early childhood educators?

The idea is to create a mixed footage video which includes some heartfelt messages from families along with other stakeholders and personalities.

We will air the video via social media as well as on this website. as part of the celebrations during the week of Early Childhood Educators’ Day.

We can’t wait to see your videos! 🙂

For more information and to upload your video, click here.

NOTE: Please be sure share this message with anyone you think would be keen to get involved!

Attention: Early learning service providers

We’re delighted to announce that this year’s gorgeous Early Childhood Educators’ Day apparel and merchandise items are now available to order!

This year we wanted to offer a more extensive selection of giftware items, to make sure early learning service providers of all sizes and circumstances could find the perfect items to meet their needs, making it easy to create a fun and memorable celebration.

Our new Apparel and Giftware Partner – For Keeps Merch – have therefore produced a broad selection of gorgeous items to suit any budget, featuring this year’s theme – Together We All Shine!.

In addition to the usual T-shirts, bucket hats and key rings, this year’s collection also includes hoodies, polo tops, coffee mugs, coffee carry cups, candles, lolly bags, make-up bags, jumbo highlighter pens, squeezy stars, mindfulness colouring books and paper gift bags.

They are all designed for regular use, to serve as ongoing reminders that our early childhood educators are truly appreciated, well beyond the day itself.

We hope this year’s theme resonates with you and your educators, and that the variety of items available provides you with a practical solution to help celebrate Early Childhood Educators’ Day in your own special way.

GOOD TO KNOW BEFORE YOU ORDER:

Order Form – When you complete the order form, it will ask you for a delivery date. Please list this as Monday 25th August. There is also a field which asks you for a Purchase Order Number. Please just write “Not Applicable” in this field.
Timing of invoices – When you place your order, you will not be sent an invoice until Wednesday 6th August. However please rest assured that your order has been received and is in the system. However please rest assured that after your click “Save” on your order and see the “Order received!” screen, you can rest assured that your order has been received and is in the system. Within a few minutes, you will also receive an email confirming that your order has been received.
List of names for personalised water bottles – If you choose to order some of the personalised water bottles with the first names of your team members on them, hold tight. You will receive an email from For Keeps Merch next week, asking you for the list of names. Please keep an eye out for this email.
Order Deadline: Please take note that orders will close at 5pm on Friday 1st August. Your gorgeous items will be dispatched for delivery to arrive in the week commencing Monday 27th August in plenty of time for your celebrations on Wednesday 3rd September.

We strongly advise you to place your orders early, to ensure you don’t miss the order deadline.

If you would like to speak to someone at For Keeps Merch about delivery deadlines or any other technical queries, please complete the online form here so they can get in touch with you as soon as possible.

To all of our wonderful early childhood educators, we want to hear from you!!!

This year as part of the celebrations for Early Childhood Educators’ Day 2025, we’re extending an invitation to all educators across Australia, to share their thoughts about their role.

We will use this mixed footage to create a gorgeous video collage featuring your feedback from across the country.

It’s your chance to get involved, so we can shine a light on the passion, dedication and joy you bring every day!

You could also win one of three fabulous “Together we all shine” merchandise gift packs! We’re giving them away to three of the educators who submit videos.

How to create and upload your video

With the consent of your approved provider, please create a short video talking to one or more of the points below, & upload it to our VidDay platform by Friday 26 July.

We encourage you to give some thought to the questions below, and talk to one or all of them in your video:

What attracted you to the role of early childhood educator?
What do you most enjoy about your work day?
How does teamwork shape your day-to-day experience?
What impact do you hope to have on the children you work with?

The idea is to create a mixed footage video which truly represents the thoughts and feelings of Australia’s early childhood educators, regardless of where they are located. We will air the video as part of the celebrations during the week of Early Childhood Educators’ Day.

We can’t wait to see your videos! 🙂

For more information and to upload your video, click here.

NOTE: Please be sure share this message with anyone you think would be keen to get involved!

P.S. Our apologies for the short deadline – it takes some time to view and edit the mixed footage so we need to build in a reasonable timeframe to do this.

Every year we like to select a theme for Early Childhood Educators’ Day to add some light and colour to the celebrations, whilst reflecting what’s going on in the early learning sector from an operational and cultural perspective.

We are very aware that in today’s climate, early childhood educators are experiencing some notable changes, including industrial relations activities as well as significant media coverage of serious issues.

It has been a particularly difficult year for Australia’s early childhood educators and the early learning sector, but throughout it all, we have continued working together and supporting one another as we navigate the various challenges, as significant as they are. We want our educators to know that, despite these difficulties, now more than ever, their hard work and dedication is deeply recognised and sincerely appreciated.

We’re therefore delighted to announce that the 2025 theme for Early Childhood Educators’ Day is ‘Together We All Shine!”.

The theme celebrates the power of teamwork among educators, along with the meaningful, important relationships they build with the children they educate and care for.

The positive working relationships and unity among educators, plays a huge role in creating a nurturing environment where children of all backgrounds and circumstances can thrive, learn and shine brightly.

And the ripple effect of this collective effort extends far beyond the local setting, ultimately enriching the fabric of society as a whole.

By working together, Australia’s early childhood educators foster a sense of community and inspire young minds to reach their full potential, lighting the way toward a brighter future for everyone.

We hope the 2025 theme strikes a meaningful chord with early learning service providers, the families who attend early learning services and most importantly with our valued early childhood educators.

We’re also delighted to share that our Apparel and Giftware Partner ForKeeps Merch has brought this design to life with a brand new selection of T-shirts, hoodies, sun hats, mugs, water bottles, rings and more, to help your team celebrate Early Childhood Educators’ Day in style!

Watch this space for the launch of this year’s merchandise catalogue – we aim to launch it next week!