If you haven’t organised anything yet, don’t panic! This is a community event that can be celebrated in your own way. It’s about the gesture from you and your families, rather than any specific activities.

If you ‘d like to say thank you on Wednesday 2nd September, there is still time for you to:

• Put up some posters in your centre to let your families know it’s coming up.
• Share the “How are you going to say thank you?” video with your families via Facebook or YouTube.
• Share the event website with your families.
• Create a personalised “thank you” video featuring messages from your families to play to your team. It’s so easy to do, and it’s free!  Click here to find out how.
  This is a useful platform for those of your families with children who don’t usually attend on Wednesday 2nd September, particularly for those families in Melbourne and Victoria, who cannot attend due to the current COVID-19 Restrictions in place right now.

• Organise an early childhood educator appreciation wall or ‘thank you’ tree using the printable ‘cut out shape’ templates.
• Create a giant ‘thank you’ card for families to write in (if health  & safety guidelines permit) and put it on display in the reception/greeting area of your centre/service.
• Organise a morning or afternoon tea party and invite families (if health  & safety guidelines permit) to bring home-baked goodies, presents and cards.
• Get dressed up! You and your team might like to wear fancy dress (eg. superhero theme or fairies, wizards & magic).
• Present your team of educators each with a certificate of appreciation using the printable templates on the Resources page.

We’re always delighted to see Early Childhood Educators’ Day gain momentum from year to year, and this year promises to be particularly special, as we reflect on the year and acknowledge the efforts of our early childhood educators in unprecedented circumstances.

We know that you and your families will do a wonderful job of letting your valued team of early childhood educators know how much they are appreciated next week.

We hope you all enjoy the celebrations!

Don’t forget to:

• Follow the event on Facebook – @EarlyChildhoodEducatorsDay
• Follow the event on Twitter – @ECEducatorsDay
• Follow the event on Instagram – earlychildhoodeducatorsday

With Early Childhood Educators’ Day not far away, you might like to consider creating a collection of personal video messages from your families so they can say “thank you” to their child/children’s early childhood educators from their homes, without the rush of pick up or drop off.

This is a particularly useful idea for those of your families with children who won’t attend the service on Wednesday 2nd September, whether due to not being scheduled, or due to Stage 3 & 4 Restrictions for those early learning service providers located in Victoria.

A collective “thank you” video could be a really uplifting, heart warming gift for your educators to receive, with a really personal touch.

There are a number of ways you can do this, with various apps out there that can make it a really quick & easy task, by doing all the work for you!

We thought it worth letting you know that one particular app/website called Tribute, is offering a free “Tribute” video for anyone who would like it, as a special community support gesture in the COVID-19 climate.

Just visit the Tribute website, click on the “Start a tribute” button and the rest is very straight forward – you can name your tribute video & then send an email to your families explaining the idea, along with the link they can click on to upload their short “thank you” videos.

The website/app will produce a final video including all of the contributions from your families, and send you a final link  to share with your team so they can view it as many times as they like.

Be sure to enter the code “yougotthis25” at checkout to make sure you get the free service.

We know that this has been a challenging year for everyone, so we’d like to make sure all service providers have the chance to do something special for their valued team of staff, and have plenty of notice to organise something.

We hope you and your families enjoy getting involved and creating something that your valued team will remember for a long time.

Due to the COVID-19 climate, we’re taking a different approach to this year’s Early Childhood Educators’ Day.

Given the extraordinary circumstances surrounding the work of our early childhood educators this year, we thought it would be a beautiful gesture to include some home-made footage of key spokespeople, early learning service providers and also their families (from home) in this year’s “Australia says thank you” video, which will be aired during the week of Early Childhood Educators’ Day.

We are therefore inviting you, as the service provider or your Nominated Supervisor to create a short video in line with the brief instructions here.

We will select a number of these videos for inclusion in our 2020 “Australia says thank you” video.

The final video will have a collated home-made style to it, to reflect the current COVID-19 climate, much like our “How are you going to say thank you?” video here.  Please note that the deadline for sending your video in is Monday 10th August 2020.

We thank you for your wonderful support in making this year’s Early Childhood Educators’ Day the most special ever, and we look forward to seeing your wonderful videos!

This year we’re extremely grateful to our Apparel Sponsor Cargo Crew for designing a gorgeous range of T-shirts, aprons, bucket hats, denim tote bags and fridge magnets, to help you and your valued team celebrate Early Childhood Educators’ Day in style!

To check out the complete range of items available this year, please visit their Early Childhood Educators’ Day  webpage here.

Please be sure to place your order by Monday 3 August to ensure your items arrive in time!

We hope you enjoy the wonderful suite of products they have put together.

Cargo Crew have also kindly donated the following prizes, which we will give away during the week of Early Childhood Eductaors’ Day:

• SERVICE PROVIDERS: 1 x $250 Cargo Crew voucher for a lucky service provider to put towards a uniform refresh for their crew!
• EARLY CHILDHOOD EDUCATORS: 5 x Cargo Crew Personalised Boston Aprons
• Families: 1 x Family Apron pack

Don’t forget to follow us on Facebook and look out for our posts about these give-aways.

We would like to extend a enormous thank you to each and every one of you who sent in a short video to form part of this year’s “How are you going to say thank you?” video.

We received lots of wonderful footage of smiling faces and heartfelt messages.

Given the short length of the video we are making, we won’t be able to include all of the footage in the final edit. The main deciding factor for each clip submitted was whether or not we could hear the speaker clearly, and whether there was a long pause before and after their speech – this is important to allow for editing and to make sure the speech is not cut off.

We thank you all for sending in your videos even if we didn’t have room for it in the final edited video – you made us laugh, you made us smile, you left us feeling very grateful… and you are all stars!

The 2020 “How are you going to say thank you?” video will be released in mid July to help build awareness and also get everyone excited in the lead up to the week of celebrations.

Please note: Further down the track, we will also invite service providers and their families to film a short “thank you message”, listing the reasons why they appreciate their early childhood educators. This will form part of our “Australia says thank you” video, to be played during the week of celebrations. 

We are in the process of planning for this year’s Early Childhood Educators’ Day.

This year’s event will be particularly meaningful, given the enormous changes that our educators have faced in the 2020 COVID-19 climate.

Given the extraordinary circumstances surrounding the work of our early childhood educators this year, we thought it would be a beautiful gesture to include some home-made footage of early learning service providers and also their families (from home) in this year’s “How are you going to say thank you?” video, which will be aired to generate awareness in the lead up to the day.

We are therefore inviting:

• you, as the service provider or your Nominated Supervisor to create a short video in line with the brief instructions here; AND
• your families to create a short video in line with the online instructions here or the printable version here.

We will select a number of these videos for inclusion in our 2020 “How are you going to say thank you?” video.

We would greatly appreciate it if you could share this request with your families through your regular communications channels, including the instructions document as an attachment.

Please note that the deadline for sending your video in is Friday 12th June.

For your information: Further down the track, we will also invite service providers and their families to film a short “thank you message”, listing the reasons why they appreciate their early childhood educators. However this current request does not need that level of detail – this will be short, catchy video which simply asks “How are you going to say thank you?” in the lead up to the day. 

We thank you for your wonderful support in making this year’s Early Childhood Educators’ Day the most special ever, and we look forward to seeing your wonderful videos!

A huge thank you to everyone who posted their photos of Early Childhood Educators’ Day!

It was fantastic to see that so many services across Australia celebrated this event in their own special way.

The winners of the prizes are listed below.

FAMILIES

The following families have won a Family Gift Pack from Educational Experience:

• Previn Chetty of North Kellyville, NSW
• Anthea Singh of Toronto, NSW
• Natasha Manson of Ormeau Hills, QLD
• Maria Koza of Oakleigh, VIC
• Marika Simpson of Burdell, QLD
• Jodie Payne of Branyon, QLD
• Pete Kordish of Dundas Valley, NSW
• Mary Ryan of Padstow, NSW
• Vanessa Hunter of Mentone, VIC

The following families won a birthday party session from Happy Feet Fitness:

• Annika Launay of Auchenflower, QLD
• Mary Ryan of Padstow, NSW
• Gabhriel Collins of Dingley, VIC
• Rebecca Evans of Balga, WA

EARLY LEARNING SERVICE PROVIDERS 

The following service providers have won a Service Provider Gift Pack from Educational Experience:

• Giggles Early Learning, Smithton, TAS
• Star Kingdom Childcare Centre & Kindergarten, Ruse, NSW
• Kids Korner Combined Occasional Care, Nowra, NSW
• Green Leaves Early Learning, Pelican Waters, QLD
• Rockhampton Grammar School ELC, Rockhampton QLD
• Starbright Early Learning Centre, Booragoon, WA
• Cuddles Early Learning, Carlise, WA
• Como Park Childcare & Kindergarten, ,Lilydale, VIC
• Daws Road Early Learning Centre, St Marys, SA

The following service providers have won an incursion from Happy Feet Fitness:

• Freckles Early Learning  Centre, Loftus, NSW
• SDN Riverwood Long Day Care, Riverwood, NSW
• Cloverdale Child Care Centre, Cloverdale, WA
• Little Peoples Place ELC, Mount Lawley, WA
• Happy Hippo Kindergarten & Childcare, Brunswick, VIC
• Kool Kidz Child Care, Mill Park, VIC
• Robina First ELC, Robina, QLD
• Springwood Kids Early Learning Centre, Springwood, QLD
• Ridgehaven ELC, Ridgehaven, SA
• Precious Cargo Education, Blackwood, SA

Prize winners will be contacted directly over the coming weeks, to ensure delivery of their prize.

The following information was kindly provided by Rika Whelan, Director at MLC Early Learning Centre, Claremont WA.

We’re very grateful to this centre for sharing their story, which illustrates that Early Childhood Educators’ Day can be celebrated in all kinds of imaginative, original and creative ways!

At MLC Early Learning Centre, we celebrated Early Childhood Educators’ day in 2018 in a number of ways.

Firstly we invited the chilldren to dress up as their superheroes, and Educators also got into the spirit and dressed up as well. Everyone had loads of fun using the superhero theme!

We also placed a “Tree of Thanks” in the foyer and invited parents to ‘leaf some thanks’ during the week of the event. Families were encouraged to write their own personal thank you notes and then hang them on the tree.

This created a really special tribute to our Educators and they enjoyed reading through the notes of appreciation.

We also gave each of our Educators a special gift bag which included a personalised mug and some other personal treats!

But the celebrations didn’t stop there! During the evening of Early Childhood Educators’ Day, we held an awards night with the theme being “Night at the Oscars”!

The Educators dressed up and every single Educator received an Oscar for providing the best example of a particular attribute. Eg. ‘Most supportive Educator’.

Our team of Educators had a wonderful fun-filled day and truly felt thanked and appreciated by centre management as well as by our families and children!

Meanwhile in 2019, we have planned to take on similar activities, but this year the theme for the awards night will be ‘MTV music awards’!

The Educators have to nominate each other according to a song that makes them think of each other. Parents can also vote for as few/many educators as they prefer, but according to their favourite attributes of each educator.

We will again have superhero dress up day and of course spoil the educators on the day!