History of the day

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Wednesday 6 Sep 2023
How It Started
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Early Childhood Educators’ Day was founded in 2011 in Brisbane, Queensland by the Australian Childcare Alliance’s Queensland state body, to recognise and celebrate the work of early childhood educators in early learning services for their contribution to the wellbeing and healthy development of Australia’s precious, youngest generation.

The event was inspired by World Teachers’ Day, an annual event which is celebrated every October in more than 100 countries.

Since its inaugural celebration in 2011, Early Childhood Educators’ Day has enjoyed increasing participation Australia-wide from year to year among the early learning sector along with the broader community.

It is now a well-known, fondly-received event held every year Australia-wide on the first Wednesday of September.

The Australian Childcare Alliance is immensely proud of the ongoing success of Early Childhood Educators’ Day and the role it plays in raising awareness of the benefits of early learning and the very important role that our educators play in giving Australia’s youngest children the best start in life.

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2011
ACA Queensland (then known as Childcare Queensland) founded Early Childhood Educators’ Day. Members within the state of Queensland were encouraged to celebrate the inaugural event, with T-shirts and banners made available to help formalise and celebrate the day.
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2013
The number of early learning services celebrating Early Childhood Educators’ Day continued to grow as other states around Australia picked up on the event via social media.

The “PROUD TO BE AN EARLY CHILDHOOD EDUCATOR” strapline was launched and was well received across the sector.
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2015
In the fourth year of celebrations, the event had gained a solid momentum, with awareness having spread across the country and many services marking it in the calendar as a regular annual celebration.
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2016
As the event grew in popularity, ACA QLD continued to produce the resources for the annual celebrations. At the end of 2016 it was decided that given ACA QLD's success in growing the event had achieved a national reach, ACA National should co-ordinate the event the following year.
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2017
The Australian Childcare Alliance (ACA) launched the event website and produced the first community videos, which were shared via social media to generate greater awareness of the community event.
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2019
Early Childhood Educators’ Day grew from strength to strength, with acknowledgements from sector stakeholders, government stakeholders, unions and in countries overseas.
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2020
COVID hit and the celebration was held among strict health compliance measures, meaning that in many states families were not able to celebrate face-to-face with their educators.

We therefore invited families to say thank you via a special video tribute service provided at no cost for each early learning service, with the help of our sponsor Tribute.

We also produced our community awareness videos remotely.

We welcomed Apparel Sponsor Cargo Crew. Their creativity and support of the day, allowed us to launch nationally a range of Early Childhood Educators’ Day T-shirts and other items to help educators celebrate the day with their team members.

The 2020 theme "Essential and I know it" struck a chord with the sector, with early childhood educators having been deemed as "essential workers" under the COVID-19 health restrictions.
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2021
COVID restrictions continued to impact the sector, with celebrations of Early Childhood Educators impacted differently depending on the state and the local health guidance.

To help generate community awareness and encourage our educators to get excited, we invited educators, service providers and families to upload photos of their celebrations of the day to our website photo gallery. Educators were encouraged to take a photo holding a hand-made “Proud to be an early childhood educator” sign.
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2022
The 2022 theme "Shaping their world" touched on the significant advantages children gain from attending quality early learning services, and the important role that early childhood educators play in shaping our young children's worlds.

Children who enjoy quality early learning are likely to be well socialised, confident, inquisitive about the world, accepting of diversity, resilient to manage challenges and also to be life-long learners. These benefits flow on to our families, the wider community and the Australian economy.
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2023
The new Early Childhood Educators' Day website is launched. The 2023 apparel theme "Planting the seeds for a better future" recognises the important role that our early childhood educators play in the life of the children in their education and care.
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