Children share their thanks for Uniting’s educators to mark Early Childhood Educators Day

Children and families across the Uniting network have shared their appreciation for their educators on the occasion of Early Childhood Educators’ Day, pouring out messages of gratitude for the work they’ve done during lockdown. 

 

Early Childhood Educators Day was celebrated on Wednesday 1 September, to acknowledge the contributions of those working in the early childhood sector and to celebrate their contribution to the wellbeing and healthy development of young children in their care.

 

“It has been a tough few months for educators and children because of lockdowns in NSW and ACT,” a Unitiing spokesperson said, “and parents have used this opportunity to thank their educators through the gift of art, messages of support and videos.”

 

While the pandemic and its associated restrictions have made celebrating in 2021 a challenge, Uniting’s Head of Early Learning Rod Nadwie-Smith wanted to keep connection with families during this time and asked families to create artworks and send messages of thanks to educators.

 

“Our families have already been so supportive of our educators during the lockdown. We recently asked our parents to advocate on our behalf of our services for financial support as parents were asked to keep their children home and they were amazing,” he said.

 

“Our families are also very supportive and generous on Early Childhood Educators’ Day, sending beautiful artworks and touching messages of thanks. It’s a really lovely, community-building event” said Rod.

The heartfelt messages which came in from across NSW “melted the hearts” of Uniting’s Early Childhood Educators and they have been impressed by the efforts families have made to share what they are doing at home to replicate the work they do in services, including dance routines, costumes, paintings, drawings and a model of a centre’s play area.

 

Ashanthi from Baulkham Hills sent a collage of a rainbow and a message which read “Thank you for helping me have fun and learning to make friends. Thank you for helping me to be brave at school. I made a picture of a rainbow because it makes me happy, I want to give it to you to make you happy too”.

 

Alexie from Castle Hill has created spring flowers for his educators, saying “Thank you for your online story time, I made lovely spring flowers for making perfume later.”

 

“Uniting NSW.ACT are delighted that Early Childhood Educators Day has been embraced in such a meaningful way by our families and children, we really enjoy the spirit of the day and hope our early childhood educators feel special and appreciated,” Mr Nadwie-Smith said.

 

For more information about Early Childhood Educators Day please see here.