Hawthorn Early Years

19/05/2026

✨Hey! Hey! Where play sparks learning! ✨

Come to our Kinder Information night tomorrow and discover what makes our kindergarten program so special. At HEY, we support curious, confident learners supporting children to be prepared for school and beyond.

🗓 Thursday 21 May
🕡 6:30pm–8:00pm

📍Community-run, not-for-profit early years service
👩‍🏫 Experienced and passionate educators
🍎 All meals provided
⏰ Extended care available from 7:30am–6:00pm, including school holidays

We look forward to welcoming you!

30/12/2025

It’s summer holidays at HEY, but while the children are away, the garden still lives and breathes.

I’ve been visiting the garden to care for it, especially during these recent hot Melbourne days. There is something so calming and peaceful about it - as I water the garden, there is almost absolute silence, apart from the leaves whistling in the wind and the birds chirping amongst the treetops.

Where the plants sit, there are no signs of the children’s presence: no garden gates left swinging open, no burrows in the dirt, no leaves missing from curious hands. And yet - they were here, and they will be again soon.

These thriving plants are living evidence of the children’s hard work over the past year. Watching them become garden guardians has been so deeply rewarding.

So for now, I sit with the stillness and let the garden rest - knowing it won’t be long before laughter, footsteps, and curious hands return, and we reconnect once more in our favourite place.

22/12/2025

Head down to Hawthorn to cast your tokens and support our Kitchen Garden program! We will have our jar up until the end of December. There has never been a better time for a delicious burger!

20/12/2025

Another year of the prestigious HEY Gingerbread House competition done & dusted 🎄
Congratulations to our “Garden Gals” for taking out the win this year!!

11/05/2025

🌟 We’re Hiring! 🌟
Are you a passionate leader ready for your next big opportunity?

We’re on the lookout for a remarkable Early Years Leader to guide our service and drive our strategic direction. This is your chance to work alongside a dedicated, professional team who are committed to making a difference every day.

If you have the experience, vision, and heart to lead with impact, we would love to hear from you!

👉 Apply now via our Seek ad.

Shape the future of early learning in Hawthorn at a sector-leading, not-for-profit service with strong support and great conditions.

04/12/2024

I am incredibly proud to announce that we’ve officially signed the first-ever Multi-Employer Agreement after months of hard work and dedication! 🎉

Since June 2023, we’ve been deeply involved in the bargaining process with an amazing group of services, led by Community Childcare, advocating for better wages, improved working conditions, and the recognition that the early years sector truly deserves. 💪

It’s been an honor to stand alongside my incredible team and the other services throughout this journey. Together, we’ve made our voices heard and worked tirelessly to secure a stronger future for everyone in our field.

This is just the beginning, and there’s still much work to be done. But today, we celebrate this significant achievement for the future of early childhood education. Here’s to the continued strength of our collective efforts! ✊✨

11/04/2024

On Saturday 20th April HEY is hosting an Art Show!! 🎨🖌️

This event is aimed at raising funds to assist us in building our Indigenous Resource Libraray as we are committed to being active participants in Reconciliation.

This will be a fantastic community event not only showcasing art work from our current children, but also collaborative art pieces completed by our 2023 cohort, and with displays from local schools such as Glenferrie Primary School, St Joseph’s Catholic School and Auburn Secondary College.

Children’s Art Work will be up for auction and in addition to this we will also have cake stalls, face painting, second books for sale, craft activities for children to engage in and many more displays of artists and makers from our HEY community! We are also running a raffle with many exciting prizes to be won! 🎉🤗

Tickets are $25 per adult and children under 12 are free. Tickets include entry, delicious catered finger food and entertainment. We would love to you join us for what will be a fun filled family day, connecting with local hawthorn community and supporting us in fundraising so that we can build up our Indigenous resources. ☺️

https://www.trybooking.com/events/landing/1200205?qr=true

01/02/2024

Little hands exploring vegetables 🥕🥦🌽🥔
We are so excited to have our Kitchen Garden program starting back this week with our new Kitchen Garden Educator Lucy. Today our youngest children started by reading the book ‘Veg Patch Party’ before getting hands on and exploring the vegetables by washing and tasting them. Some of our older children then practiced their knife skills by cutting up some vegetables to roast for afternoon tea- yum!! 😋 We are also so thankful to in Glenferrie for donating some of the vegetables we used in our lessons this morning! 💕 We love connecting with our local community! 🤗

09/01/2024

Hello 2024 ☀️👋🏻
We are so excited to welcome our children and families back in to HEY today! Our lovely educator teams returned yesterday and spent a child free day setting up inviting learning spaces for the children to explore. We are proud to share each of our classrooms with you, and look forward to another wonderful year of fun and learning 🤗