2026 ECE Wall Planner Calendar (with funding dates)

Early Childhood Education Calendar, For 2026

Start the year feeling organised and confident with our free 2026 wall planner designed especially for early childhood education services.

Featuring key dates, public holidays, events, and Ministry of Education funding deadlines, this planner helps you plan ahead with ease. Keep everything visible at a glance and ensure your team stays on track throughout the year.

Download and print the Wall Planner for your office and staff room. And, make it your own—there’s plenty of space to add notes, reminders, and other events that matter most to your service and community.

Download

Stay informed about ECE requirements, policies, & best practice online at https://oece.nz
	MONDAY	TUESDAY	WEDNESDAY	THURSDAY	FRIDAY	SAT & SUN
JANUARY				1 STAT HOLIDAY	2 STAT HOLIDAY	3 & 4
	5	6	7	8	9	10 & 11
	12	13	14	15	16	17 & 18
	19	20	21	22	23	24 & 25
	26 Term One starts for many schools	27	28	29	30	31
FEBRUARY						1
	2 RS7 March funding submission period opens	3	4	5	6 STAT HOLIDAY Waitangi Day	7 & 8
	9	10 RS7 paper-based submission due for 1 March payment	11	12	13 RS7 electronic submission due for 1 March payment	14 & 15
	16	17 Chinese New Year Shrove Tuesday	18	19	20	21 & 22
	23	24	25	26	27	28
MARCH						1 Children’s Day
	2 MoE Funding Payment (for 1 March)	3	4	5	6 RS7 submission due for 20 March payment	7 & 8
	9	10	11	12	13	14 & 15
	16	17 St Patrick’s Day	18	19	20 MoE Funding Payment (for 20 March)	21 & 22
	23	24	25	26	27	28 & 29
	30	31 World Down Syndrome Day
APRIL			1	2 Term One ends	3 STAT HOLIDAY Easter	4 & 5
	6 STAT HOLIDAY	7	8	9	10	11 & 12
	13	14	15	16	17	18 & 19
	20 Term Two starts	21	22	23	24	25 & 26 ANZAC Day (25^th)
	27 STAT HOLIDAY	28	29	30
MAY					1	2 & 3
NZ Sign Language week	4	5	6	7	8	9 & 10 Mother’s Day (10^th)
	11	12	13	14	15	16 & 17
	18	19	20	21	22	23 & 24
	25	26	27	28	29	30 & 31
JUNE Sāmoan Language Week	1 STAT HOLIDAY King’s Birthday	2 RS7 July funding submission period opens	3	4	5	6 & 7
Soccer World Cup Starts	8	9	10	11 RS7 paper-based submission due for 1 July payment	12	13 & 14
	15	16 RS7 electronic submission due for 1 July payment	17	18	19	20 & 21
This week: Submit ECE return (census) info to MoE	22	23	24	25	26	27 & 28
	29	30 Financial declarations due with MoE for 2025 financial year
JULY			1 MoE Funding Payment (for 1 July)	2	3 Term Two ends	4 & 5
	6	7	8	9	10 STAT HOLIDAY Matariki	11 & 12
	13	14	15	16	17	18 & 19
	20 Term Three starts	21	22	23 Commonwealth Games Start	24	25 & 26
	27	28	29	30	31
AUGUST						1 & 2
	3	4	5	6	7	8 & 9
	10	11	12	13	14	15 & 16
	17	18	19	20	21	22 & 23
	24	25	26	27	28	29 & 30
	31
SEPTEMBER		1	2	3	4	5 & 6 Father’s Day (6^th)
	7	8	9	10	11	12 & 13
Māori Language Week (Te Wiki o te Reo Māori)	14	15	16	17	18	19 & 20
	21	22	23	24	25 Term Three ends	26 & 27
	28	29	30
OCTOBER				1 RS7 Nov funding submission period opens	2	3 & 4
	5 World Teachers’ Day	6	7	8	9	10 & 11
	12 RS7 paper-based submission due for 1 Nov payment Term Four starts	13	14	15 RS7 electronic submission due for 1 Nov payment	16	17 & 18
	19	20	21	22	23	24 & 25
	26 STAT HOLIDAY Labour Day	27	28	29	30	31 Halloween
NOVEMBER						1
Diwali celebrations start	2 MoE Funding Payment (for 1 Nov)	3	4	5 Guy Fawkes	6	7 & 8 Diwali
	9	10	11	12	13	14 & 15
	16	17	18	19	20	21 & 22
	23	24	25	26	27	28 & 29
	30
DECEMBER		1	2	3	4	5 & 6
	7	8	9	10	11	12 & 13
	14	15	16	17	18 Term Four ends	19 & 20
Christmas and New Year period starts	21	22	23	24	25 STAT HOLIDAY	26 & 27
	28	29	30	31

Are you interested in the 2027 key funding dates? Pease check this page for updates in late 2026.

Further Information for Service Providers

Funding Rate Increases in 2026

Strategies to Maximise Funding you get for 20 Hours ECE, etc.

Late pick-ups or early drop-offs? What you need to know before you charge parents

Cashflow management

Accounting and Financial Terms Glossary especially for ECE Service Providers

Already subscribed?

ECE Newsroom

NZ’s own specialist ECE newsroom.
Access national and local stories, in-depth analysis, & original commentaries.

Membership Support for Teachers & Educators

(Comes with free Newsroom and Research access)

Membership Support for ECE Service Owners, Managers, & Community Organisations

(Comes with free Newsroom and Research access)

Researchers & Tertiary Education Libraries

Full access to over 25 years of ECE academic research articles – NZIRECE Journal.
Plus, guidance and resources on doing and publishing research

Has this been useful? Give us your feedback.

You are welcome to add a link to this page on your website. Copyright belongs to the OECE so please do not copy any content without our written permission.

Information provided is of a general nature. It is provided ‘as is’, and we accept no liability for its accuracy or completeness. See our Terms and Conditions.

Getting a Job with your ECE Qualification

Getting a job. How can my ECE qualification help me to get a job? With an early childhood teaching qualification you may find yourself attractive

early childhood education qualified teacher reading a book with a child. Illustrating the importance of ECE teacher qualifications.

ECE Teacher Qualification and Person Responsible Proposed Reductions and Flexibilities

This analysis draws on deep knowledge of empirical research on quality ECE and on evidence about what best supports positive outcomes for children in teacher‑led early childhood settings. It also reflects the experience and insights contributed by OECE members and our Early Childhood Advisory Committee.

1. Context and Purpose of This Response

The Ministry of Education is developing policy options to implement two Ministry for Regulation recommendations relating to staffing:

– “Allow greater flexibility in workforce qualifications…” rather than developing a strategy to attract and retain ECE‑qualified teachers in services struggling to recruit or keep staff, or addressing service reluctance to employ qualified teachers due to cost pressures, profit margins, regulatory settings, or other operational decisions.

– “Ensure the person responsible requirements are practical…” rather than ensuring these requirements reflect best practice for child safety, education, and care, and rather than reversing what was intended to be a temporary measure introduced during a staffing shortage that allowed primary‑trained teachers to act as a Person Responsible.

In September 2025, the Office of Early Childhood Education (OECE) provided the Ministry with a paper offering advice and analysis on these recommendations. It is available here: Reducing Teacher Qualification Requirements

This paper offers further comment and guidance in light of the policy options currently under development, to address the Ministry for Regulation’s recommendations on increasing qualification flexibility and ensuring the Person Responsible requirements reflect what is workable for service providers.

2. Why ECE Qualifications Matter
3. Risks the Ministry Must Put Before Ministers and Cabinet
4. Policy Options That Better Support Children and the Workforce
5. Our Recommendations for Amendments to Regulation 44

This is a member/subscriber only post. To access it, please see the message below for details on access and joining.

Negotiating Policy-Driven and State-Mandated Expectations of Leadership: Discourses Accessed by Early Childhood Educators in Australia

FULL REFERENCE: Thomas, L., & Nuttall, J. (2014). Negotiating policy-driven and state-mandated expectations of leadership: Discourses accessed by early childhood educators in Australia. NZ Research in Early Childhood Education Journal. Special Issue: Early Childhood Policy, 17, 101-114.

Log-in to read the full research paper below. Or order a pdf copy of the article from the main NZIRECE Journal page.

ABSTRACT: This paper draws on two recent studies of educational leadership in early childhood education to examine the ways in which educators draw on a variety of discourses to articulate concepts of ‘leader’ and ‘leadership’ in the present early childhood policy context in Australia. The specific focus is on leaders’ responses to expectations of leadership within the National Quality Framework for Early Childhood Education and Care and School Age Care [NQF] in Australia (Council of Australian Governments [COAG], 2009a), which promotes leadership focused on curriculum and pedagogy rather than on management and administration (COAG, 2009b). A poststructuralist lens is used to analyse the ways in which concepts of leadership embedded in the NQF work to mobilise various discourses of leadership. We argue that educators’ accounts indicate possibilities for new ways of theorising leadership in EC settings, to find ways to hold together seemingly opposite discourses of ‘leadership for management’ and ‘leadership for learning’ in response to current policy shifts.

KEY WORDS:

Educational leadership; early childhood education; education policy; Australia; discourse analysis.

Early childhood teachers meeting to discuss planning.

Building Members Enthusiasm and Commitment

Committee Member Commitment.

For their investment of time what do your board or committee members get back?

It’s rare that someone will keep contributing if he/she is not benefiting from participating.

And those with the most to offer are often those with the least amount of time available and the greatest number of other c

This is a member/subscriber only post. To access it, please see the message below for details on access and joining.

learning stories children looking at their photos

Curriculum Policy

Use and adapt the following curriculum policy to suit your service and meet regulatory requirements.

Your curriculum policy must be consistent with the curriculum framework and be informed by assessment, planning, and evaluation (documented and undocumented) that demonstrates an understanding of children’s learning, their interests, whānau, and life contexts.

As well as providing a curriculum policy template for you, we’ve included the questions the Ministry of Education commonly asks and focuses on when it is checking an ECE service’s curriculum policy and implementation.

RATIONALE:
To ensure the process of planning, evaluating and delivering a localised curriculum is consistent with

This is a member/subscriber only post. To access it, please see the message below for details on access and joining.

child with paint brush paints brightly coloured picture at kindergarten

ECE Sector Confidence Survey, May 2021

The ECE Sector Confidence Survey 2021 shows that confidence in the government has slipped. There seems to be a new wave of despondency through the

problem digging deeper or self into a hole

Digging its Own Hole Deeper: The AKA ongoing story

What’s Happening at the AKA. Opinion article. By Dr Sarah Alexander. October 29, 2017. The Auckland Kindergarten Association has dug itself a hole and it

ECE Newsroom

For Everyone

Service Provider

Teacher

Research

2026 ECE Wall Planner Calendar (with funding dates)

Further Information for Service Providers

Already subscribed?

ECE Newsroom

Membership Support for Teachers & Educators

Membership Support for ECE Service Owners, Managers, & Community Organisations

Researchers & Tertiary Education Libraries

Related Posts

Share This Information

Table of Contents

Table of Contents

Quick Links

Free Newsletters and Updates

The Office of ECE Login

Take Action!

1. Share This Information

2. Follow Our Social Pages

3. Get Regular Updates

4. Become a Member