Centenary Celebrations

As New Zealand Kindergartens celebrates its centenary, we are celebrating a century of collective advocacy, courage, and commitment to teacher-led, quality early childhood education in Aotearoa New Zealand.

Our story began long before 1926, when our national organisation was formally constituted. In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, inspired by the educational philosophy of Friedrich Froebel, a group of visionary women embraced a radical idea: that young children learn best through play, relationships, and lived experience, and that childhood itself holds intrinsic value.

At a time of rapid urban growth, widening inequality, and public health concerns, they saw Kindergarten not as charity, but as education.

In Dunedin in 1889, Wellington in 1906, Auckland in 1908, Christchurch in 1911, and Invercargill in 1921, free Kindergartens were established through sheer determination and belief.

These pioneers worked without secure funding, formal recognition, or job security. They fundraised, organised, and advocated directly to government because they believed children and whānau deserved access to quality early childhood education.

Their efforts led to the formation of the New Zealand Free Kindergarten Union in 1913, and its formal constitution in 1926, the beginning of a unified, national voice that would later become New Zealand Kindergartens.

Over the decades, much has changed. Early childhood education has evolved, communities have grown, and the world around us has become more complex. Yet the heart of Kindergarten has remained constant. We continue to stand for play-based learning, professional integrity, and the importance of early investment in children.

We continue to navigate reform, funding pressures, and shifting public policy, sustained not by the absence of challenge, but by the strength of our collective voice.