The learning has begun at Nido Early School Kew

Nido Early School Kew welcomed its first children and families on 22 September 2026, marking a new chapter for the service located at 1 Hartington Street. 

Exploration has long been part of Kew’s story. For generations, Studley Park and the Yarra have given people a place to wander, discover and experience the outdoors. Children share that natural instinct to explore. Their curiosity can take them anywhere. A leaf found outdoors, an unfamiliar material, a new friendship or a simple “why?” can lead somewhere completely unexpected. 

“The first weeks of a new early school are incredibly special. You begin to see children forming relationships, finding the places they’re drawn to and bringing their own ideas into the environment. That’s when it really starts to become their space.” 

Rebecca Fisher, New Service Director at Nido Early School

Those early signs are already emerging at Nido Kew. Educators are noticing what captures each child’s interest and finding ways to extend their thinking. A question might lead to an investigation, a discovery to an experiment, or a conversation between friends in an entirely new direction. 

And the environment plays an important role in making those moments possible. 

Where wonder begins 

Each space has been considered from a child’s perspective, creating opportunities to make choices, follow interests and pursue ideas. 

Rather than prescribing exactly how each space should be used, the environment leaves room for imagination. Materials can become something entirely new, a small discovery can turn into a bigger investigation, and ideas can take children somewhere unexpected. 

But a beautiful environment is only the beginning. It is the children who bring it to life. 

There will be favourite places and familiar faces. Leaves, stones and little treasures collected along the way. Ideas taking shape through clay, loose parts and open-ended materials. Stories retold at the dinner table. New friendships, messy experiments, questions without simple answers and those wonderful moments when a child realises, “I did it.” 

It is these everyday experiences that give an early school its character. Not simply the spaces themselves, but what children do within them, the memories they begin to create and the sense of wonder that starts to shape a lifelong love of learning. And for Nido Early School Kew, that story is only just beginning.