Celebrations of different cultures can raise particular safety issues, but these should cause no great problem if proper risk assessments are conducted.
The fact that activities relating to different cultures can be new to staff and children is a potential difficulty. Over-familiarity with situations can encourage inattention to dangers they entail. However, unfamiliarity is a much greater problem. (The greatest number of accidents in schools occur in the first weeks of the school year.) Lighted candles, swords, sticks, fireworks, open water, unusual foods prepared in frying pans on oven hobs: all these feature in the festivals of various cultures. Some symbols, such as the lighted candle, have such obvious resonance that they occur frequently. Such things can cause alarm in the minds of staff or parents. The risks are certainly there, but measures can always be taken to bring them within acceptable limits.
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