Positive Relationships: All in a day's work

Some of the most important festivals within the major world religions fall in the latter part of the year: Divali (this year on 5 November), Hanukka (starting December 1 this year) and, of course, Christmas.

The challenge for early years practitioners is how to make the diversities of our world real and interesting for children when they may not know a lot about other cultures or religions themselves. That is why it's so important to engage parents and staff who can share aspects of their lives, and who may in fact be keen to do so.

This was illustrated very powerfully at the Ramadan Eid ul-Fitr celebrations at one of our nurseries. One of our practitioners, Mamoona, is a practising Muslim. She told me, 'This Eid is one of our main festivals and I really wanted to share this with the children. I enjoy knowing about other religions, so I wanted to pass this on to the children.'

The children, and staff, enjoyed learning about wearing a headscarf, having henna designs painted on their hands and trying some food Mamoona made, including mithai, sweet noodles and samosas.

Mamoona also talked about the practices of Islam and was able to answer questions. This was the key - other staff can read books on Islam, but it becomes so much more real when someone can answer all the children's questions properly.

The outcomes of the day were fantastic. Everyone enjoyed themselves and parents recounted how children spent the evening talking about Eid, mosques and taking your shoes off to pray. Mamoona has been inundated with questions from parents, who are keen to try the food and have henna designs.

Our evaluation is that next time we should invite parents to join us for the celebrations.

I asked Mamoona what her favourite part was. 'That all the children enjoyed it and keep asking me, when are we going to do it again?' In response to their enthusiasm, we are planning a visit to Mamoona's mosque, and she will help us celebrate other Muslim festivals.

We have really learned that when someone shares personal experiences, it becomes so much more exciting and the children's learning, understanding and enjoyment is much deeper. We are fortunate to have Mamoona, and other Muslim staff, to help us properly understand their culture. The challenge for us now is to find people able to help us all learn about other religions.

- Saffia Farr is a director and manager of Bristol Childcare, a family-run business established for 39 years. She has three young children and writes on parenting issues at www.saffiafarr.com