Beginning with a Welcome To Country from Uncle Will Paulson, children and parents were then treated to a performance from the Chatham High Dancers, who finished by including the preschoolers in an impromptu dance session.

The cultural fair is a natural offshoot of the school's Welfare Hearts and Mind (WHAM) group that seeks to engage elders of all different cultures to regularly meet and decide on cultural programs to be run at the preschool.

"One of the big goals for us is to try and invest in diversity of different cultures within the preschool as much as possible," school director, Kyle Jones said.

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While the event provided an opportunity for the young to experience a range of cultural influences beyond their own, it also enabled parents to join in the exchange, many of whom might otherwise be feeling isolated in relatively foreign surroundings.

"We've had a lot of children who have recently moved from Pakistan, India and Sri Lanka, and a lot of those families don't know many people in this area," Kylie said. "So just watching them actually meeting other families has been really nice."

The event was a welcome respite from the restrictions brought about by COVID over the past year, allowing families to gather together and enjoy the occasion.

As Kylie put it, "a lot of families hadn't even been into this part of the preschool before because they just had to stop at the front door and we'd take the children out to them. So it's really exciting to have the community start coming back in."

One parent who was glad to be back and enjoying the festivities was Anthony Paulson. "It's good that now at this age group they don't see the different nationalities. It's just the bonding of friendship, so it's really good they start to get a little bit of understanding of that at this age," Anthony said.

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