34
CASE H
Personality, Resilience and Learning Styles - Understanding
Our Children and Ourselves
The school held a conference for parents in this regional Victorian town and
surrounding areas around the topic of "Personality, Resilience and Learning Styles--
understanding our children and ourselves". The conference consisted of two sessions,
each lasting for four hours and held at a comfortable venue in the town, with lunch
provided.
The guest speaker was Dr Loretta Giorcelli, who is a consultant in the fields of
child development, special education and learning and behaviour in children and
adolescents. She covered a variety of topics relating to stages of child development,
parenting issues, understanding children's temperament and learning styles, building
emotional resilience in children, learning and behaviour, and social skills in children.
The material also looked at familyschool relationships and ways parents can support
their children in their learning and school life.
A shorter bridging session was held between the two main presentations for several
interested parents, by the parent group's president who was the project co-ordinator.
This session provided an opportunity to discuss issues and ideas gained from the first
session and practical applications for these in family and school life.
The major initiators of the project were the Principal of the school and the project co-
ordinator. They worked closely with parents, teachers and children in the development
of a familyschool partnership that focused on:
· coping with different personalities within the same family;
· buoyancy and resilience;
· developing advocacy and leadership skills (as parents and in the children);
· meeting children's emotional needs whilst dealing with stress in one's own
personal relationships;
· sibling rivalry, competition and quarrelling;
· self-esteem for the children and for parents;
· peer pressure and the ways that children can deal with it;
· breaking recurring patterns of poor child and parent reactions to given situations;
· fatherchild relationships; and
· step-parenting and the issues that may come from this in regard to discipline at
home and in school behaviour.
Background
This is a primary school of 300 students in the Victorian goldfields, a rural area which
is also an important tourist destination. It serves a monocultural community of low to
medium socio-economic status, and the challenge was to broaden the community's
valuing of difference.
The school was involved in the National Safe Schools Project, which focused on
community connectedness and on strengthening relationships at school. Two
principles issues emerged from its work in that project:
· parent education; and
· learning styles.
The school saw the present project as a way of extending and developing work that
had already begun in these areas.
Summary :
34 CASE H Personality, Resilience and Learning Styles - Understanding Our Children and Ourselves The school held a conference for parents in this regional Victorian town and surrounding areas around the topic of "Personality, Resilience and Learning Styles-- understanding our children and ourselves". She covered a variety of topics relating to stages of child development, parenting issues, understanding children's temperament and learning styles, building emotional resilience in children, learning and behaviour, and social skills in children.
Tags :
school,learning,project,parents,relationships,styles,issues,resilience,two,held,understanding,child,behaiour