Parents in Education

Last week was Parents in Education week. This was an opportunity to attend a number of sessions hosted by DECD. LNPS had representation at each of the sessions and feedback received has been extremely positive.

We hope to build on this experience into the future and host some PiE events at LNPS.

If you would like to watch any of the sessions please use the following links.

An evening with Minister Susan Close and guests discussing the 21st Century child

Unlocking your child’s potential and learning through strength-based parenting

Dr Justin Coulson - 9 Ways to a Resilient Child

Please enjoy the articles below from some of the parents that attended the event.

A Parents Perspective

Last week I attended two of the Parents in Education Week seminars with other parents and staff from Lockleys North. Both sessions were excellent, with knowledgeable speakers, relatable stories and practical tips. It was a great opportunity to hear how to support our children thrive at home and school – and the fact the events were free was a bonus too!

On Wednesday evening we heard from Professor Lea Waters who spoke about strengths-based parenting. Parents often spend more time trying to fix children’s weaknesses than helping to grow their strengths. Both are important but because our brains are wired to focus on negative things we often miss seeing strengths.

Professor Waters’ research shows that when we take a moment to turn on our “strengths switch” everyone benefits. Parents and children feel more confident, have more positive emotions and it helps children cope better with stress and reduces problems like depression and anxiety.

If you would like more information about becoming a strengths-based parent you can check out Lea’s website: www.strengthswitch.com for descriptions of strengths, strengths-based games, quizzes, videos and more.

At the Thursday event Dr Justin Coulson shared three ways to build resilience in children. Children are more resilient (able to bounce back or persevere when faced with challenges) when they have a strong identity, a growth mindset, and (co-incidentally!) parents who help them focus on strengths.

Parents can help their children know who they are and what they stand for by making family stories and chats about values part of everyday family life. Having a growth mindset means we know that abilities are not fixed but can be improved through effort and practice. Dr Coulson has blogs, podcasts and courses on resilience and other parenting topics at www.happyfamilies.com.au.

If you would like to view the sessions they are available on the DECD YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/user/SAEducationDept/videos.

I highly recommend attending next year’s sessions as they really contained relevant, practical information for helping our children succeed in education and in life.

Kylie Roberts (Parent M1)

Dr Justin Coulson - was very engaging and gave practical and strategies that are easy to implement. and – Discussed Resilience – how well our children should develop positively after a setback and focused on 3 ways to build our children’s Resilience.

1. Identity – The importance of sharing family stories, birth stories, growing up, grandparents etc as family identity builds individual identity

- teaching values to our children based on real life scenarios, pre-arming our children with hypothetical situations so they have options when faced in difficult situations

- Promote family time and be involved in their lives

2. Teach them there is no such thing as smart or dumb – ‘can’t’ means ‘don’t want to’

- you can achieve if you work hard

- as a parent, set yourself a goal and work towards it – modelling to children is important

3. Strength Based Parenting- Help your children identify their strengths

- strengths make you feel strong

The 3 E’s of effective discipline – Explain, Explore, Empower

Ask your children :

What was your sunshine today?

What was your storm cloud?

What was your rainbow?

What was hard today that you pushed through?

I will definitely attend PiE week next year as I found the presenters to be of high calibre and topics were very relevant.

I am very grateful that LNPS leadership team attended and promoted the events.

Sandra Fazzalari (Governing Council)

An evening with Minister Susan Close and guests discussing the 21st Century child

Thought provoking discussion on a better way to engage our students to be resilient and robust learners who can also use their experiences/imagination through play to gain valuable knowledge.

I know that LNPS’s teaching is heading in the right direction.

George Constantinides (Governing Council Chairperson)

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