A HUGE welcome to 2022!

Welcome back for our returning families and a very special welcome to our many new families. We hope that you come to love our little school community as much as we do!  My name is Karyn Penney and I am the Defence School Mentor (DSM) for Campbell Primary School. I am employed by Campbell Primary School (CPS) and funded by the Department of Defence to support students from active service Australian Defence Force (ADF) families, particularly through the challenges of frequent relocation and parental absence. My role also includes connecting families to local community and defence support and opportunities. My role is primarily providing social and emotional support for our families and students. I am privileged to form part of the CPS support team that also includes our wonderful admin staff, dedicated Learning Support Assistants (LSA’s), and our school psychologist. Together we work to provide the best possible support to all members of our CPS community.

We are so very proud of all of our new students who have showed great courage and resilience during their first week at their new school. It can be an incredibly stressful time for students and their families and all should be commended for their efforts so far. There will be up and down days but they will become progressively easier as the term goes on. I encourage any families with concerns around transitions to please get in contact early so we can check in and provide additional supports if needed. A huge shout out to our returning students as well, who have been allocated as buddies for these first few weeks and made them much less scary for our new friends – you should be very proud (we are!).

For those ADF families who have come to us on posting from interstate please be aware of the ability to access education support via Defence Member and Family Support’s (DMFS, formerly DCO) Education Assistance Scheme. This allows those impacted by relocation to access reimbursement for tutoring support in areas identified as requiring extra tuition or where a subject wasn’t previously offered (for example Japanese). Additional information is available via the link here. The application form AD301 is available via webforms for the serving member, or via the DCO helpline on 1800 624 608 at any time. Recent changes mean you will require a supporting letter from CPS which I am happy to arrange, as well as a report card from your previous school. Kindergarten students are ineligible unless posting occurred after the commencement of the school year. Please let me know if you have any questions.

I am at CPS full time from 9am until 3:30pm and can usually be found either in the playground or supporting within classrooms (junior during odd weeks and senior during even weeks in compliance with covid-safe practice). I am always happy to meet with parents to answer any questions you may have; please check in with the front office and they will locate me for you. I am also available via email at any time on Karyn.heitmann@ed.act.edu.au. I encourage families to communicate often, as addressing concerns early and taking a collaborative approach is always most successful.