The Duke of Edinburgh’s Award (DofE) is a personal development program for 14 to 24 year olds. The award is designed to be enjoyable whilst learning a wealth of new skills, such as self-reliance, teamwork and leadership. The award also helps students to push themselves physically, help others and explore new territories.
The Duke of Edinburgh’s Award is a recognition of a young person’s successful journey of self-discovery and development, the benefits of achieving an award at any level are endless. It’s difficult to list them all here … but students should know that they will have fun and will push themselves to do new things that will help them to grow in confidence and develop useful skills. A DofE Award can also give students the edge when they apply for college, university or a job.
This is our first year delivering the DofE Award and we will be offering the Bronze award . Pupils who are successful at Bronze level can go on and achieve Silver and Gold Awards. It does require students to commit some of their own time to undertake their selected activities. Each level of the award has four sections to complete,
1.Volunteering
2.Skill
3.Physical
4.Expedition.
Activities for each DofE section take a minimum of one hour per week over a set period of time, so that they can be fitted around students’ studies and life outside school. Students will also need to participate regularly and show that they’re committed to their DofE during this time.
Volunteering is simple. It’s about choosing to give time to help people, the community or society, the environment or animals. The Volunteering section of a DofE programme is often the most rewarding, uplifting and memorable part of a young person’s DofE adventure. For the volunteering activity students will need to choose to give time to do something useful without getting paid (apart from expenses). It can, however, sometimes be hard to find a suitable volunteering opportunity for those under the age of 16.
Here is a collection of ideas and opportunities that participants might like to think about for their Volunteering section.
Volunteering ideas for under 16s
For the physical activity students need to choose any sport, dance or fitness activity – in short, anything that requires a sustained level of energy and physical activity. For example, playing a sport regularly and showing personal improvement would count, such as a school club, gym sessions or out of school sports club. It is not only excellent for students own personal health but also a good training regime for the expedition.
Here is a collection of ideas and opportunities that participants might like to think about for the Physical section.
For the skills activity students need to choose an activity that will allow them to prove they have broadened their understanding and increased their expertise in their chosen skill. It should not be a physical activity, for example horse riding, as this counts towards the Physical section, however, students could choose to learn about caring for horses.
Here is a collection of ideas and opportunities that participants might like to think about for their Skills section.
If you are in doubt about any of the chosen activities for these sections please see Miss Quinn for help and guidance.
This is often the section that the students are most looking forward to! For the Expedition section, students will need to plan, train for and complete an overnight expedition. For Bronze this will be conducted in the local area.
More information will be shared with parents in the course of the year.
Here is a link to the DofE site for more information:
