Duke of Edinburgh

The Duke of Edinburgh Award is a wonderful opportunity for young people to challenge themselves, develop new skills and give something back to their community. We have 30 excited and enthusiastic young people embarking on their bronze award this year.

In order to achieve the award each of them must complete 3 months learning a new skill, taking part in a physical activity and volunteering in their community. They then need to choose one of these things to extend for another three months. Add that to an expedition and the award is a challenge indeed.

With only 9 weeks to go until their practice expedition, students are meeting regularly to learn the skills they are going to need to complete it. They are learning map reading, navigation and first aid to name but a few and for some this will be the first time they have undertaken activities like this.

With many students learning these new skills it's hard to count the number of positives they will get from taking part in this award scheme. Miss Proven leader of the scheme at school, said “The Duke of Edinburgh Award scheme offers young people so many things, they become resilient, independent and develop lasting bonds with people they may not have mixed with previously. I am delighted to have so many in the group as this is our first group following the pandemic and they are excited to get out there. I can already see the bonds forming and their confidence growing, running this scheme allows me to see the young people we work with flourish.”

A number of students are using their volunteering element to volunteer at a local food back and when we spoke with them, they told us “Through the scheme I have been allowed to help somewhere that I wouldn’t have had the opportunity to before, I really enjoy volunteering and it has given me a lot of understanding of other people and helped build my confidence talking to new people and being in new environments”

Our 30 strong group will be heading off to Rivington for their first expedition in a matter of weeks and they are ready and raring to go. We can’t wait to hear all about it and celebrate with them when all their hard work is rewarded.