Duke of Edinburgh's Award

 

Take a look at the Powerpoint presentation shown to students here 

 

 

What is the Duke of Edinburgh's Award?

A life-changing experience. A fun time with friends. An opportunity to discover new interests and talents. A tool to develop essential skills for life and work. A recognised mark of achievement; respected by employers.

The DofE is many things to many people, supporting generations to successfully navigate adult life.

14-24 year-olds can do a DofE programme at one of three progressive levels which, when successfully completed, leads to a Bronze, Silver or Gold Duke of Edinburgh’s Award. There are four sections to complete at Bronze and Silver level and five at Gold. They involve helping the community/environment, becoming fitter, developing new skills, planning, training for and completing an expedition and, for Gold only, working with a team on a residential activity.

Any young person can do their DofE – regardless of ability, gender, background or location. Achieving an Award isn’t a competition or about being first. It’s all about setting personal challenges and pushing personal boundaries.

Through a DofE programme young people have fun, make friends, improve their self-esteem and build confidence. They gain essential skills and attributes for work and life such as resilience, problem-solving, team-working, communication and drive, enhancing CVs and university and job applications. Top employers recognise the work-ready skills Award holders bring to their business.

But there is a pandemic! How on earth will they do their activities safely or while there are restrictions?

Hopefully as national restrictions continue to lift there will once again be a full range of activities available to young people. However, there is a wide range of activities for the physical, skills and volunteering sections that can be done from home. Having positive things to do will keep life interesting and have beneficial effects on physical and mental wellbeing.

It is also possible to change activity in response to changing circumstances with all the time spent on each activity counting towards the total for the section. To see some ideas visit: https://www.dofe.org/dofewithadifference/activities This is by no means an exhaustive list and other things are possible.

What about the expedition section?

TBC

Cost

The price for enrolment is £75. This covers buying the participation place and welcome pack from DofE, a contribution towards the annual licence fee we have to pay to run DofE in college, and contributions towards staff training, maintenance of expedition kit and administration costs.

 It is likely that we will need to use an external provider for expeditions in 2023. The likely additional cost for the expedition section is likely to be in the region of £80 - £120.

Potential additional costs

Participants arrange, with your support and approval, their own activities for their volunteering, skills and physical sections. There are plenty of possible activities for these sections that are free to do.

 

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For more information about the Duke of Edinburgh's Award Scheme please visit the official website at www.dofe.org.

Basic information and FAQs about DofE can be found here. 

Please direct enquiries about DofE at Christ's College to

Mr D Cunningham

dcunningham@christscollege.surrey.sch.uk

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