Ysgol Stanwell School

Duke of Edinburgh

A DofE programme is a real adventure from beginning to end. It doesn’t matter who you are or where you’re from. You just need to be aged between 14 and 24 and realise there’s more to life than sitting on a sofa watching life pass you by.

Duke of Edinburgh in Stanwell

The Duke of Edinburgh Award is a very popular extra-curricular activity at Stanwell School. Participants design their own individual programme to reflect their own abilities and interests.

These sections are:

• Volunteering – helping someone, your community or the environment
• Physical – becoming fitter through sport, dance or fitness activities
• Skills – developing existing talents or trying something new
• Expedition – planning, training for and completing an adventurous journey
• Residential (Gold only) – staying and working away from home as part of a team. This is over a period of 5 days.

You get to choose what you do to complete each section and success depends upon initiative, commitment and the ability to co-operate with others.

At the end of year 9 pupils have the opportunity to enrol on the Bronze level. There are currently over 175 pupils enroled this year. At the end of year 10 pupils enrol for Silver level. Year 11 are currently enroling for the Silver award. Many of our successful D of E participants regularly take up the challenge at Gold level once they enter year 12 (both inside and outside school) with 10 people successfully completing their Gold award in the last two months and are now awaiting their invite to Buckingham Palace or St. Jame’s Palace to receive their award. This requires the highest level of commitment, taking a minimum of 12 months to complete including the individual residential course or 18 months for those who have not successfully completed their Bronze and Silver Award.

Expeditions are the most popular section of the Award. All participants have training throughout the year in camp craft skills, navigation and first aid. For all three levels of the Award the participants must complete sufficient practice weekends. For Bronze, the assessed expedition is 2 days, one night. For Silver, the expedition is 3 days and 2 nights. For Gold, it’s 4 days and 3 nights.

During the first day of training for expeditions the Bronze participants receive certification once they’ve demonstrated their knowledge and skills.  There is weekly training to cover the skills they require to meet the 20 conditions laid out by the award scheme.  The other three sections pupils complete in their own time.

Looking for more?

Additional information about the Duke of Edinburgh award can be found on their website.