Duke of Edinburgh Award Scheme
The Duke of Edinburgh’s Award Scheme in school continues to grow each year with more and more students enrolling.
Throughout the years, several thousand students from Ballymena Academy have enrolled and have successfully completed the Bronze and Gold awards.
So, if you are interested in completing the Award, what do you need to know?
The Bronze programme has four sections: Volunteering, Physical, Skill and Expedition. Students must do a minimum of three months’ activity for each of Volunteering, Physical and Skills sections, and plan, train for and undertake a two day (one night) practice and qualifying expedition. Students also have to spend an extra three months on one of the volunteering, physical or skills section.
The direct entry Gold Award has five sections: Volunteering, Physical, Skill, Expedition and Residential. Students must do a minimum of 12 months Volunteering and six or 12 months for either Physical or Skill. In addition, they must complete a further six months in Volunteering or Physical/Skill (whichever is longer). The Residential section requires students to spend five days and four nights taking part in a shared, worthwhile activity with people they have never met before. The Residential section will boost independence and confidence and is a great way for students to leave a positive footprint on theirs and the lives of others.
As parents, you will need to make sure that for the Volunteering, Skill and Physical sections, you have someone who is prepared to supervise your son/daughter while they are doing the activity, help them with it, and be prepared to sign their record book up at the end.
In all cases, it is the responsibility of parents to assess the suitability of the supervising adult unless the activity is organised directly through school, such as a specific course. This is the same for Bronze and Gold Awards.
So, just a couple of points to note if you are at the stage of adding the assessor reports this year:
- Make sure the start date on your eDofE programme planner matches the start date on your Assessor Report.
- Make sure your finish date is the correct length ie. 3 calendar months/6 calendar months
- Both the start date and finish date must be included on your assessor report for date verification by DofE
If you are planning on completing this very worthwhile and highly commendable Award:
- Activities like table tennis/golf/dance/strength & conditioning do not count as a SKILL under the Games and Sports section
- Dance Appreciation involves no physical dancing
- You can volunteer in a doctor’s surgery but not a vet’s private practice
- As long as the business is seen as a ‘not-for-profit’ organisation, volunteering is fine, however, you can volunteer in a care home
Bronze Award
This year, my friends and I had the opportunity to sign up for the Bronze Duke of Edinburgh award; we all signed up instantly not knowing what we were signing ourselves up to do! Our parents had a meeting with Mr Reid, when they were told about the scheme and what was involved – skills, physical, volunteering and of course the expedition!
The expedition was possibly the most daunting of all activities. Mr Reid organised an in-house training day at the school where we were introduced to what we would be doing during our expedition, shown how to put a tent up and we planned what food we would be bringing. That day was our first real test of the cold weather as we spent a lot of time outside on a wintry day. A month or two later we all got hands-on at a full training day at Ardnavally. On this day we got to put up our tents and cook a meal we would be cooking on our expedition.
We also learnt how to pack a rucksack and then went on a walk round the forest carrying our rucksacks. This day was a really good taster of what our actual expedition would be like. With an early start on a Sunday morning, we left school at 7:50am slightly nervous about what the next 48hrs might bring. We arrived at our base where we were given our tents and personal kit. We had a brief explanation about the maps and then we set off!
On the first day we walked the shorter walk of 16km which took us around four hours. During our walk we experienced all four different seasons of weather – sunshine to hail showers! We walked along paths and some more off- piste routes. Even with the howling wind the scenery was beautiful. Our group had lots of fun. We were the first group to arrive at camp and got first pick of where to pitch our tents. On reflection, we might not have picked the best place, but we made do.
Despite having walked 16km during the day we all had enough energy to run about and play all different types of sports for hours. There was plenty of hot chocolate and thankfully someone brought biscuits and marshmallows to make smores! I managed to sleep quite well and wasn’t cold! With an even earlier start the next morning we had breakfast and got ready for our longer walk of 21km. We all tided up the campsite and off we went. The weather wasn’t any better on this day, but we still kept going knowing the finish line was near. After a long day of walking, we finally finished and as soon as we finished the rucksacks were off and hopefully not to see one again until our gold!! After a wait for the bus, we all finally got home, and it wasn’t long before I was in bed like most of my friends that evening! Duke of Edinburgh was a great experience and I would encourage everyone to take part.
Gold Award
The Gold Duke of Edinburgh Expedition to the Isle of Skye truly was an incredible experience. It consisted of four days of walking, three nights camping and two travel days either side. It was
an early wake up call to catch the ferry on the way there but all went smoothly and, thanks to Mr Reid’s driving, we arrived in Sligachan campsite that night which was a good warmup before we had to wild camp in the expedition.
Our first day consisted of a walk back towards Sligachan on some forest and open hill trails. This was an excellent chance to see the western part of the Cuillin ridge which really was an impressive sight.
The scenery on the following days was equally spectacular. We walked through a valley with mountains towering above us on either side, including Blà Bheinn.
It was beautifully sunny and we had great views of Loch na Cairidh, before we powered on and ended up at Loch Slapin for our final night camping. This was possibly our most beautiful campsite.
After another 8km, we reached the minibus where we celebrated by eating any food we had left over. We travelled home to be greeted by some classic Northern Irish weather, making us even more grateful for the incredible sunshine we had all week in Skye.
Peter Gamble
