The Duke of Edinburgh Award was founded in the United Kingdom in 1956 by Prince Philip. In the last 60 years the award has expanded to 144 nations and over 2.5 million young people have achieved the award. The award is designed to increase confidence, resilience and team work as well as other important communication and personal skills that help them in life and improve their chances of moving forward in education or getting a job. The DofE is widely recognised by universities and higher education establishments and will help contribute to a positive personal statement on your UCAS application form.

At Nova Hreod Academy, students are able to undertake the bronze award in Year 9 and the silver award in Year 10.

What's involved?

Students achieve an award by completing a personal programme of activities in 4 sections. Students must participate for one hour a week for three months for two of their sections and one hour a week for six months for the other section, however, the choice of which section this is is up to the student. The final section, which is the expedition, has different criteria.

The 4 sections are:

Volunteering: undertaking service to individuals or the community

Volunteering is all about making a difference to other people’s lives. Getting off your sofa and taking time out to change things for the better can be great fun.

There’s an endless list of the types of projects you can get involved in such as coaching at sports clubs or after-school clubs, helping out in the school library, helping younger children to read or visiting and helping elderly people in care.

Physical: improving in an area of sport, dance or fitness activities

Through the physical section you should achieve a greater physical fitness through participation and improvement in physical activity. It’s sure to make you feel healthier and you’ll have fun along the way.

From hockey to dance, rock climbing to swimming, wheelchair basketball to yoga – almost any dance, sport or fitness activity can count. You can join a team or do it on your own, concentrate on something you’re already doing or try something completely different – it’s up to you.

Many students will already be doing enough to complete the section without doing anything extra, such as running, playing for a local football or netball team, swimming once a week or competing in dance competitions.

Skills: developing practical and social skills and personal interests

The skills section is all about developing practical and social skills and personal interests. By choosing to develop a particular skill you are not only developing a new talent, you will also boost your self-esteem, develop practical and social skills and learn how to set and rise to a challenge. If this isn’t enough, it should also be good fun too!

Many of the Nova pupils have taken up cooking for their skills section and there are so many other things you can do. Movie making, learning a language or playing an instrument, leaning chess or coding.

Lots of these can be done through our own Super Nova activities after school which is an opportunity to learn new skills for free.

Expedition: planning, training for and completion of an adventurous journey in the UK or abroad

In many students' eyes, this is the best part of the whole award and it’s hard not to agree with them!

At bronze level, pupils learn all the necessary skills needed to complete a 2-day/1-night expedition along the Ridgeway and its surrounding areas. These include route planning, map reading, tent pitching and camp cooking.

Students will complete two expeditions. The first is a practice weekend where they put all their skills into practice for the first time, supported by another group and members of staff for the first day. The second is the assessed expedition where the pupils will be in groups of seven for the majority of the journey, relying on their skills and each other to get to a series of checkpoints where staff will meet them and stay with them for the night before they set off again the following day.

Support

We are lucky enough to be supported by Swindon Academy which means the vast majority of the kit the pupils will need can be supplied for them, meaning the cost to participate in the award is low compared to other schools and providers. Tents, sleeping bags, cooking equipment, maps, compasses, roll mats, bags and even coats, jackets and walking boots can be provided. We want as many pupils to be involved as possible and to provide as many opportunities as we possibly can so there is no limit to the number of pupils that we can take through the award. As always, if there is anything we can do to make sure a pupil is able to engage in the award we will do our upmost to provide the necessary support.

Key dates

Due to COVID19 the arrangements are subject to change, key dates will be published as soon as possible 

If you have any questions and want to contact me directly you may do so by emailing Mr Stephens at a.stevens@novahreodacademy.org.uk