Sixth Form Enrichment: Duke of Edinburgh Gold Award

The Gold Award involves 12 months service to the community, 12 months sport, following a hobby/skill for 18 months (all of these are on a 1-hour/week basis) and successfully completing at least three expeditions, one of which is externally assessed. The students find all their placements themselves but the school will help by writing a reference/making telephone calls etc. The students also have to attend a residential course for one week with young people from all over the country where they are involved in an environmental project.

The expedition section (organised by the school) requires three ventures into “wild country” e.g. Dartmoor, N.Wales, areas of Scotland. For each expedition, students must be in groups of between four and seven and plan, in detail, a fifty-mile hike over four days. The group must be totally self-sufficient over this time i.e. carry all their equipment, clothes and food and camp each night “in the wilds”. A great deal of advance planning, teamwork and absolute determination to succeed is essential.

All the students deserve a great deal of credit for their achievement and I feel confident in the ability of the present Year 13 students to cope with the demands of being assessed on Dartmoor for the expeditions in Year 2004.

It is difficult to find appropriate times to undertake Gold Award expeditions due to examination commitments and we can only confidently take pupils during late Spring and Summer (for safety reasons, I do not wish to be responsible for the RAF conducting an airlift!). There have been no emergencies so far and we have decided to continue to continue to run one or two expeditions immediately following the Year 12/13 examinations and one during the summer vacation.

In summary, twenty two students from Year 13 passed the expedition section of the gold award last year. Fifteen more students are being assessed this summer. Forty students from Year 12 entered The Award Scheme at gold level. They were all very enthusiastic and ambitious. All students began their service to the community, sport and hobby (one hour per week each for one year).

Due to the increase in numbers, we now run two consecutive expeditions in July as well as the one in August. It takes a lot of organisation – minibuses, trains, sending off routes for each group to the Dartmoor Expedition Panel and getting permission etc., but the students gain enormously from the venture. It is extremely physically and mentally demanding but very satisfying on completion.

Students have to complete two practice expeditions before they are assessed. Eight groups of students from Year 12 completed a practice expedition and four groups from Year 13 completed their assessment on Dartmoor in July and August 2005. An assessor from The Duke of Edinburgh Award Dartmoor Panel assesses the students. Our assessor was extremely friendly and supportive but with very high standards of safety and navigation. He met the group at random times over the four days – often, the students did not know when or where he might turn up. Due to their experience on their practice expeditions and their training, the group were always in the right place at the right time. The students now have to submit a written report to the assessor in order to formally pass this section of the award.