Gold Duke of Edinburgh's Award

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Dofe bronze silver gold

The Duke of Edinburgh’s Award is a challenging programme of activities designed for young people aged between 14 – 25. It is designed to be enjoyable and rewarding while also promoting personal development, self-reliance and leadership skills. It consists of a balanced, non-competitive programme of voluntary activities, which encourages personal discovery and growth, self-reliance, perseverance, responsibility to themselves and service to the community. In order to gain an award a pupil must show improvement through persistence and achievement.

The Award operates at three levels (Bronze, Silver and Gold); the higher the level, the more time and effort is required. Completion of the Award is voluntary, as students commit some of their own time to undertake activities which they have selected. 

At Bartholomew School, students are offered the chance to participate in the Bronze level during Year 9, and many go on to complete their Silver during Year 10 then Gold in the Sixth Form. Participants who complete the Gold Award are invited to a ceremony at St James’ Palace, London, where their certificate is presented to them by a member of the Royal Family.

Each level of the award has four sections to complete, Volunteering, Skill, Physical and Expedition. There is an additional section for Gold participants to complete, which is a five day residential. 

Expeditions are undertaken under the supervision of appropriately qualified professionals, to a variety of areas including the Oxfordshire Ridgeway, the Cotswolds, Wye Valley, Mendip hills, Brecon Beacons and Snowdonia.

Students who are interested in taking part should attend the introductory assemblies/meetings.  

Please visit the DofE website for some ideas to help you complete each section. We offer an extensive range of extra-curricular activities at Bartholomew which can help you to fulfil each section. Activities you do outside of school could also count towards the different sections. Choose activities that motivate you and go on your own personal journey.  We expect all participants to abide by the DofE 20 Conditions during their expedition section. 

Gold Duke of Edinburgh Award

Timescales

The sections must be undertaken once a week. They must spend 12 months on the Volunteering section. For the Physical and Skills section, they must spend 12 months on one and 6 months on the other. If your child did not do their Silver Award, they are required to do a further 6 months on either of the activities they did for 12 months.

To summarise, if they have not done Silver, they will do one section for 18 months, another for 12 months and the remaining one for 6 months.  Please click the link below to access the Assessor's Report:

How to get your Assessor Report

You will need to fill in the Enrolment form which can be found here:

Commitment

Although students will have meetings with our D of E Manager, we would like to remind you that, as this is an extracurricular activity, we expect students, as well as parents/carers, to ensure that the different sections are completed and they are done so on time.

  • Training day 1:   Thursday 15th April 2027 (9am-4pm)
  • Training day 2:   Sunday 25th April 2027 (9am-4pm)
  • Practice week:   Saturday 29th May 2027 - Monday 31st May 2027
  • Assessed week: Saturday 10th July - Wednesday 14th July 2027

FURTHER INFORMATION AND LINKS

Please refer to our Letters Home page for communications about the Gold DofE award.

You can also find further useful information by clicking on the following links: 

DofE websiteeDofE website"Welcome to DofE" film

In conjunction with BXM, our expedition partner: BXM websiteKit listProgramme IdeasEnrolment Form

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