Seeing as this week has brought the arrival of a new member of the Royal Family, Princess Charlotte Elizabeth Diana, I thought I would talk about a scheme headed up by a leading member of the Royal Family that is currently part of family life. My son has signed up for the Duke of Edinburgh Award Scheme and is currently working towards his bronze award.
For those of you who haven’t heard of the scheme it was originally set up for boys in 1956 and extended to girls in 1958 and was founded by the Duke of Edinburgh, Queen Elizabeth’s consort. The scheme is designed to develop young people and help them learn a variety of new skills in different areas; it is challenging with each level getting progressively harder, but enables you to achieve the coveted Duke of Edinburgh award for your level, which counts towards university entry in the UK, as well as being recognised by employers.
At bronze level my son has to spend 6 months developing one area, and 3 months in 2 other areas as well as learning survival skills and undertaking a survival weekend under which he will be assessed against the D of E criteria. (eg can he put a tent up, can he map read, cook food, did he bring the right equipment, etc etc). The 3 assessment areas are voluntary work (which my son did for 6 months in a local charity shop at the weekend), fitness (which my son is doing for 3 months and he chose to increase his walking speed and distance as he is participating in a charity 10K later in the year) and skill (which my son is doing for 3 months and he has chosen to improve his writing skills by writing a blog.). He has already undertaken a practice walk to hone his map reading skills but the first practice camping weekend is in a couple of weeks so we are making sure he has all the right equipment and enough food and water to get him through.
There are so many different things you can do under the development sections that there is something for everyone. Although you do have to pay a fee to register and you need to have an assessor available to sign off your work the cost of participation is not high and you can literally choose what you do for the skill, fitness and voluntary work so those needn’t be expensive either.
So what is in it for you or your child?
My son is a quiet and softly spoken young man who enjoys spending time on his PC as a gamer. Although other kids tend to like him he doesn’t tend to go out much so D of E has allowed him to go and try different things and get out of the house more and I can see him gaining confidence as he achieves his goals. During the weekly sessions J has learnt to work as part of a team and I know this will be developed during the camping expeditions. The scheme incorporates some aspects of the scouting and guiding movements but gives you a tangible reward that universities can use in their points system; The higher the D of E award the more points you earn. Similarly it enables you to try new things and the time limits mean that you are motivated to stick at things that are difficult; I know that J was sad to leave his volunteering position after 6 months and that he really felt he had made a difference by giving his time.
If you are interested in the scheme you can find out more at http://www.dofe.org/en/content/cms/doing-your-dofe/ and you can view my son’s blog at https://anotherstrangefact.wordpress.com/ for the next few months at least!
ohanameans 