DUKE OF EDINBURGH AWARD Stuart Ereaut
This year marked the passing of the Duke of Edinburgh Prince Phillip who created the DofE Award in 1956 to encourage the youth of Great Britain to reconnect with the outdoors. 60 years later and the award is flourishing around the world, including here at Knole Academy. This year marked one of the busiest times for DofE at Knole with students from years 9-13 all completing a level of the award. During previous years our students completed their awards as follows; year 9 students for the Bronze, year 10 for Silver and years 12 and 13 would complete their Gold Award. It was a chance for the year 11’s to finally complete their DofE Silver award that had started back in 2019 and they were finally able to complete this in June 2021 at Dartmoor. Our students – 19 of them in total – braved wet and windy conditions to
complete their Silver Assessed Expedition in terrific and brave fashion. It was a credit to their strength of character to remember their training from 2 years earlier to complete the expedition in such strong fashion. I was incredibly impressed with their growth throughout the expedition. These wonderful memories from this experience will be with them forever. There are 17 year 12 and 13 students completing their Gold Duke of Edinburgh Award this year which is three times the number of students we have ever welcomed on to the award scheme. The Duke of Edinburgh Award works very closely with the International Baccalaureate for the students to complete their volunteering, physical and skills sections. The students excelled on their Practice Expedition to Southern Dartmoor and demonstrated excellent map reading
skills in difficult terrain and weather. The students’ assessed expedition was also a brilliant success with the students following part of the route called ‘The Perambulation of the Forest of Dartmoor.’ 51
