The Duke of Edinburgh’s International Award is the world’s leading youth achievement Award and equips young people for life in over 140 countries and territories across the globe.
The Award is available to all young people aged 14‐24. Doing the Award is a personal challenge and not a competition against others; it pushes young people to their personal limits and recognises their achievements consistently. The Award encourages young people to design their own programme of activities, set their own goals and challenge themselves to achieve their aims.
Since its launch 60 years ago, the Award has inspired millions of young people to transform their lives. Through non formal education, the Award can play a critical role in a young person’s personal development. You can find out more here www.intaward.org
What is involved?
The Award is comprised of three levels and four sections. Participants complete all four sections at each level in order to achieve their Award. At Gold level, participants also complete a Residential Project.
The three levels to the Award:
Bronze: for those over 14 years old. 6 months minimum participation is expected.
Silver: for those over 15 years old. 12 months minimum participation is expected.
Gold: for those over 16 years old. 18 months minimum participation is expected
The four sections of the Award:
Service: Participants volunteer in their communities, make a positive contribution to society and demonstrate social responsibility.
Physical Recreation: Encourages young people to improve their fitness and performance and enjoy healthy lifestyles for good mental and physical wellbeing.
Skills: Enables participants to develop their talents, broaden their abilities, increase their self‐confidence and improve their employability.
Adventurous Journey: Young people discover a spirit of adventure and gain a deeper understanding of the environment and the great outdoors.
And at Gold only:
Residential Project: Participants broaden their experience by staying in an unfamiliar environment with other young people, taking part in a worthwhile project and building new relationships.
How do we do it at St George School?
At St George, students are introduced to the Award in Year 9 by our Award Coordinator in school.
In this induction meeting, the students are able to see first hand what the Award involves and the guiding principles needed to be understood in order for the students to achieve their goals.
Once enrolled, the students will organise themselves into groups of between 5-7 and be allocated an Award Leader. The Award Leader will then help the students register onto the Online Record Book (ORB) and assist them in choosing suitable activities and appropriate goals for their different sections. Through regular meetings, the Award Leader will check on the progress of the students. Also the students undertake 1 or 2 day walks during Year 9. These walks introduce the students to the key skills needed for the Adventurous Journey (AJ) section of the Award. The students will learn to plan routes, navigate and develop their map reading skills. At the start of Year 10, the students will complete their Practice AJ, this will be an overnight camping trip, which involves additional skills such as pitching their tents and cooking on stoves. After this, we shall build up to their Qualifying AJ which will be the final challenge for the students to complete their Bronze Award.
Once this is completed, the students can move on to the Silver Award and hopefully the Gold Award when they are in Sixth Form.
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