Pupils complete Duke of Edinburgh Award

As if the last week of term wasn’t busy enough already, our dedicated pupils and staff headed out on their expeditions to successfully complete their Silver and Gold Duke of Edinburgh Awards, in the magnificent setting of the Lake District National Park.

The Duke of Edinburgh (DofE) Award is widely acknowledged as the world’s leading youth achievement award. A DofE programme involves volunteering, learning a skill, getting fit, planning and undertaking an expedition out in the country, and at Gold Level, also taking part in a week-long residential. Work-ready skills are developed whilst doing the DofE such as confidence, commitment, resilience and team working. Sedbergh School holds a licence to deliver DofE programmes to its pupils on its own premises.

Back in June of this year, DofE released their post-pandemic annual statistics which highlighted a huge surge in young people starting DofE. More than 321,000 began a programme in 2021/22 – the highest in their 66-year history – and nearly half a million are now doing their DofE across the UK.

At Sedbergh School, there are active groups at Silver (Years 10 and 11) and Gold (Year 12) Award levels and these encourage pupils to involve themselves fully in the extra-curricular options open to them and perhaps try an activity which they would not otherwise have considered. For each Award, pupils will complete an expedition. The majority of pupils will do this on foot using the superb local area of the Lake District and the Yorkshire Dales, but in recent years, canoeing, yachting, sailing and even horseriding expeditions have taken place.