We were very grateful to have our Chair of Governors, Dave Roberts, CBE in attendance to present the awards and we also welcomed Edward Gaskin, the DofE Operations Officer for Kent who gave a heartening brief on the DofE award. Additional congratulations to the six participants out of 25, Febin D’Silva, Eloise Evans, Jacob Hyland, Joseph Sykes, Bethany Tebbutt-Ford and Ryan Vincent.
who also completed their Bronze award and who received their Bronze certificates.

In Summer 2021, 25 students were enrolled to participate in the Duke of Edinburgh Silver Award programme. This included six students who were part way through a Bronze award program which they started through outside organisations.

They all undertook a combination of 3, 6 and 12 months to complete their Volunteering, Skills and Physical sections of the Award. This required regular weekly commitment to a chosen activity- For Skills, many chose cooking or singing or BSL or playing a new instrument; for the Physical section running, climbing or attending a gym was chosen and Volunteering involved a variety of house captain activities at school or running a subject support club, helping at scouts or working in a charity shop to mention a few.
They all undertook training in campcraft, map reading, meal planning, route planning and first aid over a number of months after school. In May 2022, they took part in a practice expedition in the Reculver, Chislet, Minster area and this was followed only two weeks later with the qualifying expedition in the Eastry area.
They worked well as teams, encouraging and helping each other and managed to keep their spirits up despite some challenging weather conditions especially on the assessed expedition where the amount of rainfall made hiking across muddy fields almost impossible.
Their morale and attitude stayed positive throughout the three days and it was a pleasure to see them progress.
Achieving a Duke of Edinburgh Award will give skills, confidence and an edge over others when applying for college, university or a job. Beyond academic achievements, universities and employers want to see evidence of so called ‘soft skills’ such as communication, commitment, leadership and teamwork that they have developed through extra-curricular activities. The DofE Award is a fantastic way to demonstrate and evidence these skills in practice.
I am certain that our students have made a difference to other people’s lives and to our community. They have made new friends and have memories to last them a lifetime.
Congratulations!
The DofE Team at Dane Court Grammar school