Duke of Edinburgh Award

What is The Duke of Edinburgh's International Award?

As the job market continues to get more competitive and more people gain degrees, employers are looking for other means of determining the strength and quality of candidates. Each year the Award is regularly stated by graduate employers as being a definitive qualification for demonstrating that an individual has the rounded set of skills and the qualities they are looking for. The percentage of young people that actually complete and gain their Award is very low which ensures it continues to be a very prestigious achievement and means that those that complete it will stand out from the crowd!

The main reason why the Award maintains such an excellent reputation is because it requires motivation, commitment and maturity from the participants. They have to take total responsibility for all aspects of their experience. Their school/organisation will offer advice but the participant must do the work and undertake the following tasks:

1. Find activities to undertake for the different sections.

2. Ensure they attend the activities.

3. Submit the required evidence to demonstrate they have undertaken the necessary activities.

What makes up the Award?

The Duke of Edinburgh's International Award consists of four sections (help with finding activities for these sections is on the following page):

1. Skill section – Young people must spend at least one hour per week learning a new life skill (outside of school lessons). There are hundreds of different activities that young people can choose from. Popular choices include music, art, drama, cooking, DJing, committee skills, graffiti art, learning to drive and sign language. Unfortunately sports cannot count for this section (even though you need to learn skills to do them), this is because sports come under the physical recreation section.

2. Service section – This section requires young people to spend at least one hour per week doing voluntary work.
This gives young people the opportunity to get out into their communities and give something back
(Note: This cannot be working for free for a commercial organisation like a hairdressers, shop, café etc).

3. Physical Recreation section – This section requires young people to spend at least one hour per week of their own time engaging in physical recreation.
It can be any form of activity and does not need to be in a team or competitive environment.

4. Adventurous Journey section – This is explained in detail in the next pages.

The next page will give advice as to how young people can find activities for these sections if they are not doing something already.
However please be aware that the responsibility lies entirely with the young people for finding and undertaking activities for the sections 1 – 3 listed above.
The school/organisation your child attends will provide the necessary training for the Adventurous Journey section.