Duke of Edinburgh Award

The DofE is a life-changing experience. A fun time with friends. An opportunity to discover new interests and talents. A tool to develop essential skills for life and work. A recognised mark of achievement; respected by employers. It is many things to many people, supporting generations to successfully navigate adult life. The DofE Award is non-competitive and open to all young people from 14-24 and is about setting personal challenges and pushing personal boundaries.

Through DofE, participants will build traits like confidence, resilience, and self-esteem. They’ll gain skills and attributes for work and life, like problem-solving, team-working, and self-motivation – and they’ll achieve an Award that’s recognised by top employers and universities. 
There are three levels of DofE programme which when successfully completed lead to a Bronze, Silver, or Gold Award.

To achieve Bronze, Silver and Gold Award, participants must complete four sections:

Skills, Volunteering, Physical, Expedition and for those working towards Gold, an additional residential section.

Every DofE participant can choose what skill, physical and volunteering they are most interested in, personalising their own program. We will provide guidance and support, and students can either choose to continue an activity they already do or discover something completely new.

Activities for each section take a minimum of one hour a week over a set period. We offer an extensive range of extra-curricular activities every Wednesday after school at North Oxfordshire Academy which can help participants fulfil each section. 

All sections of the Award need to have an Assessor. An assessor is someone who checks on your progress and agrees the completion of a section of your programme. They must be independent. Therefore, they cannot be a member of your family.

An Assessor can be anyone who is interested in helping you to achieve, has some knowledge of the activity you are doing and can be available over the time you’re doing it. They will produce or sign off the relevant Assessor’s report for that section, which is uploaded into eDofE.

Once all sections are complete and signed off by an assessor then the participant has achieved their full Award.

Students have information assemblies about the Award in the first academic term. 

The Expedition section involves your child working as part of a small team (4-7) to plan their expedition’s aim, plan their route and do some training to make sure they are fully prepared – before spending for Bronze, two days and one night and for Silver, three days and two nights, in the local countryside.

Ahead of this, they will take part in training, delivered by our fully trained staff every Tuesday after school, who cover the expedition principles, introduce them to expedition equipment and look at first aid, camp craft and navigation. We expect all participants to abide by the 20 DofE Conditions during their expedition section. They will be formally assessed by a DofE assessor during their qualifying expedition.

Information regarding enrolment and expedition fees will be shared during term one.