Essential Feature
Duke of Edinburgh
Silver Award
Over the course of this year, I have been
fortunate enough to have the opportunity
to undertake my Duke of Edinburgh
Silver Award through Girlguiding. This
highly prestigious award helps to develop
personal qualities as well as allowing
you to give something back to the local
community. Girlguiding offers this award
to all members aged 14 - 25, including
the Senior Section and Young Leaders.
As the Award can be quite expensive to
do through other organisations such
as schools or
i n d e p e n d e n t l y,
Girlguiding
also offer grants
towards the cost
of the scheme,
making
it
accessible
to
everyone.
The
Award
i n v o l v e d
participating in volunteering, skills
and physical sections, for at least one
hour each week per section, which
introduces participants to activities they
would not ordinarily take part in. For
my volunteering section, I assisted at a
local Brownies unit every Monday night,
for girls aged 7-10, which allowed me
to share my own knowledge with the
girls while improving my organisation,
planning and leadership skills. This
consisted of planning weekly meetings,
running activities for the girls and
supporting leaders on outings where the
brownies tried different pursuits, such as
60
camping, stargazing and learning circus
skills. The attributes I gained from this
experience will not only help increase
my self confidence, but provides a great
sense of satisfaction for helping others
in the community, so I would highly
recommend the experience to anyone
who has the opportunity.
For the second section, you needed to
improve an existing skill or learn a new
one, which can range from music to rock
climbing. This allows you to tailor the
Award to your own personal strengths
and develop them accordingly so they
will be useful to you in the future. As
an avid mathematics enthusiast, I chose
to expand my
knowledge
by
learning
topics
outside the GCSE
syllabus
and
learnt to apply
them to numerous
p r o b l e m s .
Therefore my skills
section has given
me
advantage
for my further
studies as well as
contributing to my Duke of Edinburgh
Award.
The physical section is designed to
improve your fitness levels and introduce
you to new sports that you do not
usually take part in, especially as physical
education lessons decrease as you go
further up the school years. This means
that it is even more important to exercise
outside of school time, particularly when
your academic workload increases. For
my physical section, I learnt ballroom
dancing which was surprisingly strenuous
Nine issues in Culcheth Lymm Great Sankey & Penketh Chapelford Stockton Heath & Appleton
Thewlwall, Grappenhall & Latchford Birchwood Lowton & Golborne Newton-le-Willows