Thinking of enrolling for the Silver Duke of Edinburgh's Award Scheme at LPGS?
Great news! Please read on!
Students and adults - we encourage you to read on carefully and discuss this at home so that you are aware of the commitment involved!
The Silver Duke of Edinburgh’s Award is a popular activity at LPGS and students may enrol from year 10 onwards.
PLEASE NOTE DoFE SILVER IS OPEN TO ALL - YOU DO NOT NEED TO HAVE DONE BRONZE FIRST.
The DofE journey takes students on adventures in many walks of life, learning new skills, making and deepening friendships, developing resilience and independence in problem solving, building self-confidence. We witness every year students demonstrating commitment, perseverance and determination as they hone attributes so valuable to further studies and for their futures in the world of work. It is for these reasons that a Duke of Edinburgh’s Award carries weight on a CV or application form, and students have a wealth of experiences to discuss at interviews and on personal statements.
To be meaningful to each participant, please understand that this does take time and effort and dedication to all sections. However participants have until their 25th birthday to complete it, and some may carry on spending time on their sections after leaving LPGS - our support continues for you. Our students have busy lives and it is perfectly possible to fit the Award in successfully with studies, homework and family commitments. Improving organisation and time management is part of the journey too. My greatest tip would be for the students to keep good records as they go along!
The Silver Award comprises four sections: Volunteering, Physical, Skills – students spend an hour a week on each of these activities for 3 or 6 months – and then the Expedition. Depending on the activities chosen, there may be no additional costs involved in completing the first three sections. The requirements are as follows:
Volunteering
This involves spending time for the benefit of the community, for a charity, or helping somebody else with tasks they are less able to complete alone. This can include taking part in fundraising, an environmental campaign, website help or online citizen science or humanities research projects such as Zooinverse. It cannot be a role which somebody else could be paid for, and so working unpaid for a business cannot count for DofE volunteering. Sometimes helping a family member can count, such as tutoring a younger sibling with their studies, but please check your ideas with me before getting started. Some students decide to help others at sports or performing arts clubs, but this time needs to be separate from time spent engaging in the sport/performance themselves, and with no financial benefit such as reduced membership costs.
Physical
Students must take part in a sport or physical activity. This may include regular training sessions which they do after school or at weekends, but timetabled PE lessons within the school day do not count. Dance is included here, as well as cycling or walking to school and many other ideas from acrobatics to zumba.
Skills
Some students play a musical instrument, practice languages with online apps, or are keen on drama, art, chess or computing and these are all activities which fall into this section. There are many other new skills which students may like to take up from learning sign-language, developing confidence in cooking for the family, growing your own vegetables in a window box, or taking part in school co-curricular lunch time and after school clubs.
The DofE website also has links to interesting free programmes such as managing personal finances, writing skills for budding journalists, first aid. The possibilities are endless – you chose your own activities!
The first three sections
Two of these sections take place over 3 months, the third for 6 months, with regular participation amounting to an hour a week/2 hours a fortnight on each activity. If there are any gaps, eg during school holidays, you simply add a few more weeks on at the end. So please KEEP GOOD RECORDS and do not assume that 3 or 6 calendar months is always sufficient. While some participants do spend over an hour each week on an activity as a matter of choice, the emphasis is on a sustained commitment over several months. So spending, say, 12 hours over 2 weekends or a half term will not be enough.
A suitably qualified or responsible adult (not a relative) must be available to oversee each of the sections and complete an assessor’s report at the end confirming the time spent, and how the student has worked towards their goals. This person could be, for example, a music teacher, sports coach, Brownie pack leader, family friend, or perhaps a teacher or form tutor. An email contact or phone number for this person must be included in the programme planner completed by each participant on the eDofE site when they get started after enrolling.
Students can check whether their chosen activities are acceptable for the Award by asking me or looking at the DofE website https://www.dofe.org This is important so that a student does not face the disappointment of spending 3 months persevering on an activity only to find it contradicts the rules of the Award.
Support
We encourage students to plan their own activities in discussion with you as some may involve transport and you will want to be sure where and with whom they are. Students need to take responsibility for uploading any required evidence to their eDofE online accounts, and this will be explained to them at a meeting following enrolment. We are available to advise, prompt and offer assistance, and your support checking in with them will be invaluable. Ultimately, it is up to them to take responsibility for completing the evidence to gain the Award.
Expeditions
The only section of the Award which we organise for the participants is the expedition section. Students must undertake training, and 2 three-day expeditions - a practice and qualifier. They will walk about 10km each day on each expedition, carrying all their kit and food. We will all camp together and students prepare and clean away their own meals on camp stoves.
Dates for the expedition will be confirmed in January 2026
Practice expedition –Cudham area
Qualifying (assessed) expedition Ashdown Forest area
Before the start of the practice expedition, each student will need to have borrowed, or bought, certain items of equipment. Having the right equipment is important and a full equipment list is attached and available of the DofE Firefly page.
In addition, expedition training tasks will be set on Firefly which may be, for example, watching a video and answering some questions, completing workbook pages, organising menus with their group or marking routes onto maps ready for the two expeditions. The majority of the training at Silver level will take place on the first expedition. Training will be mandatory to ensure students are adequately trained to safely and independently participate in the assessed expedition.
Silver expeditions are some of the most enjoyable. Students have matured since year 9 Bronze, work so well together, support each other through the challenges, and love relaxing and building fond memories after a Summer term of exams!
Enrolment
Please
- let me know by email from parents/carers to doe@lpgs.bromley.sch.uk that you would like your student to be enrolled for Silver DofE AND
- complete the online enrolment form here:-
- https://lpgs.fireflycloud.net/duke-of-edinburgh-award/dofe-at-lpgs-enrolment-and-edofeconsent, and
- pay the enrolment fee on MCAS.
The enrolment fee is available £36.00 to cover the enrolment, eDofE online portal access, completion certificates and a small share of our expedition overheads (eg minibus diesel). This is non-refundable once the edofe enrolment has been completed.
Students will receive their eDofE user names and passwords once payments have been received. We would encourage them to complete the start dates, objectives and assessor details as soon as they get this.
Expedition costs
Costs will depend on numbers of participants as we use an Approved Activity Provider for larger expeditions where costs can be around £355 per person to cover both expeditions. This will be payable in two instalments before the expeditions. For any cancellations from that point on, we will not be able to return the expedition costs. (For medical situations we are usually able to arrange a catch up date with the same assessors.)
Please note that Pupil Premium funding can usually be used for most of these expedition costs for eligible students. In particular circumstances the school may be able to offer other financial assistance. Please feel free to contact us for confirmation.
We look forward to welcoming this year's new Silver participants!