D of E

The Duke of Edinburgh Gold Award

JMF6-Abingdon is proud and unique in including the Duke of Edinburgh Award scheme at Gold level to all our Sixth Form students. This award fosters leadership, teamwork, responsibility and confidence: skills that are highly valued by employers and university admissions tutors. The award itself is the equivalent of an additional A level. In Year 12 students receive practical tuition in expedition training (cooking, camp craft, map reading and compass skills), physical activity and developing personal skills.

All students will canoe for their expedition, and receive basic training in April. They then have a practice expedition in May and the final assessed expedition in the summer term.

As part of the Award, all students are required to complete 12 months voluntary service. Most students complete this through contributing to activities in the main school; helping out in lower school lessons, providing supervision around the site at break or lunchtime, becoming peer mentors for new year 7 students or leading and supervising clubs for younger students. Some students engage in voluntary activity outside school, which may be helping out a local charity, and this can be accredited towards the award.

Students are also required to complete a 4 day residential. The school has strong links with the NCS (National Citizenship Service), an organisation which can help to provide this element of the award. Students will also receive advice on other opportunities, including to places as far afield as Costa Rica.

For further details and to sign up to the Duke of Edinburgh Gold program at JMF6, please click here 

A Selection of photos from the 2023 Gold Expedition to the Wye Valley