Duke of Edinburgh Award Scheme

Welcome to the Duke of Edinburgh Award Scheme that we run here at the Willink. Every year around 75 students undertake their Bronze award, around 35 take their Silver award, and around 10 students work to complete their Gold. The Award 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 as well as a recognised mark of achievement; respected by employers. Achieving an Award will give skills, confidence and an edge over others when applying for college, university or a job. It goes beyond academic achievements and universities want to see evidence of so called ‘soft skills’ that have developed through extra-curricular activities, such as communication, commitment, leadership and teamwork. The DofE Award is a fantastic way to demonstrate and evidence these skills in practice.

An Introduction to Duke of Edinburgh

Below you will find information that aims to provide you with an overview of the Duke of Edinburgh Award Scheme. Please click on the red sections below to access this information.

In addition to the information on this page, we also have dedicated webpages for each of the three awards: Bronze, Silver and Gold. To learn more about each Award, please visit our specific webpages:

Bronze Award - Click here
Silver Award - Click here
Gold Award - Click here

Parents

Watch this video to learn about the values of taking part in the Duke of Edinburgh Award Scheme:

Why the DofE is valuable on your CV

Virtual Information Sessions

Duke of Edinburgh typically holds Virtual Information Sessions for parents and students at the start of the academic year. A series of such sessions took place during the Autumn term of 2024. Currently, no Virtual Information Sessions are available. We will share details of future sessions here as soon as they are announced.

To learn more about each Award, please visit our specific webpages:

Bronze Award - Click here
Silver Award - Click here
Gold Award - Click here

Students

To learn more about each Award, please visit our specific webpages:

Bronze Award - Click here
Silver Award - Click here
Gold Award - Click here

For more information about Duke of Edinburgh, no matter what your award level, please visit these links:

Assessor Reports

To complete the award at bronze, silver or gold young people need to submit an assessor report about the activity that they have undertaken. This should be completed by the adult responsible while the activity was being undertaken. The report cannot be filled out by a family member or relative, or by the young person themselves. It should follow the format explained in the video linked below:

If you need spare assessor 'cards' they are available to download here:

Free online courses that can be completed for your DofE Skills section

The DofE are working in partnership with IBM SkillsBuild to enable DofE participants to access 100s of courses and certifications to complete the Skills section of their Bronze, Silver or Gold Award. Click here to learn more and to sign up.

Choose from a wide range of digital learning in tech and professional skills that employers need in their teams today.

Courses include: