The Duke of Edinburgh’s Award at SCEGGS

Welcome to the new Bronze participants, welcome back to Silver and Gold.

We hope that all reading this have had a worthwhile holiday break and a good start to the term. We’d like to remind everyone that time in the outdoors is widely considered both mentally and physically beneficial, and is an excellent recreation for making new friends, developing stamina and resilience.

We were fortunate to run a Gold hike in the Blue Mountains before Christmas, and we congratulate our Gold participants who completed this and also to participants who completed their Residential Projects. These ranged from intensive courses run by the Australian Bar Association and First Aid courses to attending Crusader study camps or being a Youth Leader on a children’s camp.

Year 12 Gold participants who still have a hike to complete are encouraged to take up hike opportunities early in the year, before trials and the HSC demand all their attention. We encourage participants to take any option to complete an Expedition, as delaying may subject them to missing out – the usual problems such as bad weather, a sports injury, timetable conflicts, and so on. Some girls are reluctant to do so because they may be with a group outside their circle of friends, (or even a different year group), however we usually find the girls end up with new, positive friendships, and often have novel experiences or leadership opportunities.

Those girls starting Bronze are encouraged to:

Read the requirements of the Award here, knowing all the conditions and rules may save you a lot of time or inconvenience at a later stage.
Attend all the meetings that are held at school, and be diligent with organisation for the hikes.
Discuss your Components with potential Assessors and ask them to read and complete the NSW Assessor’s Volunteering Guide and your Award Plan and then email it to me or return to my desk in the Sports Office.
Get your components done sooner rather than later – it’s easy to fall behind, much harder to catch up – and keep up to date with logging your hours into your online Record Book. Remember to write one sentence per log and to reflect your progress and improvement, especially towards the end of your logs.
Embark on the Award with positive attitudes and remember: “we never said it was easy, but we do say it will be worthwhile”.

Finally, on a practical note, please remember:

Permission notes for hikes are due no later than the Wednesday prior to the hike.
Borrowed camping equipment is a shared resource, and should be treated with care and consideration – remember another girl will be using that equipment again, possibly within the week, so please respect their needs. Generally, equipment should be returned clean, dry and in good repair within two days of the end of your hike.
Never wash a tent in a washing machine – it destroys the waterproofing and renders the tent unusable!
If your hike clashes with a sport or other extracurricular commitment, it is up to you to inform those people affected, and make arrangements which are satisfactory to all concerned. Expeditions are not a “Get out of Sport” card.
If you have a technical problem with your online record book, contact the help desk on 1300 4 Dukes (1300 4 38537) or email.

Please remember that I am more than happy to discuss issues and ideas with participants via email or we can arrange to meet during lunch-times. We are looking forward to another exciting year of discovery, new experiences, learning, and delighting in nature with our ever-dependable students.

Joanne Bower
Duke of Edinburgh’s International Award Leader

Doric Swain
Duke of Edinburgh’s International Award Expedition Facilitator