The Duke of Edinburgh's Award

Activities that previous generations encountered routinely must often be organised intentionally.

Adventure activities, leadership activities, volunteering, public speaking, Duke of Edinburgh, student leadership, enterprise projects, mentoring, outdoor education.

They're not educational extras.

They're opportunities to practice being an adult.

She contacted me in the September before and said, oh, can I come? But yes, because our paths have crossed a little bit.

We'd met once at the Duke of Edinburgh Awards when we were presenting gold awards.

But we didn't really know each other and now know each other really well.

And it was an absolute joy to hear of her experiences of Everest because they were very different to mine.

Yeah.

You're part of the Duke of Edinburgh programme, aren't you, as well? So what's that been? And just talk me through that.

Some parts have been challenging, some parts a bit easier.

We've just finished the final qualifying expedition.

We knew not to pack.

I wore the next hoodie.

We got a Duke of Edinburgh hoodie.

I wore that and I was soaked to the bone.

So I think instilling STEM subjects is obviously the way we talk about them now was important and it kept my options open.

But alongside all of that, at school, we also got the chance to do the Duke of Edinburgh Awards.

And, you know, that again was just a great way of...

Actually being able to experience time in nature and appreciate it more and gain so many different skills.

And, you know, like 17, it's just unbelievable, isn't it? But it's that's not all they were doing during weekends like this.

I got to chat to some of the instructors about the Duke of Edinburgh Award, which is I didn't realize, but it's internationally recognized and such a fantastic skill to have a string to your bow.

for, you know, if you're applying for jobs or universities.

And being a cadet means that you are ticking a lot of boxes for everything you're going to need.

but someone said, I remember someone saying to me, honestly, I was going through the field and a cow charged at me.

You know what, I've had a sheep charge at me when I was doing my Duke of Edinburgh award.

We had to cross a field and they were just like, proper fucking like, how earthen that is.

Really? So there was about eight of us and we had to create a diversion.

I'll have to stop my fire.

Sami here is going to attempt to make a fire from his Duke of Edinburgh silver award.

I

actually never did Duke of Edinburgh.

You didn't? I didn't.

Ready? Yeah, you hold it down and then you push it down.

It might not be exactly the same and it probably wouldn't be, but they may have an opportunity there to say, oh, well, I did this during my...

Duke of Edinburgh Award during a hike, you know, there might have been a problem and they were able to very calmly resolve the issue and it could be that the student applies that experience to the kind of work the employer is describing, so that's perfect to kind of think about those sorts of answers and questions for employers.

And

In our conversation, we very much looked at the perspective of students and how they can prepare for careers fairs.