Duke Of Edinburgh 2020

A worthwhile challenge of teamwork, leadership, commitment and perseverance

From our experience, the Duke of Edinburgh scheme is a great way to enhance many valuable skills such as teamwork, leadership, commitment and perseverance. For us, it was a real adventure from beginning to end as we pushed ourselves through the many times we got lost.

Despite being unable to have the ‘full experience’ due to the current pandemic, we were certainly challenged and pushed ourselves out of our comfort zone, while receiving the support of our friends to make the experience both fun and memorable! We’ve learnt a new sense of confidence and have become a lot more independent and are now definitely considering doing the Silver DofE.

We began our walk very excited but quickly also very wet! The rain was torrential, and our waterproofs had proved pointless – for the first 2 or 3 hours they had worked, but by the 4th hour, when the rain was finally clearing up, we realised how soaked through our clothes really were! However, our moods stayed high and we were all joyous.

We managed to find a large log in the woods to sit down on and have some lunch – one of the moments everyone looks forward to the most on DofE! We ate an excessive amount of sausage rolls, chicken bites, cheese strings and apples. We even shared some with a mouse and a lone horse near a field full of angry cows along the way.

By our 7/8th mile, we had gotten sick of our wet waterproofs, so we took off our waterproof trousers and jackets. (Yes, we were obviously wearing clothes underneath!). We walked until we were almost finished… or so we thought. We had checked our map and had come to the conclusion that we only had about an hour left of our walk. Skip to 3 hours later, and we were all in an unknown field, waiting for our teacher, Mr Lowrie, to come and find us. When he eventually got to us, he helped us get back on track, and we were finally coming to an end; it was for REAL this time!

The end of our walk was our favourite part. We were all so excited, cheerful and insanely tired – as dramatic as it may sound. We had managed to walk the entire 7 hours without getting moody or annoyed at each other, and we felt like a team more than ever! When we finished, Mrs Langston congratulated us (the last group to finish) and we went straight home to shower, stretch and eat.

The Duke of Edinburugh expedition was one of the best experiences of our secondary school time. We made new friends, became closer and had a lot of fun. We would definitely suggest that you consider doing the Duke of Edinburgh challenge.

Annabel Isbecque and Millie Richardson