Not much can happen when your abiding by lockdown rules, however, this didn’t stop pupils at All Saints’ having an adventure over the February half term break.
All Saints’ pupils were challenged to take part in the Mini DofE Award where they could showcase their skills and physical prowess as well as take part in a home-bound expedition and put our academy values into action by volunteering around the house or community.
In order to earn the Gold Award, pupils had to take photo or video evidence of them completing each of the 4 sections; Skill, Physical, Volunteering and an Expedition. Completing 3 sections earned a Silver Award and completing 2 sections earned a Bronze Award.
Mr Kerr received over 30 impressive submissions from pupils across Years 7 to 13. All Saints’ pupils proved themselves to have many amazing talents ranging from flipping pancakes to back flipping on a trampoline. Pupils learned new skills as part of the challenge, some pupils learned sign language whilst others perfected the art of baking and cooking!
Many good deeds and acts of kindness were done as part of the challenge, and I’m certain many families would like the Mini D of E award to run all year as they benefited from pupils running baths for their mothers, cooking valentines meals for their parents, doing the laundry and the hoovering! Some pupils had a wider impact by helping out in the community to deliver shopping to those in need.
The physical element of the award had pupils working up a sweat with intense home workouts, relaxing yoga, sweaty indoor bike rides and muddy outdoor bike rides! One pupil even planned and ran a workout session for their younger siblings as well as raised money for charity with a virtual walk.
The final element of the challenges was to ‘camp out’ for a night indoors. This challenge caught the imagination of many pupils who built incredible blanket forts stocked with snacks, movies and the occasional fluffy friend! In true camp spirit, one pupil even made a campfire using battery powered candles – I can’t imagine they had much luck toasting their marshmallows on that.
We are incredibly proud of the amazing deeds that our pupils have done in our community and for their families and the new skills they’ve learned for life and the physical limits they pushed themselves. The pupils at All Saint’s Academy are awesome adventurers and have shown that they have the values and principles that we cherish at the academy.
The D of E Team looks forward to welcoming our current Year 8 pupils to join the full Duke of Edinburgh Bronze Award next September. Any questions regarding the Duke of Edinburgh Award can be directed to Mr Kerr, the D of E Manager, at rkerr@asachelt.org.
