At Hollywater, the pupils complete the Duke of Edinburgh Award as part of the Personal, Social, and Health education programme.  The award promotes independence, personal skill development and working as a team.

Pupils will be organised into teams (no more than 7 and a minimum of 4) taking into account their levels of independence and personal skills.

Most pupils will complete their Bronze award in YR10.  Some pupils will complete their Bronze award over 2 years during YR10 and YR11.  This is to allow them additional time to practise key elements and skills for their expedition section.

Those pupils achieving their Bronze award in 1 year, will continue on to their Silver award in YR11.

Pupils work with their class teachers to complete the four sections:

• Volunteering
• Skill
• Physical
• Expedition

Pupils are involved in the discussion about their aim and work within their teams for each section as part of their curriculum.  The sections take either 3 or 6 months to complete and are assessed by their class teachers or other Duke of Edinburgh leaders within school.  Silver teams may be assessed by an external assessor for their Expedition section.

The Expedition section includes night(s) away and the training for this continues all year, through extended walking activities which require some kit, purchased at the beginning of the year.

Initial costings:

• walking boots
• rucksack (minimum 30 litre)
• waterproof jacket and trousers

If there are any issues in purchasing this kit for the start of term, please speak to your child's class teacher as soon as possible.

This year the DofE Bronze Teams are supporting The Camrose Centre in Basingstoke for their volunteering section.

The Camrose Centre is a drop-in centre for anyone who is sleeping rough, homeless or vulnerably housed within Basingstoke and Deane.

The Bronze Team members are asking for donations. The pupils have been making posters and researching the types of items that the charity requires. Pupils have chosen to put together care rucksacks. These rucksacks would contain items from the clothing and food lists.

We will be taking our donations to Basingstoke at regular intervals.

For their skill section, the Bronze teams will be completing the SJA Schools First Aid programme, equipping them with basic first aid skills.

For their volunteering, the Silver team worked alongside the Deadwater Valley Rangers at Bordon Inclosure, Hogmoor Inclosure and Deadwater Valley Nature Reserve. 

This year's physical section for both the Bronze and Silver Teams will be learning a new sport!

We have purchased Golf practice packs and teaching scheme from The Golf Foundation on their Unleash the Drive campaign.  Pupils will learn basic skills of driving and putting.  We may discover a new Golf star!

Hollywater School's monthly Newsletter is being compiled by the Silver team for 6 months as part of their skill section.  They will be increasing their ability to use a variety of software, including Publisher, Microsoft 365 and Mailchimp.  They will be supported by adults to send emails to staff and the Friends of Hollywater School to ask for articles each month.

The Duke of Edinburgh Award is run at all three levels of Bronze, Silver and Gold within Hollywater FE and each section of each award is completed within school in teams of 4 – 7 students. 

The Skills Section has involved working in the FE Café as part of a mini-enterprise project making bacon rolls for staff within the school.  Students have worked in teams rotating through different skills needed to run the café. Each week there is a team on food preparation, another on cleaning, and a third on deliveries and payments.  The café is very popular and the students are able to make a small profit that goes towards their activities.

The Physical Section is undertaken at Bordon Leisure Centre in the Everyone Active Gym.  Students visit the gym weekly during the Autumn and Spring terms, accessing the equipment and undertaking individual fitness programmes.

The Volunteering Section is part of the South Western Railways Station Adopters programme.  The FE students have ‘adopted’ Farnham Station which they visit every week in order to keep it clean and tidy through litter picking and reporting any damages to the Station Master.  The students thoroughly enjoy collecting the litter and there is often some friendly competition between the teams as to who can collect the most.  SWR provide official railway hi-viz vests for everyone to wear when out on site.

The Expedition Section requires the teams to undertake a practice and assessed expedition each year.  These vary slightly in duration depending on the level of award the students are working on but range from 2 days/1 night for Bronze up to 4 days/3 nights for Gold. 

Expedition training allows the teams to practice the skills they need to undertake their expedition and journeys.  Training includes putting up tents, packing rucksacks, cooking on trangias, and mastering the skills for the journey they have chosen.  Journey skills are not always just hiking, students have also undertaken training in cycling and canoeing in order to complete their expeditions using these forms of transport.

For 2022/23 our expeditions are taking place in the New Forest where hiking, cycling and canoeing form part of the 3 days there, and on the Avon & Kennet Canal where they are traversing the locks on an adapted barge.  Plans are already underway for even more adventurous expeditions in 2023/24 as we have a number of students going for Gold!

The Residential Section is only a formal requirement for Gold Award teams, 4 days/5 nights away working with people they do not know.  However, Bronze and Silver do not miss out as they come along too!  We are currently in the planning stages for our next residential which should take place in Wales at a very special school.  Our previous residential, at Avon Tyrell, was hugely successful and greatly improved the independence and life skills of the students.