Duke of Edinburgh (DofE)

The DofE Award at St John’s

All St John’s students in Year 9 and above have the opportunity to enrol for The Duke of Edinburgh Award. The programme is introduced to students during assemblies and interested Year 9 students and parents can access our virtual introductions on this page to find out more about how the DofE programme works and what the costs are.

Students in Year 9 can enrol for the Bronze Award, and can continue to the Silver Award in Year 10. Sixth Form students can enrol for the prestigious Gold Award.

Check the latest DofE News and links to forms and PDFs in the Downloads section at the bottom of the page.

Expedition

The Expedition element of the Bronze & Silver Award at St John’s is run by BXM Expeditions, an official DofE Approved Activity Provider. The Bronze & Silver expeditions have three parts; a one-day training session, a practice expedition, and an assessment expedition, and it is compulsory that students attend all three parts.

Students are asked to visit the BXM website and view the training videos prior to attending their Training day. See Weblinks below. The BXM kit list is also available on the BXM website or in Downloads below.

If you are unable to provide these items, it may be possible to borrow rucksacks, sleeping bags etc. so please contact us if you have any concerns about the kit.

DofE sections

DofE students have to take part in four different activities; the Expedition, Volunteering, Skill and Physical. Gold Award students also have to participate in a five-day residential. Apart from the expedition, all activities should be organised independently by the students, who have to log their activities, upload any evidence, and then ask someone (not a parent) to write an Assessor Report for them.

The DofE website has a lot of useful information about the types of activities students can count towards their award, and forms and other information are available on the St John’s SharePoint site. The Downloads and the Weblinks sections below contain links to useful information. Please bear in mind the following:

• Volunteering must be for a not-for-profit organisation (the only exception to this is helping in a care home)
• Volunteering does not include helping family members
• Dance/fitness/sport are all considered to be Physical activities and not a Skill
• Each section needs an Assessor. Parents cannot be Assessors

St John’s DofE leader is Mr L Broadhurst, with Mrs K Nightingale assisting.

We recommend that students check with the DofE leaders at St John’s before commencing any activities which may not qualify under DofE regulations. Planning forms can be downloaded from the DofE website.

Dates for 2025-2026

We are excited to say that we have arranged to safely conduct our DofE expeditions; following government guidelines and still meeting the 20 DofE criteria.  Previous restrictions on ‘residential’ trips have been lifted – more information will follow shortly.

The Final Date for enrolment is Friday 5th September 2025 for Bronze, Friday 24 October 2025 for Silver and Gold. Deposits are due at that time.

The deadline for final payments is 19th December 2025 for all three levels.

There is now no separate training day for the Gold expedition.  Day one of the expedition includes training.

Useful documents and links

Useful documents such as enrolment letters and application forms, kit list and programme ideas are available in the Downloads and Weblinks drop-down sections below.