FROM THE ARCHIVE
My Duke of Edinburgh’s Award Journey with OLCS and Beyond By Mary Hopkins - OLCS Staff (1986-2009)
I
became involved with The Duke of Edinburgh’s Award Scheme (DofE) by accident.
I was a mum with three small children, just considering a return to teaching after an 8-year break. A young girl who lived in the village knocked on our door one evening and told a tale of woe. The Ranger group in the village (senior guides 16+) had lost their leader and, although they planned all their activities themselves, they needed a responsible adult to agree to lead them. I was considered such an adult, apparently, as I was a teacher and had been a Girl Guide many years before. To this day I don’t know what motivated me to agree to attend one of their meetings to talk to them. I must admit that they were a great group of girls who quickly made me welcome and so I agreed to help them out. At the meeting the following week, they announced that they had all signed up to do their Duke of Edinburgh’s Award! This completely threw me as I was no walker, but on the positive side, I thought, at least I had a reasonable knowledge of map work. I went home that night and admitted to John what I’d let myself in for. “So you’ll have to help me,” I stated and, to his credit, he did. After all, he thoroughly enjoyed walking! The dye was cast, we never looked back. We worked as a team attending training courses, seeking advice and training and encouraging young girls, and then boys, with the three levels of the Award, Bronze, Silver and Gold. It wasn’t surprising when I applied for a post at Our Lady’s Convent School to teach Art and Art History that I included DofE on my CV and was asked about it at interview. Would I be willing to introduce the Award in the school alongside my teaching commitments?
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The Pelican
Little did I realise how eagerly my arrival at the school was anticipated by a group of girls, who in the very first lunch break of my first day at the school, arrived at the Art Room to ask when they could enrol with the Award scheme and when I would be calling a meeting. They were so enthusiastic, eager and persistent that I registered the school with the Award and had enrolled them all by the end of the year. This group took part in all the activities - Service, Physical and Skill - over the winter months and I was able to train them for their first expeditions in the Spring, both practice and qualifying. They were then able to continue to the Silver Award during the Summer term, completing both expeditions in one summer!
