d of e silver & bronze expedition

Undeterred by the rain, our Year 12 Duke of Edinburgh students are pictured above on the first day of the Silver expedition in Cumbria yesterday, where they will be trained and mentored by professionals in the field in preparation for their qualifying expedition.

And this morning, our Year 10 D of E cohort set off from UGS to join them for their own Bronze qualifying trip, and they're pictured below on camp:

As a school we have been proud to support our students' participation in the Duke of Edinburgh awards for many, many years, and it is a core component of our extracurricular and enrichment provision.

The expeditions, and the over-arching D of E programme, that also incorporates volunteering, is a fantastic way for our students and young people to build confidence and self-belief; and to develop skills in team-working and leadership, in addition to a whole-life skill-set, all while contributing to the community and to wider society; and benefitting from a truly enriching and memorable experience.

With huge thanks to all our staff who support our students in this amazing opportunity.

Also taking place today in school today and over the course of this week:

This morning, 20 of our Year 12 Chemistry students competed in the Cambridge Chemistry Challenge, and we will be delighted to share the results in due course.

Year 12 also took advantage of the opportunity on Wednesday to engage in a Personal Statement Workshop led by Miss Hammond. This is an invaluable opportunity to develop and enrich this core aspect of applications to university, and a strong, well-crafted statement supports and progresses academic and career pathways.

We are also looking forward to celebrating the outstanding results of our students' participation in the UK Biology Challenge 2024, that saw many of them achieve a top-ranking score in this national competition: watch this space next week when Mrs Walsh will be delighted to share full details of the results!