Last Thursday evening saw the culmination of a year of training, a navigation day, Practice Expedition and Assessed Expedition with all twelve Gold Participants giving their Presentations.

These were well recorded, researched and informative around the two teams' subjects of Flora, Fauna and Biodiversity for “Chasing Sheep" and Tourism and the Local Economy for “Fighting Flamingos".

They were also entertaining, fluent and heart felt.

All the students reflected positively on their experiences – in retrospect! Many lessons were learnt about equipment, food, navigation and general camp craft. Students also reported enjoying the beauty of environment and wanting to revisit the areas in the future, just for day walks! However, the most important lessons and experience were undoubtedly the team work, motivation skills and building on their resilience.

We are grateful to the parents who supported the students at these presentations. Also to Mr Dempsey who continues to play an active role as our verifier for the schools Duke of Edinburgh Award having been the founder of the award scheme at the school.

Finally to Julia Griffiths, long time and patient assessor of our Bronze participants who was able, after some illness last summer, to attend. This was particularly poignant as she was able to present Dominic Trott with his Gold badge (he has to go to The Palace for the certificate). Dominic is in his first year at University. He is one of our first home grown successful Gold participants. Julia was his assessor for his Silver expedition in 2013.

Gold Duke of Edinburgh is not a walk in the park. The expedition stretches students physically and emotionally with the ability to respond independently to situations as they arise. The other activities demand commitment, organisation and being able to work outside their comfort zone.

Well done to all the students.