Duke Of Edinburgh's Award

THE DUKE OF EDINBURGH AWARD

As a member of 213 Squadron, you will have the opportunity to participate in the Duke of Edinburgh Award scheme. (The corps is the largest operator of the award in the country, and all Kent cadets are encouraged to take part.) This award is a good way to make new friends and have a good time pushing yourself and achieving your goals. This scheme has 3 separate levels of Bronze, Silver and Gold, and each of these levels has four different sections which are :-

Service

The aim of this section of the award is to encourage service to individuals and to the community. At the squadron, we do this by getting the cadets involved in many different training courses, usually run by outside organisations. Courses we have run in the past have included Kent Police, Kent Fire Brigade, Red Cross, St. John's Ambulance, The Junior Sports Leader award (run by Medway Council) and helping out at the local play group. Also when cadets are promoted (to corporal, sergeant, etc.), the time they serve as an NCO also counts towards their service section.

Skills

The aim of this section is to encourage the discovery and development of practical and social skills and personal interests. At the squadron, cadets have to do academic lessons in order to pass corps classification exams. This nicely fits in nicely with this section of the award. Subjects we cover on the squadron are many and varied, but include map reading, communications, history of flight, and many more.

Expedition

The aim of this section is to encourage a spirit of adventure and discovery. Expeditions at the squadron are normally a hiking trip. This include spending nights in a tent, cooking your own food and carrying all this with you on the actual hike which is 15 miles (over 2 days) for Bronze, 30 miles (over 3 days) for Silver and 50 miles (over 4 days) for Gold. Cadets on the squadron usually do their expeditions on foot, but we have had cadet go by bike, horse and even by sailing ship. Cadets do all the planning of the expeditions themselves, and are closely monitored by squadron staff (many of whom hold the Basic Expedition Leaders Award, qualifying them to assess expeditions).

If you would like to see pictures of cadets on their expeditions, click here. (The page will take time to fully load, there are lots of pictures).

Physical

The aim of this section is to encourage participation and improvement in physical activity. At the squadron, we usually do this by means of a basic fitness test, which the cadets follow for a period of time and log their progress. We have had some cadets do other sports, including swimming and football, and achieving nationally recognised sports awards.

Residential

This section is an extra one, only undertaken at gold level. The aim of this section is to broaden young people’s experiences through involvement with others in a residential setting. At the squadron, as cadets doing Gold tend to be senior NCO's, this usually involves them assisting squadron or other staff on an Annual camp to an RAF station, or on one of the training courses run by Kent Wing, such as hill walking in Clanbedr. This section usually lasts a week.

Bronze, Silver and Gold ATC uniform badges

If you would like to know more about the award, check out the links section.