We were greatly saddened to hear of the loss of His Royal Highness, The Duke of Edinburgh. On their return after the Easter break last week, our DofE participants here at Pate’s oversaw the Union Jack being set at half-mast and held a two minute silence as a mark of respect on behalf of the school.

The Duke of Edinburgh had a lifelong commitment to inspiring, empowering and developing young people and, in setting up The Duke of Edinburgh’s Award, he has helped transform the lives of millions of young people worldwide. In the UK alone, 6.7 million young people have benefitted from taking on the personal challenge of a DofE Award, setting themselves up with the skills, confidence and resilience to get the most out of life and make a difference to the world around them. 

The DofE Award was introduced at Cheltenham Grammar School in September 1963 with the 1964 Patesian reporting that forty boys from the fourth forms began their training with classes held in ‘First Aid, Motor Maintenance and Civil Defence’. Today DofE enjoys steady growth at Pate's and this year there are 138 Year 7 students (out of a year group of 150) participating in the Bronze award, whilst further up the school 87 students are participating in the Silver award and around 90 in the Gold award. Last weekend, our Outdoor Education team of professional instructors ran 10 Bronze Award practice walks with students navigating a route from Bourton-on-the-Water to Winchcombe – the students showed strong leadership skills and great enthusiasm in the near-perfect conditions!

We’ve put together a gallery to include some photos from last weekend’s practice walks and also some DofE expedition shots from the 1970’s taken by Mr G Parsons (Commanding Officer of the CCF 1971-1974 and maths teacher at CGS) sent to us by his son Colin (CGS & PGS 1981-1988) – if you recognise yourself in Mr Parsons' photos please post a comment!