Going for gold at Buckingham Palace
On Friday 9 and Monday 12 May, a number of Wilson's students enjoyed a day to remember!
These students were the recipients of the prestigious Duke of Edinburgh’s Gold Award and as such were invited to a garden party in Buckingham Palace to recognise their achievements and celebrate their success.
To receive the Award, students needed to complete over a year’s worth of volunteering in the community, learning a new skill, and keeping physically fit and active. These students also went on two arduous 4-day expeditions to the Brecon Beacons during Year 12 (the weather for this particular cohort was some of the worst in recent memory!), where they needed to be entirely self-sufficient and carry everything they needed with them. On top of this, at Gold level participants also need to arrange their own residential section. For this, they must stay away from home with people they don’t know, working towards a common goal for five days.
Given that the DofE scheme itself sets a deadline of participants' 25th birthday to complete everything, being able to do so before leaving school is a superb achievement.
On Monday, I had the honour of being invited to attend along with the students and was able to celebrate their success with them and their parents which made for a very special day indeed.
We arrived just after 9am and enjoyed a delicious cupcake and a cup of tea in a #DofE keepsake thermos before exploring the gardens. There were garden games to play and students also enjoyed listening to the visiting speakers in the various locations. These included Roman Kemp, JB Gill from JLS and Harry Clark from The Traitors who all spoke at length about causes close to their hearts. I noticed that openness about mental health was a particular theme in there presentations, with resonates strongly with our values at Wilson's.
We then heard from the Duke of Edinburgh himself, Prince Edward, as well as the Chair of Trustees of the Award, Baroness Grey-Thompson DBE before Prince Edward moved through the garden talking to various Award holders.
Following this, there was just enough time for a variety of photo opportunities before it was time to leave the wonderful gardens just before 1pm.
The following students (or Old Wilsonians) have achieved their Award in the past year and either attended the event this week, or will be attending next year. Congratulations to them all!
Henry (OW), Gabriel (OW), Joshua (OW), Divy (OW), Haayed, Ben, Shravan (OW), Partha, Christopher (OW), Aryan (OW), Evan, Abhinav, Muhammad (OW), Akshay, Jack, Justin, Daniel, Nabarun, William, Minhyuk, Ollie, Aniketh and Mayuraharish!
Mr T Elwood
