Duke of Edinburgh

All the action from Semester 1 

The internationally recognised Duke of Edinburgh (DOE) Award at NHS, is an awesome opportunity for our Year 9 students to develop themselves holistically; connect with their peers, their local community, and their natural world. 

Our Semester 1 DOE students are making excellent progress in the individual skill, service and physical recreation components of their Bronze Award; and we’ve been so impressed by the way they’ve interacted as a class with people of different demographics, ages, and interests over this term. 

Merri Creek Primary School coaching sessions 

Our awardees ran outstanding coaching sessions in the codes of Netball/Basketball, AFL 9’s, T-Ball & Soccer for Year 6 Merri Creek Primary School students, in preparation for their interschool sporting Gala Day. The joy that our Year 9s brought these younger students was evident in both their happy faces and eager engagement. We received fantastic feedback from Merri Creek students and staff on their mentorship – to witness the students have such seamless, positive connections with one another was extremely rewarding. 

St Kilda Beach Cleanup 

Last week, we cleaned up St Kilda beach with volunteer icon Jill of 3184 Love our Street & Beach Patrol. Using their clever Litter Stopper app, we removed: 

8 kg of litter 

270 items of plastic categorised, including: 

42 drink bottles & cans  

39 hard plastic fragments (sharp & can cut animals internally if swallowed… nasty) 

39 soft plastics 

29 food wrappers/pieces  

8 sauce sachets/fish/lids 

6 coffee cups/other cups/lids 

4 balloons/strings 

45 cigarette butts (some of the 8 trillion that end up in the World Ocean each year!) 

These stats not including a few extra big collection accidentally already into the bin, before we popped the data into Litter Stopper! 

In Jill’s words: 

Your students did a fantastic job on a beach that council had “just cleaned” and directly protected local seabirds (penguins, cormorants, ducks, swans, pelicans, gulls, oyster catchers) that could have ingested this rubbish or become entangled. Penguins are less likely now to use plastic in their nests. Congratulations! 

Bushcraft Skills & Minimal Impact practices 

End-of-year camp preparation & training is also underway! We’re practising bush skills, such as the Leave No Trace Principles, during our upcoming Dights Falls hike and tree planting session with Merri Creek Management Committee (MCMC). We battled it out during our Masterchef Challenge and made some seriously impressive meals on the Trangia stoves, giving the Year 11 Outdoor & Environmental Studies students a serious run for their money ;) 

Thanks for an amazing start to their year Bronze Awardees – looking forward to meeting our Semester 2 cohort very soon and all uniting for an epic week of hiking, mountain biking & surfing in Anglesea for Term 4! 

Awards Ceremony Term 3 

Details will be published early Term 3 for graduates of our COVID-impacted program and 2022 cohort. We’re so excited to celebrate your incredible resilience. If you’re a COVID-affected student & would like to get in touch, Miss Malcom would love to hear from you: please email Rachel.Malcolm@nhs.vic.edu.au  

Thinking of choosing Duke of Edinburgh as a Year 9 elective?! The award is your OYSTER! 

Read below for of our Semester 1 2023 student testimonies and/or please don’t hesitate to get in touch via the email above. 

What I loved about my Duke of Ed class were the people in it, the whole class connected, and we got off to an amazing start. The activities that we have experienced made my day when we did them and I got a lot out of them, learning experiences and connections with other people. With the award so far, I have gotten a lot out of it especially the volunteer work, working with other younger people is so fun to go to and you make other connections outside of the award with other people doing it. If you are going to do Duke of Ed, do it! It is such a fun experience, and I would have loved if it was the whole year. I’m looking forward to the camp at the end of the year and trying out new things, aka the cooking which we have done at school taking it to the camp. – Sienna  

Duke of Ed as a whole really made me get out of my comfort zone and connect with different and new people, the relationships that I have formed during this semester are ones I know I will keep for a long time. The tasks we are faced with in Duke of Ed are so different and unlike any others, I really love the way that Duke of Ed brings out the best in everyone and not only lets you connect with other people but also yourself. There is such a support network of people that help you out and assist you during your experience, another thing I love about Duke of Ed is the fact that everything you do is completely moulded to your interests and ideas. Duke of Ed is a great way to tap into anything that you feel your good at or want to get better at and there are no limits. The activities we have done this semester are not only enjoyable but beneficial and it’s safe to say everyone has learnt a lot. If your unsure about Duke of Ed, just go for it! I can almost guarantee it’s something you will enjoy and learn a lot from. – Olivia