On Monday, members of the Bloxham community attended 60th anniversary celebrations for the Duke of Edinburgh Award, hosted in the gardens of Buckingham Palace
This celebration was the biggest ever gathering of Duke of Edinburgh Gold Award winners, who filled the gardens at Buckingham Palace. During the event, more than 1000 young people were presented their awards by around 60 celebrities, including famous faces such as Anna Friel, James Haskell, Ronan Keating and Anton du Beke, who had all been drafted in to help HRH Prince Philip and the Earl and Countess of Wessex hand out badges and certificates to those who had completed the challenge. Pictured above are OBs Flora German (Wilberforce, 2010 ‘ 2015) and Jordan Cook (Wilson, 2008-2015) who both received their awards from Dr Christian Jessen, the well-known Channel 4 TV presenter, on the day. Eddy Heddon, Bloxham’s DofE Manager, joined other DofE leaders from clubs and schools across the country at the event in receiving a plaque in recognition of his support for the award.
Mr Heddon, who is retiring from Bloxham at the end of the year, was delighted to attend the event and said: ‘Bloxham School has held a licence to deliver the DofE Award for nine years and I feel honoured to have been invited to Buckingham Palace to receive a commemorative plaque to acknowledge and say thank you for our work with the Charity during its Diamond Anniversary year. Our young people are encouraged to push themselves outside of their comfort zones when doing their DofE and the skills that they develop can be life-changing, so for us to be involved is something very special. We are also proud that both Flora and Jordan received their Gold DofE Award at the Palace on the same day.’
DofE has gone from strength to strength at Bloxham in recent years, with no less than 63 Bloxham students currently working towards their Gold Award, and 14 other having completed theirs during this academic year.