Last Summer, a group of Year 10 students at Gumley House Convent School, including myself, embarked on a journey which truly has significantly changed our whole perspective and outlook on the world, and ultimately on ourselves.

About forty students from my School tackled and endured one of the most gruelling challenges around today: The Duke of Edinburgh Bronze Award. The Award consisted of two walks: a practice walk and a main assessed walk. As well as this, each candidate had to complete a physical recreation task, a task which involved improving on a specific skill, and we also had to provide a service.

The whole Duke of Edinburgh experience has taught me a lot about teamwork and that anything is possible if you have a positive mentality. Personally, I found the whole experience really tough as we were walking for around seven hours everyday; furthermore, when you’re not used to that much physical exercise the strain is much harder than you would think.

Overall, I think that it was completely worth it, because even though I came out with blisters and aching legs, I was luckily enough to be surrounded by all of my friends, which meant that I was able to have the time of my life. Bring on Silver!