After receiving confirmation of your email address, the Parental Consent Form, and the registration fee from the National Office, Greenfield Forest School will activate your Student and Parent Portal (SP2). The website for this platform is: https://www.thegreenfield.co.nz/welcome/.

Once you have registered your award, you will receive an email with your username and student number from the SP2. Please follow the instructions in the email to change your password immediately.

Next, please pay the enrollment administration fee to the Greenfield Forest School through the payment platform on SP2. This fee covers the materials, equipment, training, venues, and staff time (including but not limited to: recording students’ activity progress, tracking each student’s award completion, answering questions from parents or students, maintaining our online platform) involved in running the Duke of Edinburgh Award at the Greenfield Forest School. This ensures that your enrollment is properly managed and kept up to date.

At the same time, please complete our unique online training course and questionnaire as soon as possible. Only when your score is 100% will your applications for subsequent activities be considered.

Plan what to do for each section

Choose which activities you want to complete in three sections to complete the award challenge. These three sections are Skills, Physical Recreation and Voluntary Service. Please choose the activities according to your passion and ambition, otherwise you will find it hard to stick to the end. If you are not very familiar with your own interests and passions, this is a great opportunity to find your personal interests and develop yourself as a curious driven learner.

The adventure expedition subject – Forest School will provide you with adventure activities that meet the award standards and follow the order below:

• Preparation and Training –> Practice Journey –> Qualifying Journey

Choose an assessor for each activity. The assessor is an adult with appropriate skills, experience and/or qualifications who is not a family member or your award leader. Your assessor should help you set goals and communicate with you at least every 28 days about what you are doing. This way, your assessor can guide your progress and provide improvement suggestions in a timely manner.

Once your chosen activity is approved, you need to make sure you start recording every time you do it. Each section activity requires an average of one hour per week. After the first hour of recording, if your activity only happens once every two weeks or once a month, then you can record 2 hours every two weeks or 4 hours every 28 days in subsequent logs. Your log should reflect your activity goals and content. You can add a second activity, but you need a second assessor, and you can find out how to record your log by clicking here.

When you finish an activity for a section, you need to ask your assessor to write a assessment for you. You can do this online or print out your activity log and have your assessor sign it. After signing, your Award Leader will decide whether to approve the completion of this section based on the award criteria, log records and your assessor’s assessment.

After completing all the requirements for your sections, submit your Request for Award Sign Off through ORB for your award leader to review and approve. When he recommend you for the award, his comments and feedback will be sent to the national office for final verification. After verification, you will receive a digital copy of your certificate and badge by email. A paper certificate and badge will be sent to your Award Leader in the following weeks.

If you achieve the Bronze or Silver Award, the Greenfield Forest School will host an award ceremony for you. These ceremonies are often held together with the Greenfield Education Forum where you may meet admission officers from top universities in the world, insightful educators and energetic young people like yourself. This will be an opportunity to access rich educational resources and make more friends. Of course, you may not be able to attend for some reasons, in which case you can wait for the next opportunity or request the Greenfield Forest School to mail it to a designated address within New Zealand. You need to provide written instructions and prepay $30 as postage.

If you achieve the Gold Award, you will be invited to attend the Gold Award ceremony to celebrate your achievement. The Governor-General will attend the ceremony whenever possible. Sometimes, Her Excellency may have to change her plans due to other official duties and miss the ceremony.

These ceremonies are special occasions to celebrate your leadership, creativity, perseverance and empathy that you have demonstrated throughout your award journey, and also to witness your extraordinary growth experience.