The International Award is split into 4 sections: Service,
Skill, Expedition
and Physical Receation. To complete
the award it is necessary to pass all 4 sections.
The Award is also run at three levels; Bronze, Silver and
Gold. The higher the level, the greater the length of time
and commitment required in each of the four sections. For
more details, refer to the International Award web
site.
The sections of the Award are:
Service
As it implies this section is about providing some kind
of service to others. Many of our students work in the school
tuck shop or the school charity committee. Some go on hospital
visits or beach cleaning or help out with the activities
that are run in the primary school. Of the four sections
this is the one the students find the most difficult to
complete as the opportunities for voluntary and charity
work outside of the school activities are rather limited.
However, as usual the resourceful find a way to make a useful
contribution somewhere in the community.
Skill
In this section students should be developing themselves
in some aspect and the rule of thumb for the activity is
that it is not physical exercise so if they are interested
in Football they could be developing their coaching skills
or planning a series of training sessions for some younger
students. Similarly a student could be developing a musical
or language talent as long as these were not part of the
usual school curriculum. This is usually a very enjoyable
section of the award as it allows student to try something
new and therefore helps develop them as an individual
Expedition / Adventurous Journey
Th expedition can take a number of forms. Historically,
hiking in the desert is the most popular, although we have
also had students sailing to Bahrain or Abu Dhabi and others
trekking on horseback.
Walking in the desert may not sound like much fun but the
students at QIS seem to thrive upon it. For Bronze level
we walk for two days and camp for a night and at Silver
we walk for three days and camp for two nights. When we
go for gold next year the students will be going out for
four days of walking and three nights of camping.
To give you an idea of the expeditions I have included
descriptions of:
- a wet and eventful desert
trek we undertook in February 2007
- a sailing expedition
to Bahrain and back, undertaken by Carlo Lucci (12SF)
in March 2006.
Physical Recreation
As it sounds this is a section where students are doing
something physical. They undertake an activity of their
choice for a period with an objective that over the time
they will show some improvement. We have had students involved
in horse riding, in line skating, hockey, karate, netball,
football, volleyball, athletics and many others. Usually
this is a section that active students have little difficulty
with as they are often undertaking several physical activities
after school that can count towards the award, however it
is not based on physical ability rather the idea of improvement
from what ever your starting point is.
