The Oryx award is our DES based co-curricular award system for our year 9 to year 13 pupils. It is based on the International Award, but incorporates all aspects of our pupils’ co-curricular involvement in their school and our wider community.
At DES, we want to help mould our pupils into global citizens, who appreciate the need to develop all aspects of themselves whilst serving their community; the Oryx award is an integral part of that aim.
Last year over 130 of our students took part in the award and we are looking forward to building on that success.
The four core aims of the program are:
- To foster self-resilience, self-motivation, organisation and confidence in our students;
- To encourage our students to contribute and take an active role in their community;
- To ensure our students understand the importance of working effectively as part of a team;
- To promote and nurture an appreciation and concern for the environment.
There are five pillars of the program:
- School - Attendance, punctuality and house points;
- Representation – Representing their house and school in events throughout the year;
- Service – A voluntary activity carried out to help the community in some way;
- Activity – An out of school hours’ activity;
- Expeditions – A weekend activity where the students will explore an area, camping overnight.
There are three levels to the Oryx award: Bronze, Silver and Gold and each requires different amounts of credit accumulated through the five pillars of the program.
The program is free to join and the only cost to the individual will be a few items of equipment and food for the expeditions. Please note, the students will only be allowed to join the expeditions if they have shown commitment to the program via their records.
This will be the fifth year we have run this award at DES and we will continue to adapt the award to serve the needs of our pupils. It is an exciting opportunity to highlight all the good work our pupils do outside of the classroom and we look forward to acknowledging their success in the award ceremony later in the academic year.