Stephen Perse staff take part in the Do It 4 Youth challenge

Published on 27/07/21

Following from the death of HRH Prince Philip earlier this year, the Duke of Edinburgh's Award launched a new initiative called Do It 4 Youth, where adult volunteers take on four challenges in order to raise money to support work with young people across the UK. Volunteers choose their challenges based on the four categories; physical, upskilling, willpower and community.

Four members of Stephen Perse staff signed up as a team with a range of challenges they set themselves to do over the month of July. The team represents the breadth of different sections of the Foundation and the philanthropic thread that is so important to both staff and students.

Dr Mark Woodward, Award Manager for DofE at Stephen Perse, represented the Sixth Form through his role as Head of Chemistry and a member of the University Guidance team. He set himself the challenge of learning piano, using the Simply Piano app to aid his learning; cycling more than 100km; giving up alcohol, and later in the year he plans to visit a convalescent home to talk with the elderly residents and hear their stories.

For his upskilling challenge Mr Woodward loaned an electronic piano from the school and used an app to help him learn

Mr Woodward found a non-alcoholic alternative for the month

You can find his fundraising page here.

Miss Katy Welsh, the new Assistant Manager for DofE from this September, represented the Senior School where she teaches Physics. She took on the physical challenge of relearning to ride a bicycle; learned how to restore and upholster a vintage chair, gave up chocolate for the month, and got involved with a local litter collection in her home area. You can find her blog and information through the Team page here.

In addition John White, a Year 6 teacher representing the Junior School, challenged himself to become healthier by going to the gym and swimming four times a week; giving up cakes, cookies, chocolate, crisps and coke; learning how to shoot a bow and arrow, and volunteering to cut his neighbours grass, put their bins out and donate blood platelets.

As part of his community challenge Mr White has been donating blood platelets

For the upskilling challenge he has been learning how to shoot a bow and arrow

To round off the Stephen Perse team, Wayne Talbot, who represented the Professional Support Staff, has been learning Spanish, walking 5K a day, taking the time to go out in nature to draw and has been maintaining a community garden to gather seeds for use in future gardens and donating the food grown to food banks.

The team have already met the initial donation target set by DofE for fundraising but with your help they can continue to raise funds. To see updates on the team's challenges and to donate please click here.