Students gain bronze and silver 'iDEA' awards

In Year 10 our girls study ‘iDEA’, an innovative programme which enables students to develop their digital, enterprise and employability skills, as they progress through a series of online challenges to gain Bronze, Silver and Gold level awards. iDEA is the digital and enterprise equivalent of The Duke of Edinburgh's Award. Bronze is beginner, Silver intermediate and Gold is advanced.

These industry-recognised awards support career progression and offer a flexible mix of topics. Girls choose units of study to support their particular interests and ambitions for the future. The iDEA programme covers five key areas:

• Citizen
• Worker
• Maker
• Entrepreneur
• Gamer

At least 30 of our students have already gained Bronze awards, and three have achieved Silver awards. As yet they cannot go onto the Gold - the course is so new it isn't finished yet!

Year 10 student Louise P. says: “I have recently achieved my silver 'iDEA' award in my ICT lessons this year. It challenges and teaches you about all sorts of ideas. As you go along you unlock badges and have to achieve as many as you can to earn points which ultimately add up to earn the award. Having completed bronze I went on to complete the silver award, which was really interesting. I learnt a lot, including the history of computing and social media. I think my peers and I would agree the hardest part was gaining the coding badges!”

Sarah R. said: "I first heard of the The Duke of York Award in our Year 10 ICT lessons, where our teacher introduced it to us, describing it as a digital version of the Duke of Edinburgh's Award. It is a platform through which you complete badges about digital, enterprise and employability skills in the four categories of citizen, maker, worker and entrepreneur. Each badge you complete has a point value and all of your points are added up to earn you the bronze award. You then move onto the silver award where an extra category (gamer) is added and new badges are available to do. I enjoy the citizen section the most, as it teaches you about how the industries and companies use social media, colours and marketing to target their audience. In silver, you are also taught the employability skills that are needed in the workplace. 

The gold award is scheduled to be available later this year, which I’m planning to do as soon as it comes out. I will take all of my new skills I have learnt from the Duke of York courses into my future studies and work. I believe that iDEA has been very useful and I have enjoyed completing it."

Learn more about iDEA

Learn more about how we are a digital school