Later on in the afternoon, there was a special Award Ceremony at the historical building of the National Council of SR to celebrate the overall success of the Duke of Edinburgh’s International Award (DofE IA) in Slovakia. Here 50 different schools met to be thanked by the DofE IA for all of the hard work that both staff and students put in to complete the different levels of the Award.
Prince Edward attended the ceremony to speak to the attending students and staff. He gave an inspiring speech about what the DofE IA is and what it stands for, also about his own experiences being involved in the award as a young person, he himself completed the Gold Award. As well as Prince Edward speaking, we heard many young people talk about their experiences. In addition, two students performed, one of which was our own Hoda Jahanpour, who played a beautiful piece on her cello. She represented BISB wonderfully, so much so that the Prince asked to meet her.
Our student representative was Nadine Pheby for her outstanding efforts when working towards the Silver Award. Mr. Harrison attended on behalf of the school and was presented with a lovely letter thanking the school, teachers and pupils for all of their hard work. Ms. Statovci was also lucky enough to attend on behalf of the staff that help to run the DofE IA. It was a great honour to be in the presence of the Prince and to hear all of the amazing stories about challenges and achievements of completing the award.
In the evening, Mr. Harrison attended a dinner which was definitely DofE IA related. All of the pre-dinner sessions were to do with the International Award – what it is, what the benefits are and how local companies could get involved.
We are honoured to receive such an acknowledgement for our school and Award centre and we will continue build and develop the award in the future.
Beata Romhanyi and Clare Statovci