Mentoring Case Studies: Trainer Notes

CASE STUDY 1
A new Award Leader in your Award Centre prepares a presentation on the Award programme for her group.
While presenting it, she gives the young people details on what they will follow for their Bronze Award:
 Service: Training through the school
 Skills: One available through the school
 Physical recreation: One of the after school clubs run by the sports department
 Adventurous Journey: Completing the school annual camp
You were at the presentation and now need to give your feedback to the new Award Leader.
Discuss the above with the Award Leader – what issues can you see with the activities?

NOTES: The Award Leader should never tell the young people what to do – it is their Award, they should be
free to choose their own activities for each section. Another point to flag is the type of activities she
suggests - everything is done by or in the school. This is definitely not good practice, please encourage
participants to go out of their comfort zone and find their own activities/clubs in their community. If there is
no other option, a service activity within the school is a possibility, especially for Bronze – it is
understandable that there might for instance be a language barrier or a law that says they cannot volunteer
under 16 years (this is the case in Poland for example). For Silver, however, they should be more pro-active
and try to find something outside the school or at the very least ensure that their activity is more
challenging.

CASE STUDY 2
A young person in your school has completed a First Aid course whilst a member of the Scouts. They now
want to do First Aid for the Service section of their Silver Award, and he would like you to approve his course
and certificate (that he achieved whilst with the Scouts) as fulfilling the section requirement.
Discuss the above with the participant – what information and advice would you give him?

NOTES: A participant’s Award journey starts when they sign up. Only activities they undertake from that
moment onwards count towards the completion of their Award. If they already have a First Aid certificate,
then their starting point is simply different from those without experience. But there are still many things
they can learn, so they should adjust their target according to their starting point and see what they can
reach doing - for example, more advance first aid course for the next 6 months.

A further issue is that they want to do this for the Service section. The service section is about providing
service to other people; just acquiring first aid skills is therefore not enough. The Award acknowledges that
some service activities can only be carried out after a proper training. That is why for the service section the
Award allows participants to spend up to one-third of their time (so 2 of the required 6 months for Silver)
doing training in order to carry out the activity properly. In this case for example, the participant can do two
more months of training and then be a first aider at weekly sports events. Or the participant can just do 6
months of service as a first aider at sports events, since they already have the first aid certificate and should
be qualified to do this.

© 2019 The Duke of Edinburgh’s International Award Foundation

Finally, it is good to positively encourage participants in any way you can. In this case an Award Leader could
do this by asking the participant if they could teach the rest of the Award teams the basics of first aid to
prepare for their Adventurous Journeys.

CASE STUDY 3
After looking at what other participants have done on the Award website for inspiration, a participant has
decided to take up sailing for their Physical Recreation section activity. The nearest sailing location is over
25km away, and there are very few transport links.
You do not want them to lose interest in the Award, but are concerned that they will not be able to make a
regular commitment and lose their enthusiasm.
Action: Discuss the above with the participant – what advice would you offer in this situation.

NOTES: Start with positive encouragement because it is great that they have chosen an activity. Then the
Award Leader could ask some practical questions to make sure the participant realises this is not going to be
very easy, unless they can get a lift to the sailing location every week, for example. They should be doing
their activity regularly (i.e. 1 hour a week) - they cannot just go sailing for the whole weekend and log all
their hours at once. Remind delegates that the Award is a marathon, not a sprint - we want the activities to
become part of their weekly routine, then the impact is much bigger. If the participant can offer solutions
and answers, then why not let them do this? If there is no way they could arrange the logistics, perhaps
another activity is a better idea.

CASE STUDY 4
A group of parents have decided they want to incentivise their children to complete their Gold Awards, as they
want then to be able to add their Award on their university applications.
To do this they have decided to offer their children $200 each if they complete.
Action: Discuss the above with the nominated parent – what issues would you outline? What advice would
you give?

NOTES: Talk to the parents about the guiding principles of the Award, in particular the ‘voluntary’ element
here seems to be lost to them. Their children should participate because they want to, especially when they
reach the Gold level, they should also be able to show perseverance. If they cannot finish their Award
before they go to University, that’s OK, they can always finish their Gold at University – remind them that
they can participate until their 25th birthday.

CASE STUDY 5
An assessor rings you to say that the young people who are currently designing websites for their Skills section
are not nearly as competent as those who did it last year. The assessor is thinking of failing them.
Action: Discuss the above with the assessor – how would you deal with this situation?

NOTES: The Assessor has clearly misunderstood some of the guiding principles of the Award: it is non-
competitive, so he should never compare this year’s group with last year’s. Each participant should have
their own starting level and their personal target. The word ‘fail’ does not occur within the Award
programme: participants may not have reached their targets (yet), but that is a different issue. The role of
the Award Leader here is first to talk to the Assessor and then to talk to the participants to see how they are

© 2019 The Duke of Edinburgh’s International Award Foundation

getting on with their personal targets and why they may not be progressing as much as expected (if that is
indeed the case).

Another thing to flag here is that each activity should be a personal choice of a participant. Of course it
could be the case that more participants choose to do the same activity, but it is really not a group activity
for Skills. Encourage participants to go out of their comfort zone and follow their own dreams, don’t just let
them choose an activity because everyone else is doing that too.

CASE STUDY 6
A young person started swimming for the Physical Recreation section of their Bronze Award, and then
progressed to swimming for the school for their Silver Award.
They now want to do swimming for their Gold Award as they are hoping to be selected for the local swimming
team.
Action: Discuss the above with the participant – what questions would you ask and what advice would you
give?

NOTES: Two main things to flag here. First of all, if they continue with the same activity, is it still challenging
enough? If it is and if they can set a great new target for themselves, this should be OK, but the Award
Leader could also look at the other activities the participant has chosen for the other sections to see if it is
still a balanced programme. If this is an ‘old’ activity, then perhaps for Service or Skills section the
participant should choose a new or more challenging activity.

Secondly, this specific target of making the local team is nice and it sounds challenging, but it is not really
appropriate for the Award, because it might depend on external factors as well. You want the participants
to experience success if they put hard work and effort into it and do their activity consistently. It could be
the case that a participant does this, and then still is not selected for this team for other reasons, for
example, it could be that more people apply to be on the team this year and they do a lottery to see who
gets a place, or some other factor that is out of everyone’s control. This could lead to the participant feeling
disappointed not only because they didn’t make the team, but also because they feel like they have ‘failed’
to reach their target for the Award as well. To avoid this Award Leaders could suggest targets that involve
reaching a specific time or improving their personal best in the backstroke etc. instead.

CASE STUDY 7
A busy 16 year old is starting his Gold Award. When discussing his activity choices he says he would like to:
 Continue helping at the local old people’s home as he has been doing this for the last three years
 Complete his Adventurous Journey on horseback (he is currently club captain at the local horse riding
club)
 Do rugby for his Physical Recreation (he is already a member of the local rugby club)
Action: Discuss the above would the participant – as his Award Leader, how would you advise him?

NOTES: The key guiding principle here is ‘balanced’- all the activities mentioned are ‘old/familiar’ to the
student – this is not a good idea. Furthermore, the question is if they are really challenged or if this is
something the participant just tries to get done as quickly and easily as possible. This is not in the spirit of
the Award - the participants should be challenged on all levels so they can develop themselves.

© 2019 The Duke of Edinburgh’s International Award Foundation

In addition, an Adventurous Journey on horseback is nice, but it requires an entire team of experienced
horse riders and they should also know how to take care of their horses during the journey etc. This is not
impossible, but it requires a lot more preparation and training than the average Adventurous Journey and it
will be difficult to find a whole team of people who can do this as well. Ask the participant how they think
they can solve these issues. If they can, then let them work on it and find an appropriate Supervisor and
Assessor for the journey. If they can’t, then perhaps it is better to find a different mode of travel for the
journey.

CASE STUDY 8
A participant is doing a sports leader award during a free period at school. They would like to count this for
their Service section of the award.
Action: Discuss the situation and the issues raised with the participant – what advice would you give?

NOTES: The question here is whether the sports leader award is part of the student’s curriculum or not. The
Award should be voluntary and thus only consist of extra-curricular activities - if this is extra-curricular then
it should be fine to do this for the Service section. If not, they need to find another activity that is not part of
their curriculum (or non-voluntary in another sense, like a paid job).

CASE STUDY 9
A direct entrant at Gold intends to do cricket for their Physical Recreation section.
They would like the Physical recreation section to be the longest section (18 months) and are concerned as the
cricket season only lasts four months.
Action: Discuss the above with the participant – what advice would you give?

NOTES: It’s possible they could do two full cricket seasons and in between talk to their Assessor (their
cricket coach) on how to improve their fitness or technique indoors. There are plenty of aspects they could
train to get better at cricket in between the two seasons.

Touch on the fact that sometimes participants might really be unable to continue one activity for the entire
duration of their Award, for example because they break their leg, etc. In those exceptional cases,
participants can switch activities, e.g. talk to a physiotherapist and make the recovery period part of their
Award in this case. If a participant does do two activities, they need to have a proper Assessor and target for
each activity and both assessors need to sign the assessors report that the participants upload to the ORB.
More than two activities are generally not allowed - two is already stretching the principle of
‘perseverance’, especially for Bronze as the activities only last 3-6 months. Participants should always be
encouraged to finish the activity they started, because they will learn even more if they can go through a
period of less motivation or progress, then their feeling of success and achievement will be even greater. If
they really have to give up one activity, they should have a good reason.

CASE STUDY 10
A young person decides they would like to do a coast-to-coast walk to raise money for a local charity for their
Bronze Award.
They have never done any long distance walking before, their map reading skills are very basic and they do not
know how to use a compass.
Action: Discuss the above with the participant – what advice would you offer?

© 2019 The Duke of Edinburgh’s International Award Foundation

NOTES: Congratulate the Bronze participant for their creative idea, but do ask them how they think they can
prepare this properly so they will succeed. For the Service section, they can spend one-third of their time
training, therefore a proper map-reading course and starting to train for the walk will be essential. Since
they cannot simply log all their hours in one week, you might suggest they break the walk up in different
legs of the journey, so they can do two hours every other week, or perhaps even an entire afternoon/day.
Weekly activities are encouraged, but as long as this is regular and at least 4 hours every 4 weeks, it will still
count towards their Award (any extra hours won’t, but that shouldn’t matter).

CASE STUDY 11
An excited Bronze participant has come to you with their activity selection. They are very pleased as they feel
they have made good choices for their sections. They have decided on:
 Skills – Horse Care
 Physical – Horse riding
 Service – Helping out at a local stables with rides for children with sensory impairments
 Adventurous Journey – A horseback expedition
Action: Discuss the above with the participant – given their enthusiasm for the Award what advice would you
offer?

NOTES: Don’t kill their enthusiasm, but do ask questions based on the guiding principles of the Award - is
doing everything with horses really going to be a challenging and well-balanced programme? The Award
Leader could suggest that they choose a completely new activity for at least two of the sections. As for the
AJ on horses, see above comments on horseback expeditions and their specific challenges.

CASE STUDY 12
A young person approaches you about undertaking their Silver Award. She previously completed her Bronze
Award with you and was a committed participant. She has decided that for Skills section she is going to learn
to play the violin. She says she has an assessor in place, a local violin tutor. When you ask her what goal she
has set, she says she will achieve her Grade 3 exam within the 6 months.
Action: Discuss the above with the participant – what questions would you ask and what advice would you
give?

NOTES: It is not obvious what Grade 3 in violin means, but it sounds like a very challenging goal, so it would
be good to ask her about her experience and starting level to make sure this goal is not completely
impossible to avoid disappointment. If the Assessor thinks it is realistic in 6 months and she’s eager to do it,
why not?

In general it is always good as an Award Leader to have a chat with the Assessors of your participants to
make sure that they understand the guiding principles and requirements of the Award programme, so they
can help the participants to achieve their goals.

© 2019 The Duke of Edinburgh’s International Award Foundation