Context: The Edinburgh Award is built around a developmental journey/process which has a number of distinct stages, each of which is a required and necessary element of successfully completing the Edinburgh Award. Where a student has been unable to adequately complete a required element of the Edinburgh Award and this has been due to special circumstances that have been approved by the central Edinburgh Award team, the student may be offered an alternative to this element in order to allow the student to continue/complete the Edinburgh Award.
Special circumstances are circumstances beyond a student’s control and for which there is sufficient documentary evidence to show that they had a significant adverse impact on the student’s performance in a required element of the Edinburgh Award, including inability to complete the required element.
Alternatives to required elements of the Edinburgh Award cannot fully replicate the intended experience of the Edinburgh Award given its highly experiential and participatory nature, in particular any required group sessions. The role of alternatives granted in light of special circumstances is to offer eligible students a way to continue/complete the Edinburgh Award by providingan alternativemethod for the student to evidence appropriate engagement with the required element of the Edinburgh Award. While the central Edinburgh Award team are keen to support students’ successful continuation/completion of the Edinburgh Award wherever possible, suitable alternatives are not always possible, in particular for aspects that are fundamental to the learning objectives of the Edinburgh Award as the integrity of the Award cannot be jeopardised.
Uniqueness: As each special circumstance and the element(s) of the Edinburgh Award affected are unique to each student, students should only use the alternative provided to them by the central Edinburgh Award team – students should not use an alternative provided to another student. If there is any uncertainty, please contact the central Edinburgh Award team directly:
Scope: This form is only intended for use by students who have been granted approved special circumstances affecting their engagement with the Input 3 session. The form does not cover any required elements beyond this input, e.g. student submissions or peer assessment – if covered by the same special circumstance these elements will be dealt separately.
Usage: Once completed, submit this form and your Elevator Pitch video to the OneDrive folder you were given a link to in the email that included these instructions. Failure to complete this form adequately or within the deadline given, will result in this element of the Edinburgh Award being failed and the student being removed from the Edinburgh Award. Where the form has been completed inadequately, at the discretion of the central Edinburgh Award team the student may be given opportunity to resubmit. The decision of the central Edinburgh Award team is final.
- Overview and instructions
The Edinburgh Awardseeks to help you learn to excel, increase your impact and stand out from the crowd in whatever circumstance or role you find yourself, now and in the future. Therefore the Edinburgh Award has been designed to encourage, facilitate and reward an approach of:
- identifying what it means to excel, personally for yourself and for your current role/circumstance;
- working purposefully and strategically towards this, translating and applying learning and abilities between situations, e.g. seeing how talents you develop through your part-time job or extra-curricular activities are useful within your studies and vice versa; and
- maximising the positive impact you have on your surrounding context, e.g. the people/organisation you work or volunteer with or the people your role seeks to impact.
The Edinburgh Award is structuredaround a developmental journey/process which has a number of distinct stages and is designed to support you in your own development, growth and impact. Since each version of the Edinburgh Award is tailored to a particular type of activity/role – for example part-time work, peer support role, volunteering or Sports Union roles – every version is therefore slightly different but the core is always based around the same three-stage developmental journey and process.
At the start:Input 1 – ‘Aspiring’ / Input 1focuses on identifying / understanding what it means to excel in the particular activity/role that is the focus of your Edinburgh Award;considering what that means for you personally, what your own development priorities are and how you can have the greatest positive impact on others through this activity/role; and planning for this.
Midway through:
Input 2 – ‘Developing’ / Input 2focuses on progress and embedding – identifying your progress,your own development and impact, how you have achieved this, alternative approaches that could be used for any challenges you have faced and revising your action plans.
At the end:
Input 3 – ‘Owning’ / Input 3 focuses on helping you appreciate, talk positively about and use the ways in which you have benefited and developed during your time on the activity / role that was the focus of your Edinburgh Award – i.e. how has operating in this role/context impacted on you, and how have you impacted on the surrounding context (the people/organisation you work or volunteer with or the people your role seeks to impact)? This input seeks to capture, solidify and look to the future.
You have been offered this form as an alternative to Input 3 in light of your approved special circumstances – it provides an alternative method for you to evidence appropriate engagement with this stage of the Edinburgh Award. It cannot fully replicate the experience or learning you would have gained through being part of your standard Input 3 session, in particular because it is not tailored to the specific role/activity that is the focus of your Edinburgh Award, but it does try to pick up some of the key elements and therefore we trust will still be valuable in considering and articulating your experiences and learning.
Please work through and complete each of the sections before submitting – summaries will be given in the text below and the appendices will be used to expand on these and capture your responses.
- Your details
Please complete all the fields below.
First nameSurname
UUN
Edinburgh Award version for which you’ve been given this alternative due to Special Circumstances, e.g. ‘Edinburgh Award (Work Experience)’
- Input 3 – the main components
Input 3 comes at the end of your Edinburgh Award journey and focuses on helping you and your peers to appreciate, talk positively about and use the ways in which you have benefited and developed during your time on the activity / role that was the focus of your Edinburgh Award. The question at its core is how has operating in this role/context impacted on you, and how have you impacted on the surrounding context (the people/organisation you work or volunteer with or the people your role seeks to impact)? Input 3 seeks to capture your progress and impact, to solidify your learning and growth and to encourage you look to the future.
Within Input 3 there are a series of main components – each of these is briefly summarised below. Please read through these summaries and complete the accompanying appendices. The text in the appendices is almost entirely generic, i.e. it has not be tailored to the specific version of the Edinburgh Award you are on. You will therefore need to apply it to your own particular activity/role that was the focus of your Edinburgh Award, e.g. your part-time work, your peer support role, your volunteering or your Sports Union role – we will refer to this as your ‘activity/role’ throughout.
Component / Summary / AppendixSkills self-assessment
/ At the beginning of your time on this version of the Edinburgh Award, students and staff defined a list of skills and abilities that contribute to excellence in your particular activity/role. E.g. those skills and abilities that are required to be a really good peer supporter / volunteer / class rep.
A copy of this list is available in the appendix – please self-rate against each of these skills. / A
Reflecting on your development priorities and your impact
/ At the beginning of your time on this version of the Edinburgh Award, you selected three skills to be your development priorities during your time on the Edinburgh Award. While you undoubtedly will have developed and strengthened a wide range of skills through your activity/role, these three development priorities were the skills or abilities that you would be focussing on and actively developing during your Edinburgh Award alongside seeking to increase the impact you could have on the people or organisation(s) around you.
Now that you have come to the end of your time on the Edinburgh Award, it is important to look back and analyse your journey for each of your three development priorities and your impact on your context. What gains/impact have you made? What have you learned about yourself and what experiences have contributed to this learning? What relevance do these gains have on other activities you are involved in?
Please use the questions and answer boxes provided in the appendix to capture a summary of your journey for your three development priorities and your impact. / B
Talking positively about your experiences
/ Your reflections on your development priorities and your impact during your Edinburgh Award journey may include both the highs and lows of your experience, in particular areas where you feel you may not have made as much progress as you would have liked or areas where you feel you have made mistakes. It is vital that we can be honest in our reflections and analysis, recognising where things have gone well and where they haven’t, and learning from both.
It is also essential that we are able to talk positively about such experiences, confidently owning and highlighting what we have gained overall from our experiences, how they have changed us and what we have learned through them.
Please use the exercise in the appendix to consider and provide an example of how you can talk positively about your overall experiences in your activity/role that was the focus of your Edinburgh Award. / C
Looking to the future
/ Many of the previous tasks have been about looking back, analysing and reflecting on your experiences and journey. It is also important to use this opportunity to look ahead and consider what your experiences and growth mean for your future.
Please use the questions and response boxes in the appendix to capture your thoughts. / D
- Submission
Once you have completed all sections of this form, please submit this form and your Elevator Pitch video to the OneDrive folder you were given a link to in the email that included these instructions. The central Edinburgh Award team will review your submission and get in touch via your University email address with the outcome.
Students’ submissions as part of the Edinburgh Award may sometimes be anonymised and used as examples in the future, in whole or in part. If you would prefer your submission to not be used in this way please just let us know when you submit it. Note: Students’ names are never be attributed to such examples unless their permission has been given.
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- Skills self-assessment
Not at all confident (I never display this skill)1
Fairly unconfident 2
Confident 3
Fairly confident4
Very confident (I always display this skill)5
Research & Enquiry Skills / Rating
Problem solving – Be able to identify, define and analyse problems and identify or create processes to solve them
Critical Evaluation – Ability to explore, make and critically evaluate ethical questions
Search for, evaluate and use information – Able to critically assess existing understanding and the limitations of their own knowledge and search for, evaluate and use information to develop their knowledge and understanding
Personal and Intellectual Autonomy Skills / Rating
Creativity – Ability to combine ideas and come up with out-of-the-box approaches to problems
Self-reflection – Ability to reflect on yourself and your impact on others
Curiosity – Take responsibility for their own learning and ask questions to develop
Sustainable goal planning – Be able to take responsibility for a personal vision and goals and be able to work towards these in a sustainable way
Making connections – Ability to construct connections between things especially environmental, social and economic dimensions
Communication Skills / Rating
Verbal communication – Effectively communicate point verbally. For example, interviewing someone effectively; pitching an idea to others.
Written communication – Effectively communicate through writing; writing or editing to the house style; communicating research in a condensed way
Listening – Able to be an effective listener
Collaboration – Use communication as a tool for collaborating and relating to others
Using Feedback – Seek and value open feedback to inform genuine self-awareness
Personal Effectiveness Skills / Rating
Risk taking – Ability to analyse circumstances, evaluate potential benefits and risks in taking (or not taking) a course of action, and to be willing to take risks to stimulate positive change
Change-making – Ability and willingness to act in accord with one’s knowledge and skills to bring about change that supports sustainable development in personal, institutional and other social contexts
Leadership – have the confidence to make decisions based on their understanding and personal and intellectual autonomy
Time Management – Ability to manage time and energy in a sustainable way
Confident in Uncertainty – Confidence to think into the future, handle complexity and uncertainty and to methodically create long-term solutions to current problems
Flexibility – Ability to transfer knowledge, learning, skills and abilities from one context to another
- Biggest changes
Please enter your answer here
A1
- General reflections
3.1 How has your experience of your activity/role been different to what you expected? How has it been similar?
3.2 Share a highlight and a challenge
3.3 How has this version of the Edinburgh Award been different or similar to what you thought?
3.4 What have you gained from participating in the Edinburgh Award?
At the beginning of your time on this version of the Edinburgh Award, from the larger list of skills/abilities shown in the previous appendix you selected three to be your development priorities during your time on the Edinburgh Award – skillsor abilities that you would be focussing on and actively developing during your Edinburgh Award, alongside seeking to increase the impact you could have on the people or organisation(s) around you.
- Your development priorities
1.
2.
3.
The Edinburgh Award process is designed to support both internal and external change – actively working on your three development priorities (skills/abilities) creates an internal change or benefit; actively seeking to increase your positive impact on your context (people/organisation) creates an external change of benefit. The same is true for your reflections – analysing your skills development looks inwards while considering your impact is mostly outward looking.
Now that you have come to the end, look back over your whole time on the Edinburgh Award. Use any notes or reflections you may have made previously to help you think about what you have learned from it and how much progress you have made, both in terms of your development priorities and in terms of increasing your positive impact on your context, i.e. the people or organisation you impacted as a result of your activity/role.
The notes, analysis and reflections you capturein the table below will be useful for your final submissions that you are required to make after Input 3 – the final submission will require a reflection on each of your three development priorities and on your impact. There is no word limit in this form but, as a guide, in your final submission after Input 3 each reflection should around 200 words.
NB. Submission of this form only acts as an alternative to your engagement with the Input 3 session – any requirements to submit final reflections following the Input 3 session and/or any peer assessment activity will still stand and must be completed separately to this document. If your special circumstance also covers these, you will receive a separate task(s) to complete as an alternative.
- Analysingprogress on your development priorities
What was the skill
or ability? / How would you rate your progress in this area overall?
(delete as appropriate) / Analysis: explanation and comments.
For example…
- What did you do to try to make progress in this area? What have you learned?
- Can you give concrete examples to evidence what you say?
- What / who helped you?
- Were there any barriers you had to overcome?
- Are there still areas you need to work on further?
1. / Very good
Good
Satisfactory
Disappointing
2. / Very good
Good
Satisfactory
Disappointing
3. / Very good
Good
Satisfactory
Disappointing
- Analysing your impact
How would you rate your progress overall in trying to increase your impact?
(delete as appropriate) / Analysis: explanation and comments. (Example given below)
For example…
- What did you do to try to make progress in this area? What have you learned?
- Can you give concrete examples to evidence what you say?
- What / who helped you?
- Were there any barriers you had to overcome?
- Are there still areas you need to work on further?
Very good
Good
Satisfactory
Disappointing
B1