I celebrated my 16th birthday last year on the final day of my Silver Award expedition. We called ourselves 'The Wild Things' as we yomped 19 miles across grazing land and through woodland, ending on the red cliffs of Budleigh beach. It was the most fantastic, exhausting experience - all in a 6 hour round trip.

The weather was cold and mainly chucked it down but we got a spell of sunshine just in time for me to light my birthday candles alongside my team's questionable rendition of 'Happy Birthday'. The scenario was so ridiculous, we all got the giggles - oh and the cake! I tell you, food has never tasted so good!

As brilliant as this experience was, the most rewarding part of completing my Bronze and Silver DofE is that I have built my confidence working and communicating with others, inputting any useful information to my partners which might help us achieve our goal - like moving a defender so that we stop a sneaky forward in a hockey match or helping a child tie a knot so they can climb safely.

Another lesson I have learnt is to ask questions so that I can access every opportunity in life. I am sure that nothing can be lost by asking a question but can be if you are too afraid to ask at all.

For these reasons, I will continue to my Gold Award after I have finished my GCSE assessments. I hope I get to meet more people, try more activities and build my confidence working in a team. I hope that these skills set me up for a bright future as I go into A Levels, university and eventually, wider society.

I am very excited to progress in these skills and to learn completely new ones. I always rather fancied learning how to canoe!

I cannot thank HRH Prince Philip enough.