Torbay and Devon Civic Award

20 Year 6 students from Roselands successfully graduated from the 2024/2025 Torbay and Devon Civic Award at our presentation on 9th July 2025 at St Cuthbert Mayne School, Torquay.

The Torbay Civic Award was first introduced in 2004 by teacher Karen Thomson. Karen was inspired to create the award by a deep belief that education should be broader and more futures-driven and that we, as leaders in education, have a moral responsibility to develop children’s attitudes and values as well as transferable skills to equip them for a future none of us can yet imagine.

It was also born from a desire to balance the SATs-driven curriculum in Y6 with Character and Values Education to help those children become well-rounded, confident and caring individuals who strive to make a difference in their various communities and are prepared to take responsibility for change.

To achieve the award pupils have to prove their participation in six main areas:

Active Citizenship in their school community This could be Peer Mediation , Reading Buddies . School Council or other positions of trust and responsibility in school.
Active Citizenship in their home communities . In the past, pupils have taken part in beach cleans, bulb planting, helping at Brownies /Cubs/sports clubs and looking after people in the community. Pupils may also work with others to organise events in school to support local charities.
A physical hobby(ies) and A non-physical hobby (ies) Children should spend about 30 minutes on average a week on their hobbies and one of them needs to be new to the child from the September of their Year 6.
Residential experience and adventure trainingThis entails sleeping away from home and family and taking part in outdoor challenges. This section can be back-dated to Year 5.
Children also need to adopt a cause or charity which they feel strongly about. They need to research it and find ways of supporting it.
Children need to make a pledge to the planet during the time they are undertaking the award. Children will need to research ways to help save the environment and take action on at least one thing.

Torbay and Devon Civic Award Official website