In addition to the D6 Core, Students are offered the opportunity to pick from a variety of enrichment options that are designed to align with our Future Skills vision and provide a unique pathway for every student.
The Global Impact Project
With a global perspective, in a global schools group, Downsend students are ideally placed to experience the world first-hand, and to learn and apply their Future Skills in a real-life context. Our aim is to provide students with a life-changing experience that challenges, stretches, builds bonds – and ultimately sets them apart in a rapidly evolving world.
All Downsend Sixth students will be part of the project, and all payments are included within the fees.
D6 Induction
September 2025
With a focus on team-building, collaboration, resilience, leadership - and to signify the start of an exciting journey - students and the D6 leadership team undertake a 3 day residential experience designed to create the mindset of self-exploration and discovery.
Whether it be a tall ships experience, or yachting on the Solent, the team will have a chance to get to know each other and themselves before they begin their programme.
D6 Adventure
Summer 2026
Designed around the 4 aims of the Downsend Future Skills vision, the D6 Adventure takes place at the end of the Summer Term in 2026. Students will come together with the leadership team and our partners at Active Learning Group to plan their own programme, deciding how they want to have an impact, where they want to go, and what their programme will consist of.
Our programme options include taking on a conservation project in Borneo, undertaking a community initiative in Cambodia or Costa Rica or working with The Sparkle Foundation in Malawi. The trip and the skills learned through the duration of the project will provide students with the experience of a lifetime.
D6 Entrepreneurs
The Tycoon Challenge
Downsend has an entrepreneurial mindset through and through, so undertaking the Tycoon Challenge enables pupils to expand this on a wider scale. This national enterprise challenge asks each team to write a business plan and is provided a risk-free goodwill loan to create their own start-up business.
Students compete through a kick-starter style platform in a safe and controlled environment whilst gaining essential skills needed for starting their own ventures or in the workplace.
D6 Sports Leadership
Involving both guided, peer-to-peer and supervised leadership of sports activities, the qualification enables students to combine a passion for sport, with an opportunity to learn how to build and lead sports programmes for younger pupils or the wider community. The final qualification is worth 16 UCAS points.
In addition to being offered as a D6 Elective, the Sports Leadership Level 3 qualification is also offered as part of the Future Ready programme as an option (see D6 Electives for details)
D6 Stretch
Downsend already has a thriving clubs programme designed by students in line with their interests and the rapidly changing external environment. These clubs will continue into Downsend Sixth and will comprise of options such as E-Sports, Film Media, Fashion Design, Journalism and Podcasting.
The Duke of Edinburgh Award
The Duke of Edinburgh Award is a popular and flourishing extra-curricular option throughout Downsend. We are able to support Bronze, Silver and Gold. Students will take part in practice expeditions on the North and South Downs before progressing to the ‘wild country’ of Exmoor and Dartmoor.
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