Bronze DofE £250 through school

The reason it is cheap with the cadets is presumably because the MOD is subsiding the group.

All the cases where the cost is negligible are where there are no staff costs and where some larger organisation is picking up the cost of overall accreditation. LEA budgets are shrinking, teachers don’t necessarily want to give up even more hours to supervise out of school activities.

Government money seems to be going to NCS. DoE can be a really great and life changing experience I’m sure. But for many it is just another activity the teens do.

It's only the expedition and paperwork that our school deals with everything else is for the DC to organise and fit into their busy lives.

Weekend trip not week - auto correct fail

That is obscene and not the norm everywhere thankfully. At that price it excludes too many children, and would be off putting for some just wanting to try it.

If you want him to do some extra curricula why not try one of the cadet forces. Most offer the DoE reg fee & £20 for the week & other qualifications. Also they do interesting voluntary work - helping at major local events etc. And they get to learn a host of skills from field craft, map reading, radio operators etc. Kit is provided at no charge (apart from boots) and the subs are minimal - our local army cadets is 50p a week.

My DD is doing her bronze this year through school and the cost is £90, £10 more than for DS last year. They have band and peer supporter/prefect for skills and volunteering. They have re started tennis lessons for the physical bit which adds to the cost, but I'd be happy if they wanted to carry on after the 3 months. It's a lot to fit in as well as school and they both work weekends, so I think it's a great achievement for them even if it's no use on a uni application or cv.

At Bronze it is essentially a two day walk in the countryside with an overnight in a tent and it feels like it is so over-managed sometimes.

Except that for many city children, they never have walked in a really wild area, or put up a tent, or camped overnight, or even lit a match before.

huh?
my dd did the bronze for pence. but i guess that was due to fab teachers giving their time for free. i think its irrelevant re cv value but it was a great experience for her.
its sad that something designed to level the playing field wont anymore

I am amazed at the cost a.
Can I ask what areas are charging such high prices?
I work in Lancashire and where I work I charge £25. However looked after children are free ( both in residential and foster care)
We lend kit out to those that need it. We offer hiking as a physical activity as it puts them in good practise for the exped bit if they wanted to do a different physical activity they would have to fund that themselves.

It's sad to hear that the organisation of the award is going this way, but between the pressure of teaching workload and LA cuts I can believe it. I assisted with some of the training/expeditions for the award in some of the early schools I worked in. One of them was run by LA youth workers rather than directly by the school. They were amongst the first to face redundancy when the state of the economy affected council budgets.

I benefited enormously through doing the award. My mum was overprotective and allowed me little freedom, so the ability to go off walking in groups of friends with light supervision of staff was a great experience for someone not allowed out on their own at 15. The physical activity at Silver gave me the incentive to finally learn to swim 25m. Continuing on for Gold made me an experienced swimmer. Out of the 80 people that set off on their Bronze practice expedition, I was one of the 8 to get their Gold award presented at Buckingham Palace. All those miles I trudged under a rucksack weighing 30% of my body weight as I muttered, "I WILL make it to the palace, I WILL make it to the palace..."

My county in Girl Guiding runs the award.

The practise exped is to iron out any problems and can be repeated as many times as needed. The qualifying exped is assessed. The season may ask questions and will observe campcraft skills, navigation etc.

Incidentally if they do make an navigational mistake it's not the end of the world as. Long as they can identify what went wrong and how it was corrected.

Hi Dd has just finished silver. For bronze I'm sure it is 100 (hiking) For silver She did canoeing instead so it cost 300, there was the option to do hiking but she wanted to try canoeing. Is it the hiking exhibition? I hadn't heard of anyone doing it for under 100 but that may be just in our area. Also once they are kitted out for bronze you don't need much for subsequent trips, think we just got food and waterproof gloves and wellies as extras this time. The practice expeditions are more supervised I think and I also think they need to do a certain amount of hrs so they do a practice and then the real thing. Hope that helps

*Notacooldad

It only costs £19 to register the participant. It costs an Operating Authority loads more to actually be able to run the programme and approve the kids' activities - hence why LEAs are ditching the cost, and leaving it to private providers who obviously have to recoup the cost of being an OA as well as make a profit.

*Everyone seems to be ignoring that

Yes I get that but when I read the first post it said the school was running it. It was only I needed the second post that that the Op thought that an external is running it.

You may have seen my post suggesting that she contact the local authority to see if any one is doing it as an Open Award *titchy?

I get a fair few girls do their DofE through Guiding which is much cheaper, plus I have a Silver volunteer at Brownies atm. It certainly isn't helping out, she has objectives and a development plan - so much so she's now doing her Young Leader qualification as well!

I'd investigate through local Guiding or Scouting routes tbh

As I understand it, the practice is supervised but the qualifying one isn't. It is to make sure that they know how to map read outside of the classroom, how the weight of the rucksack feels after a few hours, that they can light a trangia, raise a tent etc. They can still ask for help, whereas on the qualifier, they should do it all by themselves. The practice should set them up to succeed in the real thing.

At our school it's £200

I’m not surprised it costs that much for a company to provide the training. It sounds like the previous low prices were subsided by staff giving up their own time at no cost and some LEAs covering part of the cost.

Me either.

As someone who ran it extra-curricular for 3 years and was an additional member of staff for another 4 years, all of our time was 'free', both on the 'teaching' side, practise expedition and real expeditions at weekends and all the admin.
It is a real eye opener to see exactly what time is 'worth' to a company charging for this (and it is almost certainly going to an outsourced company) and how much teachers often do for 'free'. Our £20 'fees' were to solely pay for the campsites...

This is what makes me sad billybagpuss. At Bronze it is essentially a two day walk in the countryside with an overnight in a tent and it feels like it is so over-managed sometimes. Maybe it is part of the whole health & safety thing gone a bit mad.

We did have to pay quite a lot for it, but that was because it was an outside company running it. They got quite a lot for that, including the training sessions and a practice expedition (which seemed pointless as they effectively did it twice. When I did it back in the '80s we arranged our expedition, found a local farmer who let us camp in his field and found someone to check on us and sign it off. I think if you read what actually is said on the DofE literature it can be done independently its just that as it's something the school encourage its something that they organise.

My DD did her bronze DofE and finished it last July. She did everything on time, but because many other kids were behind they have extended it another 6 months!
But at least we only had to paid a total of £100. We already had the kit as we regularly camp and walk.
But it really narked me that the teachers still haven't signed off her work. All because other kids were being lazy

Notacooldad

It only costs £19 to register the participant. It costs an Operating Authority loads more to actually be able to run the programme and approve the kids' activities - hence why LEAs are ditching the cost, and leaving it to private providers who obviously have to recoup the cost of being an OA as well as make a profit.

Everyone seems to be ignoring that...

We are in Scotland so no campsites involved either. They wild camp but in bronze it's usually a farmer's field and he gives them a hose for water. The rest requires either carrying all your water or sterilizing it as you go.