To think that school should take all kids who want to do Bronze D of E?

No one is entitled to a place. There could be a few reasons why your son didn’t get one - perhaps it is just numbers or first come first serve, or perhaps your child is disruptive, or perhaps they are prioritising disadvantaged children or those who haven’t taken up other extracurricular options. You could ask why your son isn’t allowed to go to help you better accept the school’s decision.

This.

It seems incredibly unlikely to me that the school take all the year group except for a handful, if there are people who want to do it in 'the handful'.

How many are in the year group ?

I think YABVU to "expect" the staff who volunteer to offer an extra curricular activity to be forced to take more people than the number they have reasonable capacity for, but your perception of what has happened suggests the school have been unreasonable. I just think it is very unlikely that is what has actually happened.

Yes through Guiding locally to me it’s £40 for Bronze and they have kit to loan for free. But it’s run by volunteers.

Army cadets do Dofe
Bronze/Silver £30
Gold £35

Go and do it with them

I have no idea how the school select if there are limited places. Maybe there are youngsters who stand to benefit more from it. It sounds like your youngster is already doing well if winning awards. If DofE is important to you I would look at providers out outside school such as the local scout group. But I’m not sure it’s a particular advantage to have these days. My youngsters were told not to even mention it on their UCAS statements.

Talk to school to understand their criteria. There is always going to be a limit on numbers as there are staff student ratios to consider.
I can completely understand that this might feel like a personal reason and them feeling left out, hence why getting to the reason why they've not been selected is important.
If they really want to do DofE they can independently outside of school, lots of places offer it. You don't need bronze award to progress to gold, which tbh is the only one externally anyone is bothered about. Even then it's far more impressive if a young person has done this or equivalent in their own initiative rather than through school.
Good luck

You absolutely should ask the school what the rationale for selection is. They should be transparent about this. It might simply be a limited number of students and first come, first served. It might be names out of a hat. There might be other criteria involved. You can also express your disappointment, request to be added to a waiting list in case someone drops out. That probably won’t change the outcome.
if your child really wants to do DofE there are other options, but perhaps it’s more about doing it with friends at school. How disappointing for them.

My daughter is doing her expedition this weekend, but it's costing £250 as it's outsourced to an external company. I guess it's restrictive in participation in that respect because that's a significant amount of money. The same external company came out and did training walks as day walks earlier in the year on a ratio of 1 assessor to 6 kids. I am not sure how many staff are out with them this weekend. I think they have about 70 kids doing bronze and it's spread over 4 weekends in May as school has a limited amount of kit they can lend to the children, in fact they are currently pleading for kit donations to replace old and tired kit. I imagine it would have been first come first served if they had more people wanting to participate than they could realistically accomodate.

Do you actually know for a fact how many children applied and how many were given a place?

Have you contacted the trip leader to ask how they decide who gets a place and who doesn't?

Was it made clear to the kids when they applied that they could not guarantee they would get a place on the trip?

If they don't have enough staff to take the number of kids who want to go then that's not the schools fault. But YANBU to ask for some clarity about how decisions are made.

My child's school run Dofe and in their year only around 30 kids signed up, of those around 10 didn't do the preamble. The school had their own full time outdoors pursuit staff so they run it.

I am in a small school now so take the whole year group (60 kids) but when I was in a big 240 year group comp I didn’t have the capacity to run it for more than about 100 kids. The campsites wouldn’t take more than that, I didn’t have enough staff or kit. So I used to prioritise vulnerable kids then do names off a random generator. Those who didn’t get a place and really wanted to do it would do it through an open award centre. I could have taken everyone who applied if I’d run a second set of expeditions but like in most schools running it was a voluntary commitment with no time or money allocated to it and whilst I was willing to give up two weekends for bronze I wasn’t willing to give up four and nor were the teachers who did volunteer to come along…

Unfortunately militants like you are the reason many well qualified staff and volunteers no longer do DofE.

If an expedition is done properly it will be supervised by NGB qualified staff at the correct ratio. When this is compromised by entitled parents whining to SLT the qualified staff just withdraw their support. You then have your DC on expedition supervised by the well meaning rather than the well qualified.

Because of this my only involvement in DofE now is as an occasional gold assessor in my own time. It's very well paid too.

I run the DofE for my school - I wouldn't limit by numbers (and if I had to for any reason, I would be clear about selection)
I do, however, select who goes on the expedition.

• if they've not attended training, they don't attend the expedition
• behaviour concerns don't attend
• if they've not engaged independently with the other sections of the award they don't attend

I'd start by asking the school (politely/calmly) and then decide what to do from there.

When I did DofE back in the dark ages the expedition bit was not just a case of the volunteers being DBS checked, they also needed people who were accredited to teach and assess the expedition skills, and provide appropriate support if needed. This constrained the numbers, so the school set an annual challenge project to decide who got to do it. I think the school should have a policy to say how it was decided who got to go, but they can't be blamed for limiting numbers if they don't have enough suitably trained volunteers.

I am sorry he didn’t get a space, could he join next year or some clubs offer it? Ours had about 65 take part in a couple of groups over a couple of weekends. I believe all went who wanted to, but…
it takes quite a few teachers who are prepared to spend (volunteer as not paid), 1 night and 2 days away from family, walk a good 70k steps over 48 hours with blisters, freezing cold (was 1 degree at night on one weekend this year), torrential rain, tantrums etc. however they do it as they believe in it and they do it every year often 3 times a year. I do wonder how many parents would be prepared to do all that unpaid every year when it’s not your own children going. Would be a Safeguarding nightmare for unknown parents to join in, the school won’t know their personality it limits / threat of shouting at “annoying Johnny” who can wind anyone up etc.

possibly they just cannot cover the staffing and have to be school staff, first aid trained etc and physically fit for a very demanding 48 hours. Or maybe they only have enough appropriate kit to lend out for a certain amount of students.

Parents do tend to constantly complain to schools when behind the scenes rhey often do really try their best and often have to randomly choose students to be fair.

I can't imagine that the school won't tell you why if you ask directly.

Usually you have to sign up way in advance with DofE/school (either at the end of last school year or the beginning of this school year. They have to complete 3 things like: 3 months volunteering/ learning a skill and an exercise activity. Did you sign him/her up for this? You have to complete all these things before you go on the trip. And before that they have to go to a few sessions as in learning how to put up a tent, navigating and how to use the stoves etc. If you didn’t sign up for this they cannot just go on this trip.

YANBU!! But please don't give up - I completely agree that it's such an important milestone - your child can still complete it, but outside of school with a company such as BXM (but there are loads), we have used them and my daughter is now doing gold. Don't give up, despite the ridiculous school decision. He is likely to get a school place for silver as far fewer go on to do the silver.

Sorry OP, that’s really rubbish.

In your shoes I’d draw a line under it and see if you can find a scout group or similar that offers DofE instead. Not all schools offer silver/gold, but scouts often do, so enrolling to do bronze at one of those would provide continuity if he decides to carry on.

My DC's school limits places because of staff numbers needed to run the expedition. My DC got a place but others didn't. They don't explain how it was decided.

If the policy is everyone goes bar a number of students who don’t get a place, your child at least needs to know why he fell into the latter category and what criteria they use.