AIBU to continue with this FARCE? (Teens and extracurricular activites)

If she thinks this will replace or bolster her GCSE’s it really won’t. I interview apprentices and grads and there is limited weight placed on this. It just helps when they can talk about the experiences related to situational / competency based examples. But they can do this with PT jobs, school projects , hobbies etc. She would be better off improving her GCSE grades, boring it maybe but pretty crucial when being shortlisted at entry level.

I cant really see the attraction of this. If kids want to do it then ok. Sounds like an absolute nightmare - no thanks.

It’s only a matter of time before someone mentions the army…

She can't even be arsed to re-take her GCSEs - do you really think university is the right path for her?

I agree that OP is babying her DD, however, she very much could have got heatstroke this June!

Maybe she should just drop doing it. It’s not the end of the world not to complete a gold DofE in the grand scheme of things.

I think doing it in an urban environment is unusual. Where do you camp? Surely it’s standard not to be able to see your mammy or have a mobile when you are on a DofE expedition.

DS did his bronze D of E when he was 15. He was carrying a enormous rucksack, including the tent. He was 5ft 5 and 7.5st at the time and had a lot of rubbing on his shoulders, despite having a decent rucksack. My main worry was that he'd have enough to eat!
They walked 20+ miles across 2 days which I think was standard for the groups at their school, and it was pretty hot, but I wouldnt have wanted him to do it in 35° heat, if im honest. Just from the sheer amount of water they'd need to take.
I was under the impression it had to be in countryside/footpaths etc but im afraid I dont have any experience of independently organised expeditions because we did it with school.

in terms of uni some unis do an access course for going to uni

How will D of E replace educational qualifications?

The whole point of DoE is to develop resilience, stick to something and complete it. You/your daughter seem to have an issue with being able to do this and you seem to be enabling her to drop out over what are relatively minor issues, in the grand scheme of things. This will not help her in the future.

She should be retaking her GCSE AND completing the DoE - support her to do this, not think of reasons why she can't.

I don’t recommend talking about cheat methods of travel if she joins a network group as there may well be ex sea scouts who did 6/7 hours of activity per day for the expedition in a canoe / sailing on open sea. I did my Silver expedition cycling many years ago - 150 miles in 3 days didn’t seem to me to be cheating, but an alternative to the severe blister damage I got from
every pair of walking boots I put on, and I don’t imagine those who ride for many hours to complete it would consider it an easy way to complete it either.

This 💯

YABVU It’s gold D of Ed! How do you think you’re going to “see” her every day? Mine were away for 6 days, totally out of contact the whole time.

She can’t “be bothered” to resit essential exams.

Shes 5’ and 10 stone .

D of Ed is the least of her worries.

If she’s getting cut and burnt feet, she must have completely unsuitable footwear. I’ve been on a hike that I had to give up halfway through because I overestimated my fitness / underestimated how the heat would affect me but my feet were fine because I had got properly broken in walking shoes (lots of short walks did not mean I was able to do an steeply uphill longer walk with no shade).

Gold DofE is really hard. Please tell me she’s done Bronze and Silver - going from couch potato to Gold is insane and horrendously unfair to the rest of her group. TBH, I’m not surprised they weren’t the kindest to her - dragging someone completely unable to do the work through the requirements is not one of the DofE challenges they would have anticipated. Maybe they should have been nicer but she shouldn’t have put them in that position.

I'm a secondary school teacher. There are so many parenting red flags in your post I don't know where to start.

DofE Gold is supposed to be hard work. Loads of kids do Bronze, fewer do Silver, hardly anyone makes it to Gold. It's a real achievement because it's so challenging. Trying to make it less so because your daughter is overweight and can't manage the physical exertion of the expedition is defeating the whole object of the qualification.

Your daughter hasn't got her GCSEs, can't be arsed to resit them, and now you're enabling her to try and take an easy route out of another situation she's got herself into where she's found it more challenging than expected and can't cope. Do you not see the pattern here?

You are a huge part of the problem, OP. Your parenting style is not forcing your daughter to recognise that she needs to step up and put the work in to sort her future out. You can't always be there to fix it for her when life gets hard. She has to start facing reality and you need to be helping her to build resilience.

First things first, she needs to enrol into the local college and get her GCSE Maths and English retakes sorted. She's going nowhere without those. The Gold D of E, as plenty of others have said, is not an equivalent for qualifications and it's not going to be accepted in lieu of basic GCSEs for jobs or apprenticeship schemes. If that's the only reason why she's doing it, then she's wasting her time.

Secondly, she needs support to work out what she wants and to have a goal to work towards that she feels excited about. It sounds like she needs some proper advice and support. The National Careers Service can help, but if she is enrolled at your local college to get those GCSEs done, then they will obviously be the best port of call.

I would also say, gently, you perhaps are in denial that your daughter is quite considerably overweight. Supporting her to adopt a more healthy lifestyle will also go a long way towards building her confidence and energy levels for the next phase of her life.

It sounds like you’re enabling your dd. For blisters, try twin skin and preventative blister stick. I bought my almost 18yo dd both. Unfortunately she has anorexia and albeit semi recovered, she lacks the stamina, otherwise she’d have her gold now having easily completed bronze and silver.

I would say your dd needs to improve her fitness before attempting the expedition. So I’d get her into college and continuing to practice. Otherwise swap to silver expedition.

The issue is OP isn’t really looking for DD to dig deep, work hard and overcome the challenges of D of E, which is the whole point of it.

She just mistakenly thinks it will mitigate her DD’s crap GCSE’s which she refuses to resit, or replace with anything else.

I’d say putting an almighty great big rocket up her arse would be the first thing to do.

First thing is to cut the apron strings. Or as pp put it, land the helicopter. OP is all 'I' and 'we'. I have now withdrawn....we are doing it because.....

Yes, then put the rocket up her arse. She's an adult, time for her to take responsibility for her own life. (But possibly she's never been given the chance.)

D of e should take her out of her usual eg urban and into unfamiliar eg peak district. That is the poimt! She may be able to use her experiences in interviews STAR examples eg coping with difficult people and managing in a team and deal8ng with disagreements
But she needs basic gcses unless SEN L D
Dont suggest october or february without proper winter gear

Just to add, both my DS have dine their Gold expedition. Both in peak district. This is a typical location and it's often warm and they never have phones or whatnot. That's the whole point.
She shouldn't have such bad problems so check her boots and equipment. Does she have decent walking socks? Absolutely essential.
Getting into a decent group is clearly the problem as this group sound horrid and the centre should have dealt with that.

She’s 18 fgs. You need to stop fussing. She’s Old enough to move out, get married, travel the world by herself. It’s meant to be very hard - if it wasn’t hard then everyone would do it.

Agree with this

Exactly this. You say she got her poor results in 2025, which sounds late for an 18 year old but I am sure there were reasons. What has she been doing since? Is she still in some form of education?

Forgive me for saying so, as I am sure you are a loving and caring parent, but you do seem to be micromanaging her life for her, at 18 she is an adult and needs to be making decisions and effort for herself. If she is not in education then she needs to be working. Maybe a couple of years doing boring , no qualifications, entry level work will inspire her to try to get some GCSE grades.

I’m not sure the expedition you’d like exists, it’s meant to be a challenge. I’m not sure why your child needs accommodating in a different way to the other young people taking part, unless she has additional needs you haven’t mentioned?

You’re also focusing your efforts in the wrong place. DofE gold isn’t a substitute for having poor qualifications. I’m primarily looking for core skills like Maths and English as well as a good attitude and enthusiasm. Resilience could be demonstrated with DofE gold or a year of two working somewhere soul crushing like Primark or McDonalds.

The only way it might help is if your daughter effectively used it as an example of teamwork / overcoming challenges. But you really need to encourage her to get her basic qualifications and be independent, that’ll help her a lot more than DofE.

Yes me too. I was merely pointing out DofE is a good differentiator when you have applicants with the same grades, and was replying to the poster who said they couldn’t see the point of doing it.