D of E failure

I'd read the whole post and then realised how long ago it was, but I was hooked and really want to know the outcome! Those kids will be in their 20's now lol

Highby it was Eight years ago!!!

What was it?

they were a little late back.....had faith in them,but the parents were all waiting and one group had to be picked up....the teacher had gone to see where they were to assess how long they would be

i thought it was a funny sight!

my dd loved DofE. hoping all 3 boys go on to do it too

"Looking for them" or "observing them"?
We don't just throw them out of the minibus and hope they come back 48 hours later, we do keep an eye on them. Also, standing atop a hill with his binoculars is a favourite trick of the assessor - he can observe the kids without them being aware and thereby putting on false behaviour.

when i drove to campsite to collect dd from her bronze expedition,i was highly amused to pass the school minibus,complete with teacher with a pair of binoculars standing on the top,looking for them!

From a (previous, non-teaching) leaders' perspective, many parents are anxious that we know where their children are, particularly at bronze level. We also do need to be able to find them (for safety). I would guess they fell down on 3 (and/or 2) - safety criteria....but as you say, need to wait and see.

The way I see it is that as parents if something had happened to them as a result of them not following the safety procedures correctly then we would have had no cause to complain as it would not have been the leaders' fault. It isn't in itself a reason for failing, nowhere on the D of E criteria does it even mention checkpoints or safety for that matter! I think the girls were probably very annoying but that is not a reason to fail them.

Anyway we will see...

@ 'closer to death than to the campsite'.

It does seem a bit harsh.

not visiting the other genders tents would have been a problem for us, we were a mixed group during foot and mouth so had to hostel instead of camp and all shared the same room in the hostel, including one very well behaved couple!

If they were putting filling in of the check point thing to say they were OK, they put things like Who do you think? when asked who they were and "closer to death than to the campsite" when asked how they were! on checkpoints, then you may be better off looking for an Open Expedition than complaining (although the County leader may be able to help with this).

When D of E groups plan their route, they do work out the time it will take to do each leg - checkpoints, used with this information, help leaders (and assessors, who may be from outside the school) actually find out who is where.

Just worded a complaint letter to the head of D of E for the County!

I've just spoken to DD3. I was wrong. They did have check points and had to sighn in properly. They were told they would fail if they didn't sign in.

Errr

Who are you?

Who do you think!

That seems harsh.

Assuming that they did this more than once then I'd have expected them to be warned early on that this was not appropriate and then given the chance to fill them in properly.

BTW I'm assuming that they did actually give their group name and arrival times on the cards as these can be vital in the case of a group getting lost.

That sems a bit harsh. I don't think DD3 had to fill in anything at check points but she was only doing the bronze and it was a small group.

I think seems a bit harsh sums it up really! There were four groups so I'm guessing about 16, not an enormous group.

I think they did get grumpy at times but not in front of the leaders they were described each day as being in 'high spirits'!

I'm a dofe unit leader and just got back last night from DofE gold with my 6th form group. We don't fail them for being grumpy or cheeky, on day 3 mine were a complete nightmare and I could have cheerfully murdered a couple. Seems a bit harsh to me really. It's a shame the report hasn't really highlighted what went wrong. In my school we only have 14 kids doing gold so I know who they all are and we don't need to have them sign at checkpoints! I do find in bigger schools where there are lots and lots of kids doing DofE that more tend to fail.

I'm glad they didn't fail us for visiting boys' tents when we did D of E, that was the high point of the expeditions!

Sorry not much time to get on computer lately and I have name changed. We got the report, nothing on it the girls hadn't really mentioned (not of significance anyway) the main reason they gave was their approach to safety, basically the filling in of the check point thing to say they were OK, they put things like Who do you think? when asked who they were and "closer to death than to the campsite" when asked how they were!

The thing is I don't think it is a requisite of the award that they fill these things in anyway, I can see that it was rather foolish.

All the parents have complained in one way or another and one set have seen the headmistress. She is allowed to do Gold next year but not sure she wants to now.

Jopegs - Did you find out anymore from the school/dd?

It is all a bit mystifying, I can't think that if there was one main reason why they weren't told it was because... and if it was lots of little reasons then I think they should have passed as they walked and navigated well.

You can't really fail D of E for getting on the leader's nerves can you?

The only thing which stands out particularly from what you say is the mileage/required number of hours - it used to be that the expedition simply required groups to cover a certain number of miles but now it is a time requirement: groups need to spend a set number of hours on 'planned activity' away from the campsite. This now has to be a combination of walking and fulfilling the expressed aim of their expedition - so looking at the effects of tourism on footpaths in Snowdonia, for example. It is the time that is key rather than the distance. However, their leader should have picked up that their route was not going to be long enough (in terms of time) beforehand when s/he checked their route cards.

The attitude may have been a problem but we expect our groups to be pretty grumpy when it's hot and they're knackered!

Unless there is something your DD isn't telling you, it sounds like she was unlucky with her assessor, TBH! The only thing DH and I can think of is that they maybe crossed a railway line where they shouldn't have done or something else like that that they may not have even realised was wrong, iyswim.

I expect they do know why they failed! IME splitting from the group is a common reason - lots of practice expeditions 'fail' on that.