Bronze Expedition, D of E

I know this is an old thread, but I volunteer with a local school to assist on their D of E Bronze practice and assessed expeditions. I have no special skills, but have done this for the last 10 years and love it.
The school does practice 2 days & the assessed 3 weeks later.

They work on map reading and route planning in advance.

The practice then takes place on Thursday & Friday as this encourages kids to get involved ,& also helps in getting staff

On the Thursday, they have a half day of workshops - putting tents up & taking them down, countryside code, 1st aid & cooking.
For the remainder of the day they have a 3hour guided walk with no bags.

On the Friday, they are then given a route to walk which they do with bags and with staff at checkpoints to keep them on track.

They then do the assessed 3 weeks laterat a different location.

It works well for the most part. In the last 3 years, we have had an average of 70 students each year.

Equipment can be hired for any number of items at £30. If anyone has genuine financial difficulties, the school can waive the fees or funds can be claimed from the D of E hardship fund.

We aren't perfect, but we try our best.

DD2 is doing hers through Army Cadets. £23 for Bronze. All the volunteering, skills, etc., is done through the normal cadet programme.

My DS volunteered at the local park run. They ask for 13 weeks I think. It was very easy to organise and they are well used to the scheme as they have a steady stream of DofE volunteers coming through all the time.

DD did her volunteering at a local Rainbows group. Might be worth looking at something similar?

DD did her bronze last July. It was a miracle that it went ahead as so many things were being cancelled because of Covid. There was no practice beforehand. The school lent them tents, rucksacks, sleeping mats and cooking equipment. We didn’t need to pay anything. She is not sporty or particularly fit but managed the walking fine. She wore boots which she had been wearing for months so no blisters.

Scouts welcome over 14s to do their volunteering - I would think it was worth asking at BB, GB, Guides, etc.
Many sports clubs that have younger teams - football, rugby I am aware of particularly, but I'm sure most sports clubs would welcome willing volunteers.

I know of a practice expedition where the child took no food. My biggest piece of advice is to put everything in 3/4 bin bags, waterproof bags are not waterproof even with covers and you will get wet clothes and sleeping bags.

We live on the edge of a national park, with lots of walking options starting from the village. There has been a non-stop stream of bronze DofE groups all week. They generally have adults starting them off and kind of 'trailing' them / hanging out on the same routes & spotting them every so often. The kids look in a mix of states from sprinting through to limping when they get back :-)

Ds's bronze practice consisted of going down the local country park for a couple of hours, having lunch then heading back. Seems like that was enough practice as they all coped with the actual thing ok, even though it was pouring with rain both days and all night, they took a couple of wrong turns but found their way back. ds came back looking like a smurf as his new long sleeved blue t-shirt dyed his body 🤣

Library volunteering popular here as are charity shops.

On a related topic, does anyone have any good tips for the sort of organisations that welcome under 16s as volunteers? My 15 year old son and friend are looking for opportunities that preferably involve interacting with people (adults or kids) rather than practical stuff like clearing up etc. - their age and restrictions on the time they can be available due to school and on people accepting volunteers post-covid mean that it seems quite challenging to find interesting volunteering opportunities. What kind of things are your kids doing?

DD1 (in yr11) was supposed to do her Bronze practice and then Bronze assessed in the May of yr9 (2020). On the school practice day in yr9 when they were supposed to have a go at putting up tents etc, there was torrential rain and thunderstorms, so they just watched the external company's staff put up tents in the sports hall!

Due to Covid, the company skipped the practice and they did a 2-night expedition in the July of yr10 which counted as both Bronze assessed and Silver practice - so their very first trip (and very first time putting up tents!) was assessed. They then did a 2-night expedition in October of yr11 which was Silver assessed. DD1 loved every minute of both expeditions!

My daughter isn’t doing it as she’s low on iron and too weak but her school friends all did a practice one (camping on school field) last weekend. My son did a practise one too

oh how annoying, wrote a long msg out, lost it...

One of the kids on DS's DoE last month hadn't even tried heavy bag on & walked around with it. & they didn't have a practice expedition.

But all completed fine. Things things can work out.

Bizarre expectations of what school should do, in my opinion. They are not primary school aged children.
DofE is not just about the expedition, they would have been engaged with other parts to help learn to organise themselves, etc.

In all fairness our school were present during the practice as well as expedition so although some got a bit lost they weren't lost for a long time.
All my DC just did it for fun. I would have hated it....

I feel sad that so many schools are just "getting them through it" or "getting them to do the bare minimum" and it ends up doing the exact opposite of what the scheme is about. Yes, it ought to be challenging, but it is designed to foster a love of the new experiences of getting out into the countryside, camping (usually) walking, navigating, and so forth, and all these dc being sent out unprepared, not knowing how to pack a rucksack and being uncomfortable, not knowing what food to take and struggling with that, and coming back with blisters, and aching etc is more likely to put youngsters off than encourage more of the outdoor life

That's my point though- they didn't.

In fact, tons of parents were complaining on the Facebook group about how unfair it was that their kids were going to have to miss school to recover...

Our school does it with Urdd.

They have a training weekend - one day of route planning, map reading, meal,planning, putting up tents and using the stoves and another day of a local walk - ours was 10 miles along the coastal path. They didn’t make them carry a bag of kit which I think was a mistake.

Urdd provide all of the stoves and tents and have a number of rucksacks, sets of waterproofs etc that can be borrowed.

They did their expedition this weekend. Loads of kids had huge badly packed bags with things hanging off that they couldn’t really carry comfortably. But it was only 1 night and 2 days so they all survived. I think a lot will think twice before signing up to do the silver!

The kit list is all on the website so there’s no reason that people don’t know this information until the last minute.

OP, do you know if the school is running the expedition themselves or using an external company to do it? Ours uses an external company, for which we have paid a fee, which is fine. However, when my eldest did it, there was a practice day, where they erected tents and learned about how to pack their bags and plan meals. I see no sign of the same thing being organised for DC2. I suspect that either a different company is being used, or the school has gone for a cheaper service. Either way, I don't think the school yet realises it needs to plug the gap to make sure the students are prepared. No doubt parents will start emailing soon, and there will be some last minute sessions organised. 🙄

I think it is upto us as parents to make sure that they have put a heavy rucksack on and walked around the local park in their walking boots tbh.

Oh, and I forgot to say, the £50 is waived for any kids on FSM.

They're also amazing at including kids with disabilities, and my dd has a number of modifications for that.

My daughter has just done her silver practice, and even at that level they're getting severe blisters and other injuries because they're not preparing, it's madness that the kids think they can do that and the parents aren't helping either. I guess those parents never did DofE/scouts etc themselves- I was a scout leader years ago and have spent ages helping my daughter prep.

On cost, her school charges £50 for all expeditions including practices, they have a stack of equipment that they loan out for £1 an item and that includes tents and cookers that the kids are not allowed to provide themselves. Everything else, they can choose to use their own or hire.

It is funny that most of the kids hire bags, so this sea of matching green rucksacks comes out of the van and no-one has a clue which is which! My daughter uses my dh's bright orange one though- which also has the advantage of a side zip so you can get at stuff packed low down without taking everything out and I would make that my first recommendation to anyone buying a bag!

DD did a practice walk about a month ago and the real thing 2 weeks ago.
The weekend before the practice they all had to go into school to practice putting the tents up and packing their bags.

DD's group got lost on both weekends!
The practice and the real thing were in different places.

Wore the boots in for weeks beforehand but still had blisters.

Initially she said she was never doing it again, however mentioned on Friday about the Silver!

I found the difference in price interesting. We paid £320 for DD and they were provided with tangiers and tents.

My friends son at a different school paid £40 and they were given tangiers, tents, rucksacks and a few other bits to save parents buying them.