Absence and plea for no homework after D of E weekend

**same homework not save!

I kind of think it’s encouraging of their efforts to actually give a small amount of leeway. If this was bronze then some of them will be fine but some will come from families unused to this level of activity
if they feel pressured the first day back the risk is they may not progress on to Gold or Silver.
sometimes a compromise is best e.g. save homework but the option to submit after next weekend? Those genuinely exhausted can wait till the weekend if they wish to?

Feels like the teachers involved in d of e probably know better than you what state the students will be in. My kids have done about 5 d of e expeditions between them over the years, real and practice at diff levels. One time one of them had the day off after. Rest of the time all completely fine. Depends on the child and if they hurt themselves or did it on top of mild illness etc, and how much sleep they had.

Yes it’s all about resilience but not all kids are the same and especially at bronze (which I presume this was) there are loads of kids doing it who many never have done any long walks carrying stuff like this before and frankly, no they aren’t very resilient. Hopefully they’re a bit more resilient after than before bronze, but they’re coming from different starting points.

Just try to be pragmatic and not too judgemental. Light homework all week seems a bit extreme but a bit of flexibility due to them doing something extra with school, that affects a lot of them and is predictable - that seems reasonable.

I agree OP- DofE is challenging but it is about building resilience and discipline, heck certainly isn’t helped by missing a day of school (unless there has been serious injury suffered on the trip, which I doubt).

I’d have been tempted to dish out a few extra hours of homework for year 11 upon seeing that email…

At my school where we do many outdoor pursuits trips the rule is you must be in school the next day.
The only exception is after climbing Kilimanjaro we give them a few days to recover.

My DD2 fainted on the way to school the day after her silver DoE expedition, so I would say YABU.

However this should have been identified as an issue much earlier so staff planning was not disrupted at such a late stage.

I think it's shit that 50% of them weren't in. They could all have got through the day tired and worn out together. Was it authorised? The light homework for a couple of days I think is fair enough but after that what's the point it's not like you're making them do homework on the expedition.

I imagine if all you did was drive you were sitting on your arse 😁

Homework is overrated.

Family life is negatively impacted by huge amounts of often pointless homework.

Im sure I’ve seen studies recommending scaling it down drastically or getting rid entirely.

Bully for you.
The D of E kids aren't you.

My DD spent three days on DoE, walking with a hugely heavy backpack and waking at 6.30 am, one night after being woken by a thunderstorm. She was destroyed when she came back on Sunday night. We felt she needed an extend sleep on Monday so she would be alert and in good shape for the rest of the week.

It's fucking exhausting.

I did it. I was exhausted.
My kids did it. They were exhausted.

I'm a teacher. Why are they doing it in year 11? Year 10 is much better.

They will be knackered and this weekend was wet and wild up here.

It's not about being a machine! Why bother setting them up to be exhausted?
Bet you sat on your arse half the weekend and didn't trek for 10 miles carrying a massive bag and sleeping in the wind and rain?

Have you done the D of E? I did several decades ago and it was knackering.

But realistic perhaps.