Why is the Duke of Edinburgh award scheme so complicated? I'm getting bamboozled by the entry requirements: you have to be 15 to start silver, but you must be 16 when you finish, unless of course, you've taken bronze, in which case you can be 15 and a half, OR you can start silver when you're 14, so long as you can make the case that everyone else in your school year is doing so.
Why not just align it with school years? Why not say you can do Bronze in (or at least, not before) Year 9, Silver in or not before Year 10 and Gold in or not before Year 12, thereby handily also avoiding exam years?
All categories have to be done for six months for silver, I think, unless you've done Bronze (or something like that) - why not just say Bronze: do everything for three months, Silver, do everything for 6 months, Gold, do everything for 9 months?
And why does everything have to be for an hour a week, when an awful lot of useful service/volunteering/exercise (say, mountaineering)/skills are not organised in that way at all, but are much more likely to happen for one full day a month? Why can't you do an intensive week of service/exercise/skills instead - which would surely make it easier for families that can't traipse backwards and forwards to something every week, but could send kids off for a week in the summer?
Do you think I should have a word with the Duke himself, or will he be too cut up about Harry&Meghan to care right now?