Can I be really nosy and ask what you paid for Duke of Edinburgh award through school

[Mondayforthebin]

So DS's was nearly £300 which at the time I thought sounded okay for a 3 day residential & training etc but I've just been speaking to Dsis and her DC only paid £50 (this was a few years ago though). I just assumed that everyone paid the same but it would appear not. As I said just being a bit nosy now to see what others have paid.

I can see your point about it being out of reach for a lot, and those are the ones who would probably benefit the most.

my dd has just started it, so far we’ve really struggled with finding voluntary stuff. The only places willing to take her want me to go to. Which I understand from insurance and dbs points, but it’s sort of not the point of the volunteering. Whilst I’m happy to do it, if I can fit it in. Not everyone can or will.

Thinks like the cadets - CCF if the school has one or one of the other branches a lot of what they do will class as community service so is a quick way of then filling in their DofE while still doing other bits and won’t require your presence

School costs will depend if it's running with staff volunteers or if the school outsource it and it's done by an outside provider.

Ours was relatively cheap before we stopped it because a team of us ran it and we had the relevant LL/ML qualifications. The PTA kindly subsided a lot of kit for us as well, which meant students could borrow from us instead of buying their own.

Another school I worked at it was hundreds through an outside provider.

I don't remember paying a fee for bronze and silver, apart from the camping fees. Just signed up to gold and it looks like a total of up to £200, depending on number of participants. That includes registration with DofE which is £32 and transport and camping fees for 3 expeditions (I only just realised there are 3, assumed it would be 2). It seems like good value, but I think it's bad if not everyone can afford it and I hope the school makes provision for those who can't.

I don't think the focus of DofE should be whether universities are interested in it. It has loads of value in itself.

Is it true that you have to be able to hike a considerable distance or your group fails?

Depends what you mean by "a considerable distance", but there is an expedition involved, as one part of the scheme.
Doesn't have to be hiking - in theory you can do it on horseback, or sailing, or kayaking, but they do tend to be done more by participants in the Gold award who want to push themselves out of the comfort zone of what they have done for Bronze and Silver. Plus of course need those skills to be there already.
If you are asking from a disability pov, then adjustments can be made.

However, the whole point of the scheme is to challenge young people and to take them out of their comfort zone. It isn't meant to be something you just rock up and do without learning new skills. It is supposed to challenge the teenagers which is why it covers so many different aspects of personal development.

Ours was £24 last year for bronze and the same again this year for silver. School provide tents and camping stoves. And they have a limited amount of rucksacks, sleeping bags etc to loan to pupils who otherwise would struggle to get the kit together. State school and run by school staff.

Depends what you mean by "a considerable distance", but there is an expedition involved, as one part of the scheme
Agree, it's 6 hours planned activity each day, which for some of bronze groups was only around 14km to account for navigation time, rest breaks, lunch and some float to correct errors.

I felt sorry for some of the groups who were more competent and fit as they could have quite happily covered more in the time, but bronze has been made easier over the years probably to reflect the younger entry and we had to keep our groups in an area that staff in could reasonably check in with all groups easily.

My dd is volunteering at a lunchtime school homework club. She'll be signed off by the teacher who runs homework club. She helps pupils gain access their work online, assists a bit with explaining the work to younger students, etc. Would something like this be an option for your dd?

£200 or £250 for bronze. I queried the price but school brought in an outside agency who do a day training before the expedition, accompany the kids for about half the practice expedition and then staff the real expedition, meeting kids at check points etc. It includes borrowing rucksacks, tents and stoves. Think they said we could borrow jackets too if necessary but will have to get the boots ourselves. I thought it was way too expensive when I first heard the price but when all that was added together it seemed a bit more reasonable.

£5 contribution, state school (not a naice one either), Bronze level.

Additional costs were just some bits and pieces for the expedition (new boots, a fleece and food!) School provided all the kit. His skill was cooking and his sport was football that he normally does anyway so no extra cost there. Bus fare to get to his volunteering every week.

DS did his volunteering at the Oxfam shop as it'll take them from 14 years. Might be an option for some people?

All candidates for DofE have to registered at a cost of about £25 per award. Anyone who is doing DofE for less than this is having the basic registration subsidised by the school or voluntary organisation.

More schools use outside companies now. That means those outside companies have to be paid and it then costs more. Schools cannot pay for it out of their already stretched budgets. It is an optional thing after all. And schools often don’t run it themselves now because of high level risk assessments attached to it, plus large numbers of staff volunteers required - and with all the difficulties in teaching these days, fewer and fewer are willing to commit to doing this.

Many schools which use outside companies and charge the higher prices might have a pot of money for those who would struggle to pay, to apply for help from.

My DC school has staff run the Bronze and Silver. I think we paid £50 for bronze and £150 for silver. Gold is run by outside companies and is £500. That covers the 2 expeditions to Wales for 5 night hikes and the transport, as well as some training activities and loan of some equipment.

Bear in mind, that Gold also has a Residential element which is on top of the expedition. Candidates have to go away for at least 4 nights to do a residential activity with people they don’t know. There are a very few free options, but most involve a cost. By Gold you’re looking at needing decent walking boots and sleeping bags and not just cheapie ones.

Many schools don’t offer it beyond Bronze or Silver. Other schools have a big take up at Gold level. It’s often schools in more affluent areas.

Is it worth it? Not for uni applications, which really are interested in academics. Many kids are involved in sport, volunteering, outdoor activities etc through Scouts/Guides or other organisations and for them, DofE can be a replication of that stuff and in lots of ways,isn’t really needed. However, for kids who don’t do much, DofE can kick start them into activities they wouldn’t have otherwise done. Lots aren’t involved in Scouts etc and have never volunteered or done outdoor activities - there are other ways to do anyo if these but DofE is usually a nice easy way to do this stuff and most people doing it do get something g out of it.

But if the costs mean you can’t afford it, other things are clearly more important. It’s a shame but school budgets have to go on books and teachers and not DofE.

I agree that parents should support the teacher strikes. They are about funding schools properly….schools need funds to have enough teachers and resources but also stuff like DofE which makes up an education. Stufff like DofE will always have to be cut ahead of teachers and books….and the kids who lose out are those least likely to have had opportunities to do this stuff previously.

About £50 through RAF Cadets, maybe less.

Many local libraries will take DofE volunteers. Likewise, charity shops, charities that work with disabled, helping with Brownie and Cubs, helping at a local gardening scheme or primary school after school activity club.

The DofE website itself has lots of good ideas. Log into edofe using their account and you can see it.

My DD's was free, the school covered all costs including any equipment needed eg tents. The only things we paid for was food for the camping trip.

Bronze cost the registration fee only through air cadets, silver ended up costing more than £300 as school outsourced the expedition. My son wanted to do it with his school mates. I was cross as the cost was not mentioned when he signed up so I had no idea 2 nights in a tent would be so expensive. If he does gold it will be through cadets!

DS does CCF through school and it will be free but if you’re not a cadet and do it through school it’s around £300

State school. Bronze this year is £150 and Gold is over £500. Lucky me is paying for both!

I had forgotten the registration costs!! I did pay those. I don't think it will make or break an application for university but I do think it can be a valuable experience. My 2 are still very close friends with the people they did their gold award with and the group do some sort of reunion expedition every year.
I actually think that they probably got most out of the residential bit for gold when they went to (separate) holiday schemes for disabled adults and volunteered for about 3 weeks. This option didn't cost anything and the centres subsidised the train / bus trips. There are quite a few of these but it does require a bit of forward planning.on their part (which is a part of the award imo). I do know a couple of their group just had their parents send them on an activity holiday for a week which was a) a bit of a cop out and b) pretty expensive.

£40 for bronze, independent school.

Paid £50 - think it depends if they can get funding.

but the thing is its not free, many many people are giving up their time. It costs a huge amount in people-hours - say 10-20 staff, 2 weekends plus meetings and training and follow up, and either that is contracted out and paid for, or the cost, in time, money, and family life is absorbed by the teachers.

Free it is most definitely not

I think I paid £100 for dd in 2020, bronze award, everything was obviously cancelled quite soon after us paying so they rolled over everything to next year where they struggled and failed to put any of the events on. So essentially I paid £100 for the postal pack thing that came through my letterbox telling me where to buy kit from 😂

State school bronze - £20 to go towards maintenance of kit (all kit provided for pupils too, including boots and waterproofs if needed).

If people are paying less than £80and it covers the reg fee to DofE (£25 ish) and stuff like loan of tents and stoves, and the camp site fees for both the practice and real hikes, it means the school is heavily subsidising it.

Given schools don’t have enough money to buy books or pay for heating the school through the winter, you can see why most won’t be able to or choose to do that. Increasingly, parents will have to pay significantly more and expect to pay the full cost and to cover the cost of using outside companies to run it, if they want their kids to do it. It’s another ‘nice to have’ that schools cannot fund, and over-stretched staff won’t want to give up their free time for.

There’s another thread running about schools not offering residential trips. It’s all part of the same thing isn’t it….the days when schools could offer free weekly swimming, or lots of trips with places subsidised for those who couldn’t afford them, or subsidised D of E, or clubs needing expensive equipment…..those days are gone and education is increasingly narrow and utilitarian, because that’s all there’s funding for. Real shame for the kids and kids of the future.

DC has done Bronze with Scouts and is now doing Silver with them. We paid the D of E online registration fee at the start ( £25 or £30 I think) and then District Scouts charge £30 each for Bronze, Silver or Gold - so £90 if you do the whole thing through to Gold. Amazing value, they do lots of training sessions and have equipment to loan out. All due to the fantastic volunteers, obviously.

School charge £250 for Bronze plus the registration fee and generally it seems to be a bit rubbish, no training on map reading etc before the practice expedition, you learn it all on the practice expedition. And they will sign off anything, several kids are just pretending to do volunteering etc. It's a bit sad really. I suspect it would be better not to run it than to let them learn to cheat. I think they charge £500 for Silver and £800 for Gold. DC will stick to doing it with Scouts as it's so much cheaper and they get a much more useful experience.