Bronze DofE £250 through school

[Allgoodfun]

DC has brought home the information to do bronze DofE, which school have offered for many years. However this year the price has suddenly rocketed from roughly £30 to £250. On top of that would be all the kit needed for the expedition - waterproofs, boots, sleeping bag etc.
Firstly, is this the normal cost now?
Secondly and more importantly to me, AIBU to think it's ruining the point of the DofE, instead of being open to everyone and so worth having on your CV, is it going to be yet another case of those who can afford it do and those who can't don't so meaningless to future employers/ universities etc?
Regular but nc incase it's only our school charging this amount

Do ncs instead then.

£30 here through scouts or £90 through school.

stealth that's a really good point! we've become fixated on it "looking goog" rather than on what he could learn from it, thanks

DofE and suchlike have just become a middle class marker, and don’t really differentiate between candidates. Not having it doesn’t mean you’re not capable of kayaking up K2 or working with the community. Candidates from backgrounds which don’t traditionally send children to university usually don’t have the opportunity to do DofE, or the money, or they’re working a real job to earn some cash. Ethnic minorities are also far less likely to do DofE. And many schools do so much hand holding for DofE it’s hardly a challenge.

When I was doing interviews, I was looking for someone I would enjoy teaching for 3 years. If they’ve gotten as far as interview, their ability to cope with the academic content of the course is probably a given. Many people with DofE have done it just because everyone else does it, and it certainly doesn’t stand out in a personal statement. I’d far rather see some thing a bit different, like you’re the under 18 world champion at unicycle ping pong - it’s a great starting point for discussion and generally means that the candidate has something about them. I might arrange for a unicycle and a table tennis bat to be at interview though, just to check I look for something that suggest the candidate hasn’t just trodden a path because they’ve been dropped on it.

Re volunteering for D of E. DD is a young leader at Brownies, and has been for a year. The Brownie leader gets a little fed up with the D of E volunteers who do their 3 month stint and then stop once they have that box ticked. DD's friend who also helps is doing D of E, but was already a volunteer. They both get a lot out of it and it has done a lot for DD's confidence.

That would be "looking good"!

A long time ago, the teacher responsible for d of e at our school went on long term sick. Myself and a friend were in upper 6th (so over 18) and ended up running the unit for our gold award service bit. LA was the operating authority though. I carried on doing it in my first year at uni too. Never charged more than a fiver on top of the advertised fees.

Yes we could afford to help our DS to do it but not without sacrificing other things so we don't just have money to burn.

I'm not sure why the school isn't allowing parents to run it. There are staff involved too and all parentscare appropriately checked and trained. Most equipment can be borrowed from stocks except boots. As i say if walking was chosen for the expedition it's certainly more affordable but only because of parents and staff giving up their time. DS1 has just finished gold and DS2 has just finished silver. There were about 100 doing bronze, about 50 doing silver and 20 odd did gold.

Thanks very that's good to know. It's what I was thinking now that it's expensive particularly. I might look into unicycle clubs...
Older dc didn't do DofE or NCS etc as they were competing in their sport at a high level, which left no time for extras, and they did get asked about their sport and what it had taught them in other ways at their interview, so did feel it had helped them gain a place.

Even if it's functionally useless for CVs or whatever, I'm still glad DS has done it. We are an entirely urban family, don't even have a garden, and DS has really, really enjoyed both the process and the expeditions. He's also expanded his social group at school, which has been really good for him.

Can't you do it through Scouting. I am pretty sure that a lot of it marries up and that the final Scout senior award is at leas equivalent. We also don't charge! (I am a new Beaver scout leader so not an expert in what the bigger kids do but it might be worth looking into it!)

I think it comes down to him deciding what he would get out of it and learn from it rather than if it's worth having on his CV. As he's already involved in team sports and another individual sport he already has some of the team building, skills etc but it would obviously teach him more (maybe how to survive without wifi for more than half an hour). He will probably volunteer at the sport as he gets older anyway as that's part of it's sustainability.

My oldest did his Gold Scout award last year which is roughly equivalent to D of E bronze. The expedition bit was a "supported expedition" which meant that although the boys did everything themselves in terms of planning, navigating, hiking and cooking, there was a leader checking in with them overnight. Cost wise, he had most of the gear already as he regularly goes camping with Scouts so had things like boots and waterproof trousers.

I think £250 is outrageous but it's a HUGE committment for teachers to try to see kids through their D of E and if there are no volunteers or anyone who is appropriately trained, and there is demand from the children, then the only option is to get in an external company to guide them through the course.

I also think joining Explorers purely to get D of E on the sly is cheeky fucker territrory. Scouts/Guides etc is also run purely by volunteers and many of the Explorers will have gone through the whole Beavers, Cubs and Scouts system before reaching Explorers. Expecting volunteer leaders to take on youngsters who have shown zero interest in Scouting just to do their D of E is not on. Also, Scouting subs are at least £100 a year and you'll have to provide your equipment, and that's assuming you can find an Explorers' group which is not bursting at the seams and desperate for volunteer helpers in hte first place.

Our Scouts does it but only as a region rather than as an individual group. The scout awards sort of mirror it. DSs get a scouting award for completing each section plus a few extra bits. Again, keep in mind that these people are also volunteers and people should join scouts because they want to be scouts rather than just seeing it as a way to get dofe cheaper. Having said that I'd recommend anyone to get involved in scouts its a brilliant organisation.

Blimey Very, that's a bit harsh. If you've done Gold, it is one hell of a commitment & only 10k of people a year manage to achieve it, I believe. DS has nearly completed & it is an 18 month commitment, involving being out in what's called wild country for 5 days, being entirely self-sufficient. Only one other boy at his school did it, so it was hardly a case of doing it, just because everyone else did it. I think you are being dismissive of a huge commitment by a young person, in addition to A levels.

I'm gobsmacked at companies charging £250 per head to deliver bronze. I would be getting in touch with the DofE organisation through the website if that was the case at my DCs school.

What Titchy says above ^

Don't do it thinking it is good for your uni applications.

Do it if you want to do the activities and volunteering involved to enrich you personally.

Unless relevant to your degree eg. hospital or care hom work to medicine, or in a primary school for teaching the Uni will not care!!

Having just attended the presentations for the gold groups at DSs school I can assure you it isn't a walk in the park. All 4 groups had severe weather to contend with. One expedition had to be abandoned in the middle if the night due to severe storms. DSs group had huge waves and broken kayak wheels to contend with meaning they had to carry fully laden kayaks for hours at a time to get to camping areas. I think it's a massive achievement for 16 and 17 year olds.

My eldest did this at school last year. It cost £245, plus we had to provide all kit except for the tents and the cooking stoves. He enjoyed the expeditions but decided not to carry on with it, so it was a bit of a waste really. My husband did DofE gold and got a lot out of it, which was why we were happy for our eldest to try it in the first place. Will still be happy for the younger children to try it when they get to the same age though.

I agree with people saying it would be unfair to join Scouts just for DofE. He would either do it through school at this price or not do it.

To add an alternate point of view as this thread has been very 'uni centric', but only 50% go to university.

DD1 did bronze DofE. It was really worthwhile for her.
For someone who hadn't does sports teams or music it provided a structure to widen her experiences.
It got her into an physical activity she had wanted to do more of but she (and we) now had the kick to put the time into organising.
It got her volunteering for something that she is now making a career of (and possibly wouldn't have got the job without the experience).
It made her realise that she can push herself physically if she puts her mind to it.
So the award itself might not be needed but the structure and the push it gave her were very worthwhile.

£250 is ridiculous though.

That is really expensive.
It cost £19 to register the child up to and including silver award.

I'm assuming the campsite fees are included for the practise and the qualifying exped.
The only other cost the organisation could possibly have is for the transport when they are doing the map reading skills and camping.
As there has to be a minimum of 4 in the qualifying camp that is £1000 which is a lot especially if you are providing your own food.
Unless they do the camp in the next two weeks the earliest opportunity they will get to camp is next Easter.

As an alternative to schools and scouts have a look to see if your Young People's Service run it.
Or try a Youth Zone?

The school will be using a company for expeditions for this cost so paying for their staff. I run DofE in a school but have 30 volunteers to staff expeditions so ours cost £70 for bronze expeditions. Volunteers are parents, teachers and former students. I am very lucky to have this set up. Our whole Gold Award costs under £200.

I still think its overpriced, but remember that money covers fees, transport but most of all staff wages. There will be leaders to pay for to supervise the training plus the practice and final expeditions as well as paperwork etc. So at least 6 days of staff wages that is normally given for free.

Gosh, my ds has just signed up for the bronze and we paid £22 - I'm wondering now if we will be asked for more to cover the expedition or something.

Can you sign up direct with D of E?

I think there are centres around the country that organise expeditions because if a child misses their school weekend for any reason they can join another school/centre to complete it.