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

Ah that makes sense, thanks Margo

I get a fair few girls do their DofE through Guiding which is much cheaper, plus I have a Silver volunteer at Brownies atm. It certainly isn't helping out, she has objectives and a development plan - so much so she's now doing her Young Leader qualification as well!

I'd investigate through local Guiding or Scouting routes tbh

*Notacooldad

It only costs £19 to register the participant. It costs an Operating Authority loads more to actually be able to run the programme and approve the kids' activities - hence why LEAs are ditching the cost, and leaving it to private providers who obviously have to recoup the cost of being an OA as well as make a profit.

*Everyone seems to be ignoring that

Yes I get that but when I read the first post it said the school was running it. It was only I needed the second post that that the Op thought that an external is running it.

You may have seen my post suggesting that she contact the local authority to see if any one is doing it as an Open Award *titchy?

Hi Dd has just finished silver. For bronze I'm sure it is 100 (hiking) For silver She did canoeing instead so it cost 300, there was the option to do hiking but she wanted to try canoeing. Is it the hiking exhibition? I hadn't heard of anyone doing it for under 100 but that may be just in our area. Also once they are kitted out for bronze you don't need much for subsequent trips, think we just got food and waterproof gloves and wellies as extras this time. The practice expeditions are more supervised I think and I also think they need to do a certain amount of hrs so they do a practice and then the real thing. Hope that helps

The practise exped is to iron out any problems and can be repeated as many times as needed. The qualifying exped is assessed. The season may ask questions and will observe campcraft skills, navigation etc.

Incidentally if they do make an navigational mistake it's not the end of the world as. Long as they can identify what went wrong and how it was corrected.

It's sad to hear that the organisation of the award is going this way, but between the pressure of teaching workload and LA cuts I can believe it. I assisted with some of the training/expeditions for the award in some of the early schools I worked in. One of them was run by LA youth workers rather than directly by the school. They were amongst the first to face redundancy when the state of the economy affected council budgets.

I benefited enormously through doing the award. My mum was overprotective and allowed me little freedom, so the ability to go off walking in groups of friends with light supervision of staff was a great experience for someone not allowed out on their own at 15. The physical activity at Silver gave me the incentive to finally learn to swim 25m. Continuing on for Gold made me an experienced swimmer. Out of the 80 people that set off on their Bronze practice expedition, I was one of the 8 to get their Gold award presented at Buckingham Palace. All those miles I trudged under a rucksack weighing 30% of my body weight as I muttered, "I WILL make it to the palace, I WILL make it to the palace..."

My county in Girl Guiding runs the award.

I am amazed at the cost a.
Can I ask what areas are charging such high prices?
I work in Lancashire and where I work I charge £25. However looked after children are free ( both in residential and foster care)
We lend kit out to those that need it. We offer hiking as a physical activity as it puts them in good practise for the exped bit if they wanted to do a different physical activity they would have to fund that themselves.

I'm in Yorkshire, in a small town near a big city, so probably seen as reasonably affluent but with pupils from families with a broad range of incomes

huh?
my dd did the bronze for pence. but i guess that was due to fab teachers giving their time for free. i think its irrelevant re cv value but it was a great experience for her.
its sad that something designed to level the playing field wont anymore

At Bronze it is essentially a two day walk in the countryside with an overnight in a tent and it feels like it is so over-managed sometimes.

Except that for many city children, they never have walked in a really wild area, or put up a tent, or camped overnight, or even lit a match before.

My DD is doing her bronze this year through school and the cost is £90, £10 more than for DS last year. They have band and peer supporter/prefect for skills and volunteering. They have re started tennis lessons for the physical bit which adds to the cost, but I'd be happy if they wanted to carry on after the 3 months. It's a lot to fit in as well as school and they both work weekends, so I think it's a great achievement for them even if it's no use on a uni application or cv.

That is obscene and not the norm everywhere thankfully. At that price it excludes too many children, and would be off putting for some just wanting to try it.

If you want him to do some extra curricula why not try one of the cadet forces. Most offer the DoE reg fee & £20 for the week & other qualifications. Also they do interesting voluntary work - helping at major local events etc. And they get to learn a host of skills from field craft, map reading, radio operators etc. Kit is provided at no charge (apart from boots) and the subs are minimal - our local army cadets is 50p a week.

Weekend trip not week - auto correct fail

It's only the expedition and paperwork that our school deals with everything else is for the DC to organise and fit into their busy lives.

The reason it is cheap with the cadets is presumably because the MOD is subsiding the group.

All the cases where the cost is negligible are where there are no staff costs and where some larger organisation is picking up the cost of overall accreditation. LEA budgets are shrinking, teachers don’t necessarily want to give up even more hours to supervise out of school activities.

Government money seems to be going to NCS. DoE can be a really great and life changing experience I’m sure. But for many it is just another activity the teens do.

aftershock they offer it at the local schools - it is still no where near £250! At that price it is outpricing what is a wonderful opportunity.

DD did bronze 5 months ago. Seeing how many teachers gave up most of two weekends for it, £250 sounds like a bargain, tbh, if the teachers can't provide their time "for free." A practice was essential, I feel.

Our cadets group was useless at DoE! It wasn't organised at all properly. :(

Lol, at just walk them round.

DH volunteers with the D of E. He gets paid nothing other than £5 daily allowance for meals on exped weekends and a nominal bursery towards training/assessment costs. He pays the rest of the cost towards training, gives up an evening a week for 6 months of the year, pays his own travel costs to get to the group, alongside approx 6/8 weekends a year on practice and assessed walks. Using his leave for at least one of the two 5 day expeds they do for silver/gold assessments. He pays for his own camping and walking equipment, plus funds for evening meal while away.

He has done a couple of paid weekends with other under staffed groups in order to recoup some of his costs, as he can earn approx £100 a day assessing another group.

The costs for his group vary from £160 for bronze to £180 for gold. These costs go towards paying the leaders wage (all other adults involved are voluntary), hall fees, insurance, minibus hire, driver trg, DBS checks, registration fees, camp site fees, equipment, bursaries for training volunteers, bursaries towards under priviledged students etc

If parents object to the fees, volunteer to help out yourselves, or find one of the few groups left who can still subsidise it for little or no cost.

My daughter has just done it this year and we also paid £250 through school. It was done via Sam Sykes. I think we spent about a further £80 on equipment as my daughter is very tall so needed women’s walking boots where as my neighbours child was able to get away with child size boots so paid less. Sports Direct have lots of stuff which is cheaper

Re the uni applications, both my DC were told not to put in on their personal statements. PSs now seem entirely subject based.

The one who did NCS did get a job in the 6th form out it because she had something interesting to discuss at interview.

I appreciate the OP is not moaning that teachers are not doing it for free but just to put their side on it.

I was part of my schools DofE team (until the leader decided I was surplus to requirements)

Within my county we are required to have one qualified person for every 21 students. I hold this qualification, in order for me to gain it I had to spend 9 days during weekends and holidays doing training and being assessed. School did pay for my course but it was £450 to complete.

I also, to keep my qualification valid, need to hold a current first aid certificate which is outdoor first aid so a specific course - which school get for free as I am also a Guider so it is always current.

To run the programme it required weekly training, a training day one weekend, practice and qualifying expeds for 2 weekends as well. I do get my petrol covered and I normally cook for all the staff so am fed as well. Then it is the chasing of students to get the other 3 bits signed off - hours of work! I completely get why staff are not taking it on, I am not too gutted not to be involved anymore.

Our state school had a meeting about dofe last week. It charges over £300 for bronze. I think it includes the loan of tents & cooking stuff but even so ...

I was quite miffed that DD1 didn't do DofE but felt a little better upon deleting this morning's Parentmail asking for payment of £825 for the Gold. Yes really.

www.dofe.org/costs-and-timescales

Just googled. It says the additional costs must be listed.

sunnydalegotobedone your local schools offering it for less than £250 just means they are lucky enough to still have teachers prepared to do the work for free - or maybe they have found the company everyone else would like to know about - it allows schools to outsource the work but only changes a nominal amount per student. Only I’m not sure that company can exist.