To think this a crazy price for DofE Silver Award

[Fgsvirgin]

School have just sent the letter. (Not a fee paying school.)

It is £420 (plus a £50 deposit).

That seems like an awful lot to me for a trip where you have to provide the transport there and back yourself, provide the food and some of the kit.

The price is set by the third party company organising it and does include training sessions (not an overnight session just a couple of classroom based sessions and one 7 hr walk), the registration fee and loan/hire of the tent, cooking stove thing and coat/waterproof bottoms and sleeping bag if you want. This is what the deposit is for.

Does that not seem a really expensive hike to you?

I suppose I’m comparing it to other school trips where they get a couple of nights away with food and transport for less than £300.

I should have seen it coming when Bronze was £300 but I paid that blindly thinking that is how much these things cost!

If your child did D/E Silver, how much was it?

(I realise the key here is that there is a third party company arranging it so I suppose I’m looking for responses from those who also have experience with third party D/E companies.)

I think that unless your kids actually enjoy the process so you would support them if you can it has become a bit pointless tbh. The whole “it will look good on your CV” thing is irrelevant now, lots of kids can show that they have done many things outside of school that achieve the same outcome without paying an outside company a fortune to help them achieve the award.

I think its dependant on how much you can rely on (trained, dbs checked) volunteers and how much the specific organisation is prepared to subsidise the cost!

DS's involves staff to monitor, tents/stoves/first aid kits and other stuff provided. I imagine the scouts have their own available but a school doesn't?

This is why universities aren't interested in D of E on personal statements.
That is a lot of money.

Our state school has the same costs as OP, I got the form a couple of weeks ago laying out all the trip costs and they are all steep! DS is a Scout and I hadn’t realised they might have option of doing DoE through that instead, I’m sure it would be cheaper but so many give up their time volunteering to enable it. Scouts is such a great organisation. I will look out for bronze option on there as a starter, thanks for the prompt!

I think we've paid about £25 which covered the cost of transport to a suitable hiking destination but that was it!

And this is a private school, BTW.

Here it’s £27.50 with cadets, £24.50 (I think told second hand) with St John Ambulance or about £200 with school.

How very bizarre,

I thought it sounded like good fun and a bonding experience.

My dd didn't want to do it but I'm glad now as two other amazing trips have come up which we couldn't afford and would struggle to afford.

But there was definitely pressure from every single parent that it's all about the CV and looking good on it.

I will get my dd to say, we couldn't afford it my passion lay elsewhere.

To be fair, they are interested. It really depends on what you did to achieve it though.

What D of E doesn’t give you however is UCAS points.

If you do a Gold, that’s an awful lot of activities over a long time to talk about. It may cost a lot of money to do use (using some organisers) but you still have to have done your skills, physical, volunteering, weeks residential and then the expedition.

They don’t just ignore that because it is a lot of effort.

I think it was £150 when I did it 30 years ago, so it doesn’t seem bad to me, but our teachers were the ones doing all the work so the third party company is the cost. It’s a few days though silver isn’t it so it’s a lot of time involved for the adults keeping an eye on them and making sure they’re safe.

I’m a scout leader too. My kids have been camping and using skills from age 5ish. My 12 year old can pitch a large tent and needs no more help that carrying heavy stuff together for camp set up, a mate is fine. They’ve camped already for a few years with minimal support. Even my 6 year old loves a forest camp and fire.

If anyone is tempted I recommend it, and leading. If there’s enough leaders to share the load it’s actually fun and not onerous at all.

Nothing stopping the young person fundraising for their Gold....

DC has done bronze and silver. I don’t think we paid anything. Perhaps DH paid something but it can’t have been much or he’d have said something.

Why would they fund raise for it when it's become about CV for uni?

If they love drama and want to access shows etch

Our school ( state) organised the training, lends equipment like tents, rucksacks, maybe even boots ( not sure about that) and pays teachers to do it. Don't think we paid anything except for food so it is pretty accessible.

DD2 was going to do bronze through Army Cadets - £23 which goes to DofE. All activities arranged through cadets. She left cadets but has just started at a new school where she will do her bronze. Her £23 fee carries over to allow her to do it free of charge. All activities arranged through school. She'll need boots and a coat only.

The school will be paying the external company for the expert advice of a mountain leader to assess them as well as providing first aid cover. (DH is one).
Fir a large school there will be up to 6 of these per cohort. Plus the teachers overtime etc for weekends.

With Scouts etc (I'm one) there is no adult costs but don't forget you are paying subs which will cover some of the expenses.

When dd did D of E 15 years ago it was all done through rangers at minimal cost.
These costs are not really in the spirit of the award scheme are they?
Whats happened to all the adult volunteers?

We paid £70 at independent school and would have been similar at explorers but this is based on the adults volunteering so massive cost difference

@Quincythequince When DD was applying for medicine the admissions tutors at the subject talks said that D of E wouldn't make any difference to the application.

DD was unsuccessful and then decided to apply post A levels for biomed, where the university said that they didn't even read the personal statement. All they were interested in were the academic results.

The trouble is most "D of E" is Bronze, and often not completed, which is reasonably easy to take pert in - one bronze expedition isn't interesting. They are interested in completed Gold - which means in total nearly 2 years of once a week of volunteering /learning a skill / doing a sport.
ALL the kids in DS year started the Bronze, just under a third actually finished (but all did the expedition!). 12 went on to Silver (about 9 finished). 7 are signed up to Gold - I imagine most will finish, but its not many as a proportion of the school.

I have no idea how people pay for this sort of thing. It certainly means that only the well off can afford for their children to do it.

The cost of that trip is the cost of our actual holiday, for two adults.

Blimey. I always the DofE was about 50 quid or something.
Although I have never seen the point of the whole 'expedition' part - ie hiking and camping. Other than having to do some 'planning' what's it's purpose?
I think the NCS looks better (National Citizen Service) but you can't do that until post GCSEs. It would be better if you could do it from the age of 12 or so.

I've just paid £24 for my son to do his bronze.

I think the silver is a lot more at school, £25o last year for the older child. She refused to do it though!

£30 for us with Explorer Scouts. The walking boots, sleeping bag etc we own already as they've been in Scouting since they were 6 so we're never without boots and waterproofs and a lot of ours gets passed down to the younger child and then given to Scout leaders to pass on if it's still got use left. We've accessed so many great activities and trips cheaply thanks to Scouts, I always make sure we get all the volunteers a christmas present as they give the kids amazing opportunities.