AIBU to despair about DofE cheating

[WhatTheHeckIsIt]

Someone I know very well is the teacher who leads the Duke of Edinburgh at a school. Their teen is going to Buckingham Palace to receive their gold award. There is no way on this planet the teen has completed any of the activities - it's a stitch up.

It's made me feel really sad.

a) I expected more of this person
b) I expected more of their child
c) how could you let your child accept an award amongst people who have worked really hard to achieve it
d) it devalues everyone else's award
e) it's just shit

Rant over - but there's nothing I can do is there?

Conversely my DD did everything for her DofE gold but never submitted it.

Yes actually I think when my boys did Gold there was a few of them doing it together.
I wasn’t involved, just let them get on with it.

Bronze was a larger group, my example related to the bronze

I had to laugh at the ‘ it’s not the royal marines’ and bribing.
Our d of e instructor is also ccf teacher. Ex Royal Marines 🤣🤣🤣🤣 so maybe it was a bribe.

They don't do the residential as a group, they ideally do it with people they don't know. It isn't hard to organise, you go onto the DofE site and look at what is on offer, sometimes it is volunteering and sometimes it is paying for an art/drama/outdoor activity organised by an outside provider. I can't imagine why the teacher/leader would book it, just makes it more complicated as they aren't going to pay for it are they. It gets signed off by the organisation why would they risk losing out on future business if they got found out lying.

I think lots of friends will probably think GS is off on a school trip when he does his expedition, if they are stalking him they will see him set off in the school minibus with a couple of teachers and the other kids doing the expedition. I don't think anyone would think anything of him going off to do a sport he has been doing for years. I don't think anyone we know could hand on heart say they know GS has actually done all he needed to do but apart from the expedition which he is doing in a couple of months he has done it all.

Ah yes, that poster will be getting mixed up with the residential. Ideally that's done without friendship group.
I'd completely forgotten that part of it!
Mine loved that almost as much as the camping.

I'm glad there are other kids who did it but never submitted the paperwork - I was starting to think it was just mine! I can't say I nagged them to do it. Really ... who cares ... apart from op, obvs

I remember one teacher telling me this. He worked in another centre to me. He worked in a training centre not a school, but it had teenagers in it.

He said that he would set an exam, then he would go around the class and write the exam answers for all of students, on their papers.

It doesn't look good for these centres if students fail. It doesn't look good for teachers if students fail.

So there is a total conflict of interest. The teacher is worried that he will look bad if the students fail, so he is worried about his own job, so he does the work for the students.

It's a crazy system. Teachers doing all the work first students is so common. Education doesn't happen.

I've worked in about 5-6 centres delivering national awards, and I've seen this happen in all of them.

Places are not checked properly. Or maybe the external checkers just don't really care either. Nobody seems to check much or care much.

I think people are confusing it with the residential. They are encouraged to go off and do something without their friends, it will be something organised and they aren't alone but they aren't with their group from school/scouts or whatever.

Sorry, I think you posted while I was typing.

Tbh, I lived in a rural area growing up, and we were first responders for scraping DoE gold expeditions off the hillside.

They would never advocate sending people out alone.

One of the 20 conditions is that the expedition is completed in a group of between 4 and 7 people (8 if it is a tandem mode of travel).

People can disagree all you like, until I hear it from university admissions professionals that the prescence or absence of DofE will make any difference on an application makes any difference I will keep pointing that out.

Depends how you write it! Just saying "I've got bronze D of E" doesn't make a huge impact but if you can extrapolate what you learned from it and how you think those skills are transferable then it's definitely good on a personal statement.

The only one worth doing is gold IMO, and that's such a massive time sink you are better off doing an epq.

(for personal statements)

We went to an admissions event at Cambridge a few years ago and they were at pains to point out that they do not take DofE into account - unless a component of it was connected to the course you were interested in. They discarded music exams too. All signs of wealthy schooling and involved parenting but not of raw talent. They said they expected their talented student to have diverse interests but it was not for them to judge those extra curricular interests as worthy or otherwise. I was really impressed by their fairer approach to these things.

It’s self starting super curricular stuff showing a particular interest in your subject which is relevant apparently. Thankfully as neither of mine will have done DofE!

Dd1 all over additional lectures attending stuff connected to the career she wants and relevant EPQ. She would not have time to do gold plus she has a job. Maybe perceived as more relevant than hiking.

And having a job does wonders for kid’s soft skills - I’ve seen it over and over again - teenagers benefit enormously by employment- I’d make it compulsory if I could.

It really doesn't take that much time if kids have been involved in sport before, in my experience anyway. GS carried on doing his sport, volunteered to help with younger kids for his volunteering element but really at his level that is sort of going to happen anyway, his skill was something he did at home that is useful for his future. Apart from that he did one 5 day residential and as he didn't have another holiday last year I think that was reasonable for him to have a fun break. All he has left to do is his expedition which again he will enjoy going off and having an adventure with his friends at the end of A levels.

He's done his EPQ so it didn't prevent that, has done extra stuff related to his A levels in holidays/at weekends.

He hasn't done it for uni though, he's done it because he has lots of energy, likes outdoors stuff and has enjoyed it.

Doing DofE doesn't stop them doing a job. I don't know how much time people imagine it takes if they think they can't work or do EPQs etc. It certainly hasn't stopped GS and his friends doing any of that.

Certainly does. For a stereotypical middle class child who is a prefect, has done DofE, plays the violin and piano and does debating, a job a corner shop or a local pub would be far more valuable experience.

I'm not sure about that. My dd was that stereotypical child - they treated her like shit at the pub she worked at hen she was 17 including sexual harassment. She certainly didn't mention it on her ps! She ended up not working at all through uni and was supported by me. Graduated straight into a good job which she still has 5 years later.

Better to do it for interest rather than cv building - ds’s group was full of kids who were forced to do it - none of them made much of a contribution to the planning of the expedition- ds did most of it - which was good experience for him on planning but would have been better to have been more of a team experience

Then it is about the skills one has which one could have gained in a myriad of different ways and not about DofE.

If anyone wants a better idea of what competitive universities are looking for in supra-curricular activities this is a pretty good resource.

https://www.worc.ox.ac.uk/applying/access-and-outreach/resources/guide-supercurriculars

I never really pay much attention to what Oxbridge says. My teens have always had their own interests which take up a lot of time and weren't necessarily at all impressive to university (horse riding for example!) so they've done things they loved not necessarily what they think universities want!

I agree that having a job is extremely important, both my teens have weekend jobs and I'm very proud of this as they were completely self motivated in finding and securing them. I was a very unconfident teen - I always dreamt of having a Saturday job but was too scared to apply!