To think D of E is a massive swindle

[DofEswindle]

Namechanged in case DD sees this!

She's doing Duke of Edinburgh Bronze with the school for the bargain (hah!) price of £250. I thought everything would be included for that money but we've now been told they need to get a rucksack liner ("no bin bags!") and fancy Wayfarer meal sachets ("no pot noodles!") as well as being told we can hire sleeping mats, sleeping bags etc. if we don't have them.

It just feels like a massive cash-in by the company organising it and Go Outdoors etc to make as much money as they can from gullible parents (me). I assumed the kids would meal plan together and work out what supplies to bring but they've all been told to get special sachets of ready meals at £4.50 each ("no pot noodles" but they are basically posh pot noodles).

Surely D of E should be about teamwork and loving the outdoors not sending your mum to spend a fortune in a camping shop? We're not on benefits so couldn't claim any help from school but £250 is an awful lot of money to spend a night in a field.

YANBU

That's insane.

All these extra-curricular experiences that children used to get as part of their school life are disappearing. If they haven't disappeared entirely they're no longer free or cheap, because outside providers are needed to run them, school staff can't. School staff can't because they're so short staffed it's a struggle just to stay on top of delivering the curriculum, there's no capacity for the extras. When all your planning and prep time has been taken by covering lessons, or setting and marking work for cover teachers, you don't really have the energy to go camping for a weekend, supervising 30 teenagers. That's if you even have time, the work you'd have been doing in that lost planning and prep time has to be done sometime, so it's done at the weekend. Or you work in a pub at the weekend because if you don't you can't pay your rent, and as the school aren't paying you for your time camping, you can't afford to miss those shifts in the pub. The Tories well and truly sucked the joy out of school life, in myriad ways.

I was told by a teacher when she saw DS walking shoes that he had to have a pair of walking boots, NOT walking shoes (which he wore a lot) as needed ankle support.

Cost me £50 as DS was a size 9. He wore them once on the DofE weekend which was local and flat so no ankle support needed at all. He never wore them again as you don’t usually use walking boots on a daily basis.

Was annoyed to say the least.

The reason it is so expensive is because the school get an external company to run it and they make a fat profit. My son did his bronze through school and we paid around £250 and then he had the option to do silver through the army cadets and they only charged £40. Doing it through the school makes it unreachable for alot of students.

Pot noodles are not very nutritious, the contents is not what it was when they 1st came on the market, & they are very salty which could lead to bad dehydration if over consumed.
Processed food has drastically changed since I was a student 20years ago😬

Assume they are providing tent etc

borrow a rucksack, and walking boots although mine have walking boots anyway - same with waterproof trousers borrow borrow borrow

rubble sacks are great

meals from blacks are so much better and believe me after 8-10 hours walking they want and need them

for me as a teacher, please appreciate the 2 nights I spend away from my family camping in a tent in wales - in the cold, to look after yours - I don’t get paid for it, I do it because I want to help. I’m nearly 50 and ache all over after. Ours have us, minibus there and back, we are armed up to the nines with flares, first aid kits, gps trackers, maps, decent facilities in our campsites eg showers with heated floors etc and a decent proper tent - I don’t sleep as normally I get woken up as someone doesn’t feel well, is cold, wet, or missing home. The maximum amount of sleep I normally get is 2 hours and I’m hiking with yours and keeping them laughing etc

I think we charge about £60 for gold!! Ask and query it via the governors £250 is too much so ask for a breakdown and if they feel it is accessible to most parents?

my daughter was FSM and did it for free

Can't really vote, as YABVU to think DofE is a massive swindle, but YANBU to think this company that your school has brought in is.

DofE done properly is great.
Join guides or Scouts or cadets and do it properly, in the spirit in which it was set up.

My son completed the Bronze last year in year 10 and cooked pasta for the evening meal. He's just completed his Silver expedition last week after finishing his GCSEs and they cooked hot dogs and pasta again. I think each time it was about £50 so £250 sounds quite excessive!

Microwave rice, can be fried or warmed in a pan ( had to tell my sister when she said there would be no microwaves)
You can get a mattesons smoked sausage that isn’t refrigerated, but has to be once opened ( eat it all) Lots of vege meals you used to add just boiling water
But agreed all the equipment is damned expensive

I’ve come to the conclusion that DofE is absolutely stupid. We live next to a regular D of E campsite and I often see kids with rucksacks bigger than them struggling around the valley in baking hot weather looking totally unprepared. I had a smaller rucksack when I went to Europe for a whole summer! I’ve never seen a walker on the pennine way carrying as much. There’s nothing going to put kids off the countryside/camping than D of E!

One of mine did theirs through Scouts and it cost £20 and another through Air Cadets for free. £250 seems massively expensive.

oh and they were allowed a bin liner 😁

you are fabulous 😀

And I hope someone tells you this often

thank you

One has to remember though it is unreasonable for those trying to help the students to suggest what they should bring to eat, thus reducing the size and weight of their packs.

DS is currently out on Gold. The school accepts donations of equipment and provides everything, even the walking socks if you want. We have had to pay £100 for Gold. Free School Meals kids don’t have to pay, there is a hardship fund to cover the £100 and I really like that it gives everyone a chance to do it if they would like to.

It has been absolutely worth it for him, in terms of confidence and achieveing things he didn’t think possible.

I realise we have been very lucky with the school and their support though.

My son is doing his at the moment and it's been brilliant! Most equipment included, and school did a free trial run. They've encouraged noodles and porridge pots as meals too. Sounds like you got a crappy experience, but I'm really impressed with ours.

the bits of equipment he did need (they said on ours to take liners or carrier bags happily !). Managed to get second hand on marketplace and Vinted.

The problem with expecting schools to run it is that sometimes staff don't get paid any extra to do it (in some cases they do). Therefore it's easier to get a company to take on the risk of the expeditions (practise and real so 2 for your £250 plus the 2 days training) and use volunteer school staff to supervise.

DS just did his DofE bronze. He’s ASD so I had to get extra of the sachet foods so we could go through the process of making one at home first, which had the bonus of him being able to try the food (last thing I wanted was for him to be in a field not wanting to eat what he had)

I know the bag food is expensive but it was surprisingly nice, he ate it all, and it was a good amount of protein as well as carbohydrates. Massive bonus was we bought the one you prepare in the bag itself, so he didn’t need a bowl or to have to clean a pot or whatever.

It cost approximately £180 and the school had a stash of absolutely anything you could want to borrow tbh. We had most items already but they took the schools tents and stove because that was easier.

I’m so glad I encouraged him to do it. He’s come back ready and interested in doing the silver. I wasn’t going to push him beyond bronze so it’s a good result that he wants to do the next step.

Also, his school said you had to have a bin bag as a bag liner!

However as many people have said, bin bags come in all types. Tbh as someone who has done a lot of camping (worked at many festivals over the years) I probably would also be more specific. Rubble bag is a good shout.

The bin bag he had in his bag would have been useless if it had rained as it had holes in it just from existing in the bag along with his other stuff. I only included it because they said he needed it. It wasn’t forecast to rain so we didn’t worry about it.

Also as a teacher who has spent weeks at a time out with multiple bronze groups, followed by silver then gold, please do not complain to the school about minor issues.

Your child most likely wasn’t ‘lost’ and staff did have a clue where they were… the emergency mobile did go straight to answerphone as the staff were in a remote area 🙄

No the school Facebook page wasn’t regularly updated, because it’s a remote area and probably not the best idea to tell the whole world where we have many groups of unsupervised children.

It is also not the staff’s fault your kid, after several reminders didn’t put their boots inside the tent, or didn’t screw up the fuel bottle properly before putting it in their backpack

Yes the staff did have a bbq on the same campsite as your child, because they also needed to eat and should be allowed nice things when giving up their time for your child, no this is not taunting your child with nice food.

It is SO disheartening as a member of staff who gives up their time free of charge, with nights away from their own family, to get back to school to fire fight complaints off entitled parents. I think this may be why lots Of schools have lost staff willing to help out for free so have to go through an AAP

Hmm / ouch. No need to buy everything new. If I spent that much they'd be going, no debate or dithering.
My daughter has just done her silver DoE - she loved it. Worth every penny.

YANBU.

Sounds like the organizers, presumably a for-profit company, are being over-prescriptive to make their own life easier.

It's 1 night at Bronze. Within the rules, the teens should be allowed to make their own mistakes. At that age one rough night will do 90% of people no harm.

Surely that Wayfarer rations stuff doesn't qualify for the "proper" meal anyway, and what they take for breakfast/lunch/snacks is up to them.

DoE here in NW with school £50. The whole point is kids organise it themselves. Ie choose the food themselves (supernoodles, pasta and porridge is what they have selected. Not a sign of anything other than carb in sight😂). If they don't have enough food they won't die and they will have learnt something.

Yanbu. That is madness.

Sounds ridiculous, but I agree it's the school/company at fault not the scheme! DS is doing it through Scouting, cost has been minimal and they are expected to plan and buy their OWN meals, having worked out the best combination of energy provided, weight, price and ease of cooking/heating (with some good advice from their leaders, but no more!). They also have to sort out their own kit, make sure they can carry it, route plan etc etc. Being told exactly what to eat/wear/buy/carry by adults seems to take away half the point of it, which is to develop some responsibility, independence and common sense of their own, surely?

My DD has just done her expedition -Batchelors Pasta and Sauce packs were what she took... and tesco chocolate crepes for breakfast!

(Some of he kids had the dehydrated meals- but they were told to try them before they brought them because if they had nothing else and were disgusting then they'd be hungry!) Pot noodles are not great as they don't contain the required calories. Also take sweets/nuts etc (but make sure nuts are unsalted as otherwise they are dehydrating!)

Ours suggested rubble sacks rather than bin liners - basically as the bin liners shred... not partiularly expensive and they are now in the camp kit (as mine are guides/scouts anyway) to be used again!