Duke of Edinburgh Gold costs

[Oxfordplus]

My DS's school is charging over £1000 for the Gold expedition (are using outside provider). I've heard it's much cheaper via Explorers (scouts). Does anyone know if a child can just do the DofE expedition with Explorers i.e. attend for a training day, do a trial expedition and then the expedition itself without having to go to Explorers every week. My DS already has DoE activities two evenings a week so I'm looking for the most time efficient (and cost-effective) way of him doing the expedition.

I doubt you could do it with Explorers as they're not a provider of expeditions, they're just running it for their own members. It would be like trying to invite yourself on a Scout camp.

You could independently sign up with another external provider though, e.g. https://adventure-expeditions.net/open-gold-dofe-expeditions

Does anyone know if a child can just do the DofE expedition with Explorers i.e. attend for a training day, do a trial expedition and then the expedition itself without having to go to Explorers every week

Highly unlikely, as you would be joining scouts just to go on their cheap, often subsidised, trips. Not really fair on the members who go week in week out, or the fact that scouts is a charity run mostly by volunteers. I doubt there’s any leaders that would allow this.

That said, over £1000 sounds like a huge amount of money. Were you told this when your DS signed up?

What both of the above posters have said.

The Leaders who volunteer as Scouts, give up their time to support Scouts (in this case, Explorers), not provide free services for people who aren't interested in becoming an Explorer

Scouts and other organisations will offer doe but as these are ran by volunteers, they are unlikely to take someone who is not committed to their group and is effectively unknown to them.

Just came across this thread. I've also just learned that the cost of a Duke of Edinburgh Gold Expedition at our school is £1000. What am I missing? Are these outside companies fleecing families? Where is the cost involved? The kids arrive with their own kit, they spend time on public land. Aside from the training / supervision / assessment element and the odd lend of a stove / tent - where are the overheads? Not every family can afford this - we certainly can't.

It cost £500 when dd did it, that included kit (tents, stoves , backpacks and could borrow sleeping bags even) travel, the club throughout the year (staff volunteered but still ancillary costs occurred, a practice expedition fairly locally (travel, camp site fees), travel to Lake District, stay in a hostel for some days (can't remember how long) then campsite fees for main walk, and some other bit and bobs. Kids on pupil premium got it free. I thought it was good value

The cost varies wildly. A local school charges about £800. DC1 did it at college for £350 (which included a training weekend, qualifying expedition 2-3 hours away and the actual expedition 6 hours away).

The cost variations are how many of the staff are volunteering (very often teachers train and volunteer) whether equipment is provided as sometimes tents and transits are, any campsite fees and finally any coaches and insurance.

Wow! DS just did his gold through school and his expeditions (he did 2 training and one qualifying) were about £50 each. I didn't realise what a bargain he was getting!
The residential was about £500 though...

It's crazy the costs vary so much! £250 for the residential here then just mini bus costs for the expedition , roughly £45.
That's through the school!

If there's no teachers in the school that are qualified to lead DofE that will bump the cost up massively as then you're looking to a profit making company to run it for you.

Everything else is logistics and can be managed in school like any other school trip.

It's not school staff that do it, but local authority sports/activity team so I guess it's the same idea, no additional staffing costs

Thank you all for you replies. Makes sense - schools are too stretched to have their own teachers run it. It does mean that not everyone can afford to take part though, which is a shame.

Our scout group does fundraisers that the kids help with for activities to keep the costs down for parents. For that reason and insurance etc I imagine it's members only on expeditions.