Duke of Edinburgh Award - Practice Expedition
Posted on: 09/05/2022Duke of Edinburgh Bronze Award - CDS took pupils on their practice expedition for their Bronze Award (Duke of Edinburgh). As a joint expedition with BCGS staff and pupils, the groups went to Ross Wood camp site (near Wildwood).
Day 1 pupils set up base camp and organised themselves into their groups before setting off for a 6 hour walk. For the practice day they were supported by a member of staff from CDS’ amazing team and were able to navigate their way around the Herne countryside. On their way they battled all types of different terrain and had to be fully self sufficient with regard to food, water, cooking, navigation and … without the comfort of a mobile phone!
All five groups returned to base camp safely and full of beans!
They then had a wonderful evening without being connected to the internet and played a variety of silly games, chatted to different groups and were generally more social than normal.
After a ‘difficult’ night in the tents they woke up ready for day 2 (totally independent without the comfort of a member of staff to help). Whilst staff were dealing with camp, the pupils undertook a mammoth task and completed a longer walk than the previous day by themselves. They all returned safely and in one piece.
Mr Masters (CDS DofE Co-Ordinator) said – “I cannot pick out individual pupils as they all did so well battling their own personal challenges. This practise weekend will have fully prepared them for the assessed weekend on 11th and 12th June. I have been leading the DofE Award programme since October, and it has been a fantastic role watching pupils gain a number of new skills and grow in confidence.“
