We’re working with a lot of groups, 127 kids in all. They’re doing Bronze qualifying. Here is another place I’m familiar with. The weather should be good.
DofE 9: Cannock Chase.
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Tag Archives: DofE Bronze Qualifying
DofE 9: E. Chilterns
Chilly first night down to 7°C under a clear sky. light N breeze
Day 1: Camped on the banks of the River Thames before setting off for the meet-up point. I got there just in time to be issued with 2 groups of girls ready for a Practice/training Expedition.
There were a lot of changes made to groups so we set off last for the day’s walk.The day went well but for very different pace-setting between and within groups. Apart from this problem, they were a very likable bunch of characters. Some were steady and others fiercely competitive. We had an excellent rapport after getting on well right from the start. We had fun too, not just DofE but wordplay too. They tried to persuade me to do a Tiktok with them but ‘your phones should be packed away and off’. Another was ‘Cursive speech’. It’s the hollow sound your voice makes when you hold your tongue down and clench your jaw. Here’s me thinking it was scrolling handwriting.
The faster group were set places to wait for me and the 2nd group where we could consolidate routefinding methods. After we crossed the Thames, the fast group got even faster. From here, as we got nearer the camp, other groups’ routes converged. That meant the fast girls could see a group of lads which suddenly gave them a surge of more energy. Ironic that after they’d complained of tiredness not long before. Then they were out of sight.
After some coordination with other instructors, it turned out they were with another group having taken a wrong turn. Ironically – we had to wait for them, to the obvious glee of my slower group.
Day 2: Groups walk by themselves and I checkpoint them. The pattern re-emerged from day 1 where the fast group rushed ahead and made enough errors to reduce the gap. The second group steadily plodded on but got all their navigation right.
Packing up: Got some good feedback from the kids as well as the Exped leader via a parent. One of the girls was “buzzing over the day”, I think she actually surprised herself with how quickly she mastered map-reading and route finding.
That was a fabulous couple of days’ work. You can tell days like this because on the drive home, you think over the work on all levels with satisfaction. It makes up for the long drive.
DofE 18; South Chilterns
22°C, sun, very dry with N breeze.
18.0: easy drive to the edge of the M25. Paccar Scout camp is huge, but my little bit is about an acre. We seem to have 4 clearings booked.
18.1; The cohort arrived by parent drop off and were indeed, only a few groups, five in all. I got two groups of girls. As is often the case, one group went wrong out of the start. I always try to make them go with a clear start because this kind of error is very likely. It’s an easy one to to mess up; being dropped off somewhere they don’t know is quite disorientating.
18.2: rain to start but clearing later. My groups’ routes diverge, meet then diverge again. The other instructors’ routes are pretty identical to one another.
One group got off to an energetic start and finished quite early. The other got stuck in woodland but responded well to question prompts over the phone. As an assessor, I really enjoyed overhearing their debates on location and clues they can see. This group were offered a lift to the debrief checkpoint but I declined because they might finish under time.
Group 4 reached the end in just over 6.5 hours but the other group had gone. They’d been collected before I could debrief them properly. Oh well…
We got some feedback from the school:
“We just had an email from waingels to say how great the exped was, well done guys! Also, apparently 2 groups are now officially part of the ‘we love mike club’ 🤣🤣”
Micycle 