Duke Of Edinburgh
I
t has been a testing year for the Duke of Edinburgh’s Award scheme. However, despite the problems thrown at us by Covid -19, the award continues to be ever popular at St. Olave’s. In true DofE style, the scheme adapted allowing expeditions to operate with no overnight camping. Family members were allowed to sign off other sections, acting as ‘assessors’; all materials and booklets went online, being emailed directly to participants. The Bronze and Silver awards both offered the additional option of the ‘Achievement’ Award, giving participants the option of completing all sections bar the expedition before progressing to the next award level. They could then upgrade to the full award once they had undertaken the practice expedition, for example, complete Bronze Achievement Award, sign up and complete the Silver practice expedition enabling the participant to receive Bronze ‘Full’ Award. After the hiatus brought about by Covid -19, the DofE Team quickly got into the swing of things. We started off in early June with the Silver assessed expedition with Year 12s who had missed out on completing their expedition at the beginning of 2021 when the country went into lockdown again. We were still unable to include overnight camping due to continuing restrictions, but we banished the memory of the cold and rainy practice expedition by enjoying three days of glorious sunshine. The groups were tested to their limits, with lots of woods to navigate through and the occasional steep hill to mix things up, including Ide Hill on day three. The six groups worked well and showed that they had remembered a lot of what they had worked on in the practice. Two weeks later, we were trying out a new format for the Year 10 Bronze Award, the ‘Combined’ Bronze award. This was originally born from the necessity of trying to fit in as many cohorts as possible in the remaining weeks of the school year by combining the practice and assessed expeditions into one longer weekend. On day one we ran a thorough training session covering: Expedition kit – what to wear, how to pack it and what to carry it in, as well as discussing group kit. Navigation – map reading practice, use of a compass, creation of a route card, how to assess your surroundings in the event of getting lost. Setting up and striking camp - discussion of the correct siting of a camp and being prepared for all weather conditions, how to pitch and repack a tent correctly, checking your site before departure (‘leave no trace’).
40 – Olavian 2021
Expedition food – correct use of a Trangia for cooking, cleaning up afterwards, dietary requirements for a successful expedition and sample meal plans. First aid – discussing what to do in an emergency, how to avoid injury by wearing the correct footwear and how best to treating simple injuries. These topics were backed up with the online training modules which have been created for DofE at St Olave’s. On day two the teams were out walking a predetermined route with staff who shadowed them, correcting each group if necessary and offering tips on map reading, pace setting and rest breaks. Once at camp, tents were pitched and the Trangias put to good use. Students returned home for the evening (still no overnight camping possible) and then returned bright and early for day three where they were left to do the whole day on their own with the DofE staff meeting them at checkpoints and monitoring them covertly from a distance. We ended the day with a Q&A session to test their knowledge and a debrief regarding each group’s performance across the weekend. The summer term is always a busy one for the DofE Department and next up were the Year 11s, who had patiently waited to complete their Covid-delayed Bronze assessed expedition from the previous year. By way of refresher, we started by working on camp craft, route planning, Trangia training and tents. Day two had the teams out in the wilds walking either the ‘blue’ or ‘red’ 18km routes. These were both circular with multiple check points to pass through. It was a long day at the office with teams on the move from 08:30, with the last team reaching their destination at 16:25. Finally, it was the turn of the Year 13s and during the last full week of term we packed our bags and headed off to Wales, finally getting the opportunity to camp overnight. The Gold practice expedition means a five day adventure in the Black Mountains of South Wales, spending much of each day either going up or coming down a mountain, whilst carrying a full rucksack and coping with the varying degrees of Welsh weather. On this occasion we had torrential rain on day one whilst setting up camp but for the remainder of the week we basked in wall-to-wall sunshine; whilst this sounds delightful, it brings its own issues of staying hydrated, avoiding sun-related problems such as heat stroke and biting insects. Our Gold teams were managed by the mountain leaders of Wild Country Consultants (WCC) who began day
