16 Jul D of E news!
Year 10 and 11 Bronze Qualifying expedition is poetry in motion
On Friday 2nd and Saturday 3rd July 20 students from Years 10, 11 and 12 undertook a trek
through Epping Forest to complete the Bronze Qualifying Expedition. 19 of the students were on assessment and Zahra from Year 12 was doing a practice expedition for her Silver award. The weather had been raining on and off but this did not deter the students – some of whom had been waiting two years to complete their expedition due to Covid. The groups all showed excellent navigation skills and reached Debden campsite in good time to cook an evening meal and enjoy a campfire and roasted marshmallows.
They were all up and away from camp by 9am the following day – very impressive for groups packing up camp for the first time. Some tiredness and sore feet set in on day 2, not helped by some pretty extreme mud. Nevertheless, everyone finished at Queen Elizabeth’s Hunting Lodge and gave their presentation of a poem about their experiences on the journey and so completing the expedition section of the award. Congratulations to all the students who completed their expedition, Luka, Aleina, Treasure, Trisha, Danny, Alessia, Frankie, Ella, Lucy, Tara and Oyin in Year 10, Adiyat, Maisie, Philip, Sameer, Nicky, Chelsea, Noorjahan and Bobby in Year 11, and to Zahra in Year 12 for completing her silver training. Here is one of the poems from Group 2:
‘We sit in the coach watching the world drift by eagerly chattering,
Up hills we’re walking with map and compass in hand we reach the check point.
Then we were chilling till we were ready to reach the next checkpoint hand in hand.
Camp was lovely, the tents were comfortable,
And the showers were warm and ready.
As we arrived to our final check point our legs were begging in agony for us to stop,
But we managed to press on and finally reached home.’
Thanks go out to all the staff who helped with this weekend, Mr Kilminster, Mr Hill, Miss Deboo, Miss Duncan, Miss Kaur and Bill Lockton (DofE volunteer).
Silver group on the South Downs
The Year 11 and 12 Silver group departed school on the evening of 6th July bound for the South Downs National Park. They stayed in the village of Alfriston and completed a three day trek on foot and by wheelchair across the Downs from just outside Seaford to the village of Jevington. Tuesday evening saw the group getting to grips with managing the wheelchair up and down hills and organising their kit for the following day.
On the Wednesday morning they were dropped off by minibus in the village of Bishopstone, where they met their assessor Russ for the first time. They tackled the walk with great energy at one point wading through a corn field and then being rewarded by a beautiful view over the countryside at lunchtime. Below is a quote from the group’s diary for day 2:
‘Today we started day 2 of our expedition. Yesterday went fairly smoothly and I hope it is the same for today. We set off slightly later than planned, however we had determination and enough energy to fuel us for our 11km plus trek ahead. The route was tough spanning treacherous terrain littered with plenty of rocks and patches of mud. Come to think of it some of this ‘mud’ may have been animal droppings!’
Many thanks to Mr Mea this week for standing in as the male member of staff and to Russ the group’s assessor from ‘Bright Expeditions’ who was very supportive and gave the group some very valuable advice throughout the expedition.
Year 9 students progress on to expedition section
Congratulations to all the Year 9 students who have been successfully interviewed and are now moving on to the expedition phase of the award. Our first meeting of the new term will be immediately after school on Tuesday 14th September in ML4. This meeting will finish by 4pm. Our next meeting will be immediately after school in Main Street on Tuesday 21st September and will finish at 4:30pm. At this meeting you will be learning essential skills for the expedition training weekend. The expedition training weekend leaves immediately afterschool on Friday 24th September and returns around 5pm on Saturday 25th September.
The students who are continuing on are as follows: Angel in A, Radvile in B, Reuben Amir and Tiesha in C, Aleksander and Murtaza in D, Chloe, Alina, Precious and Nikhil in E, Zubin, Ife and Gabija in F, Piscilla, Asharni and Abieyuwa in G, Becky and Beatrice in I and Katelyn, Summer, Maya, Ruby, Aimee, Barakat and Corey in J.
The DofE staff team and I look forward very much to working with you all more closely on developing your expedition skills next academic year.
Ms Montague
DofE Manager
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