53 Year 9s and Year 10s took to the highways and byways of South Warwickshire this month for their practice Bronze Duke of Edinburgh (DofE) Award expedition. After two in-school training days and a day’s guided walk, this was the first opportunity for the groups to put their skills into practice and hone them ahead of the assessed expedition in June.
English teacher, Mrs Francis, and school DofE Award Manager, said everybody arrived keen and ready to go and received their briefings from the staff from Venture Outdoor, our approved activity provider. After that, it was over to the students to guide themselves on an 8 to 10k walk between Burton Dassett and the village of Tysoe. There was perfect DofE weather – warm but not too hot, sunny but with a bit of cloud cover – and the groups had a great day following the routes they had planned whilst being met at checkpoints by staff. Despite a few navigational errors everyone made it to the campsite in time to put up their tents, cook dinner and then turn in for an early night in preparation for a 6am start the next day.
Monday morning dawned bright and sunny and, despite the early hour, the groups managed to get up, cook breakfast and ‘break camp’ all before 8.30am. Day two of the expedition is always more challenging – there are sore feet, aching backs and tiredness to counter whilst also following their routes and keeping up a good pace. Despite these new challenges, the groups did really well and everyone dug in and pushed on to get to the finish point with enough time to go home and have a rest before school the next day.
A massive well done to all the participants from Mrs Francis and Miss Seymour and also from the Venture Outdoor staff, James, Nick, Lee, Neil and Helen, who all said how impressed they were with the enthusiasm of the Myton young people and the positive approach the participants took towards their practice expedition.
Now it’s time to start looking forward to the assessed expedition at the start of June.