Duke of Edinburgh Award Scheme (D of E) Bronze Costs

Hiram

Hello

Just wondering what you pay for the D of E Bronze Award scheme?
e.g. our state school charges:

£37.50 non-refundable fee for participating and to fund the licence fee. (Actual participation fee is £17 to D of E)
£15 for a first aid course
£10 x 2 for navigation skill days
£10 for an expedition skills session
£50 for the practise expedition
£50 for the qualifying expedition.

A grand total of £167.50.

No equipment is supplied.

So far, I've managed to find out that a local private school is charging £115 for the above.

Thanks for any information.

Nellie_the_Viking

Hi Hiram, I run D of E at my school and our costs are as follows for Bronze:

Registration fee (charged by D of E) £17
Licence fee for the year £20 : You must have one to run D of E in a school if the local council won't pay for a licence, it is £1100 regardless of the number of participants in the school. This will be divided between the average number of pupils participating unless it is funded from some other source. I average 42 for Bronze and about 10 each for Silver and Gold so my kids pay £20 for that, which allows a total drop of 1 or 2 kids from those numbers without me having to source funding outside

Route planning days: £14 x 2
Practice Expedition: £56
Assessed Expedition: £56

My external providers (we don't have a qualified person in school to supervise/assess Dof E and certainly not an ML for wild country which is needed for Silver/Gold) charge £28pppd for Bronze, £14 for the planning days so that is 2x2 day expedition and 2x1 planning day. Total £140

Campsites £10 (about £5pppn for Bronze)
Transport £8 (to/from assessed exped which is weekday so parents generally cannot do a drop off/pick up)

We run navigation, first aid, camping skills etc in house and do not charge for those

Kit/consumables of kit: £15
I do provide tents, stoves, pans and gas to cook on for as many as possible (I have total sleeping capacity of 42 but the number I can accommodate is gender dependent by breakdown), which means keeping those in fair condition and replacing as necessary - about £15pp keeps that ticking over, some years its more, some less, but that's about budget management.

I also provide compasses, maps, marker pens, photocopied route cards, and first aid kits. Every map that needs replacing is now £12 etc. I don't charge for those, but as with other equipment, I need to ensure I have a small surplus on basic to cover those if a group loses a map. (Last year we lost 3 tents - damaged beyond repair, a set of pans, 5 assorted maps, 6 compasses and a first aid kit, all of which need to be replaced.)

Total cost per child each year to run it: £200

We also help them to sort out their volunteering, skills, physical etc.

It may be that the local private school has qualified staff who are registered D of E assessors/supervisors and don't have to buy in staff, which would significantly reduce their operating costs. They may also be subsidised from a central outdoor pursuits/activities fund within the school. My providers charge a professional fee of £120 per day plus transport for each member of staff we need them to supply, so that is instant additional cost for us above the registration and consumption cost.

I'd like to be able to reduce costs but the year I charged less we couldn't cover the cost of replacement tents when some reached the end of their useable life, so this is my current operational figure. Last year my D of E budget closed with a surplus of £32!

I hope that sheds some light.