The TES Secondary Group is a great source of support, ideas and inspiration and is the place to share best practice and get your questions answered by your peers. This is also where you go to debate the latest issues in secondary education.
Hi All,
I've been wanting to start the D of E award now for a few years, and found somebody to share the burden with me this year. It's been a fantastic success so far, but very very tiring, with a hell of a lot of paperwork, training etc.
So far, we've been doing all training either after school or at weekends, and the expeditions are all at weekends. Next year, I'm thinking of asking firstly for a TLR, but when I get turned down for that, a couple of free periods between the two of us, to do all the extra work that needs doing.
I know that the school aren't obliged to give me anything, as running D of E is voluntary, especially with the work to rule in place, but what do you think my chances are?
If anyone else runs D of E would you please comment on what if any perks you get in return?
Thanks
nothing, not even a 'thank you' in a Monday briefing having given up a whole weekend for nearly 40 kids out on expedition!
We did get some money to pay for kit, etc when we started up, and I was allowed to use G+T time for planning (as it was mostly G+T kids involved at that point) but the current people doing it are fighting for even a little bit of time, let alone payment
If you have a local Co-operative society they have a community fund that you may be able to apply to.
Oh really? How would I go about doing that?
Dom
I have run the DofE at my school for a number of years. For the most part I have done this out of goodwill, giving up countless evenings, weekends and holidays to lead participants on expedition.
The school has always claimed to recognise the importance of the Award, but until very recently this had not been financially recognised. We have always had a small budget to buy some bits of kit, and have hired the rest from our LAs Youth Resource Centre.
The school had a change of heart recently and created a TLR for an Enrichment Co-ordinator. His/her role is to coordinate the DofE Award and to organise a programme of extra-curricular activities at the end of the school day. This has been very successful, and might be something you could suggest to your Head?
I am happy to offer any help/advice that I can.
mrbeck
Are you doing it through eDofe for the non-expedition parts? I found that fantastic as it sent me alerts when they uploaded things and I could approve or return them online. I used to run 6th form gold and what would have been most helpful would have been having no form so I could go around and chase kids up for reply slips, camp site fees etc. I was a 6th form tutor though so I just used to leave my form listening to their ipods whilst I did it! We also had curriculum DofE lower down teh school which was a KS4 option and the teacher got 2 periods of 'teaching' that. They did their training in that time and also some of their skills work. I'd say you probably don't have much chance of getting anything but you can ask for nothing. It probably depends on how heavy the teaching load is in your department as to whether they will let you go under allocation.
Incidentally do you have someone who is ML qualified at school or are you using your LA for expedition support?
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