Nearly 30 intrepid pupils spent the first few days of half term completing their Gold DofE expeditions.
Tackling the Gold level award would be hard in any year but with Covid-19 causing the cancellation of the planned summer expeditions, they in fact completed both their practice and assessed expeditions back to back! The expeditions were Covid secure and a wide range of measures was put in place to ensure the safety of pupils, staff and members of the public.
Duncan Wright, CCF AT & DofE Officer explains: “Covid restrictions earlier in the year meant that expeditions planned for the summer – including the CCF Cadets’ trip to Norway – didn’t happen. As a result of the cancellations, the DofE Award allowed centres to shorten the gold practice expedition to two nights/two days and to run the practice and gold expeditions back to back in order to make running them simpler. Therefore we ran the shortened practice expedition to here in Rutland, where they camped at the School’s Wilson Pitches and walked two sections of the ‘Rutland Round’. We then moved up to the North Pennines and the Eden Valley in Cumbria, where they undertook a four day/three-night assessed expedition. This included some groups walking over Cross Fell – the highest peak in the Pennines – and making use of a mountain bothy near the summit to spend the night. They experienced a wide range of weather over the four days from warm sunshine to driving rain!”
Chris Dook, Gold DofE Leader continues: “The pupils did fantastically well. They coped with not only doing both expeditions back to back but also with the sometimes arduous conditions in Cumbria, which really tested them both physically and also technically in terms of aspects such as navigation and camp craft. The expedition will certainly have provided them with many memories for the future.”
