Highlights included seeing how happy everybody was to be outdoors, spending time with friends again! The staff were particularly impressed with the independence and determination of the Year 11 2021 group, who all successfully achieved their Silver expedition section.
In October 2021 the new Year 11 and Year 13 successfully completed their Silver and Gold assessed expeditions. Particular congratulations go to Eloise Q. who was the first St Mary’s student to achieve her Gold award following the outbreak of the pandemic.
In March 2022 temperatures dropped as 52 Year 10 and 18 Year 12 students headed off for their practice expedition. Year 10 had an acclimatisation day followed by three days walking and two nights camping. Year 12’s expedition involved an acclimatisation day followed by four days walking between 16-19 km per day, carrying everything they needed to be as self-sufficient as possible.
Year 10 headed east from Hawes towards the very picturesque Castle Bolton as their end point again. Year 12 had a more zig-zag route, but ultimately ended up heading south from Newbiggin and finished their expedition in the pretty market town of Grassington, where All Creatures Great and Small had been filming the week before. The Gold expedition had two nights in camping barns where students prepared their own meals and had a chance to relax after training walks, then two days camping.
Despite the very challenging cold and occasionally snowy weather conditions, all students were able to consolidate and improve their navigation skills and showed they could cope well with adversity.
So far, those in Year 12 who have been with us since Bronze have experienced the full range of British weather on D of E - windy rainy weather on their Bronze practice, an autumn downpour on their Silver practice, thunder and hot conditions on their Silver assessed and now snow!
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Fingers crossed that we have more temperate conditions on the assessed expedition this July where Year 10 will be in Peak District and Year 12 will be tackling the Lake District, but if not, they have shown that they can meet the challenges posed by the British weather and overcome it well.
We are very fortunate at St Mary's to be able to run our Duke of Edinburgh expeditions in-house, thanks to the support of a wonderful team of current and former staff and friends of the school.
Altogether over the last 12 months, staff involved in expeditions have included: Mrs Shercliff who leads the Silver level, Miss Dutton who leads the Bronze award, Mr Mallabone, Mrs Wilson, Mrs Foster, Dr Cardwell, Mrs Anderson, Miss Lees, Mrs Leighton-Scott, Mr Edwards, Miss Robley, Mr Griffiths, Mr Guppy, Mrs Foster, Mrs Irvine, Miss Kinnair, and Mrs Hutchinson, former staff including Miss Spore, Mr Atkinson, Mrs Brown and Miss Dickson, as well as former parents with mountain leader qualifications Dr Shercliff and Mrs Grant, and Mr Pollock, a longstanding supporter of Duke of Edinburgh at St Mary’s.
Between July 2021 and April 2022 96 students achieved a Duke of Edinburgh award and we hope by September 2022 that we may have caught up with covid and doubled that number.