Year 12 brave cold conditions in Duke of Edinburgh practice expedition

On 29 March the temperatures dropped as 18 Year 12 students headed to the Yorkshire Dales for their practice Duke of Edinburgh expedition. This involves 4 days of walking between 16-19 km per day carrying everything they need to be as self-sufficient as possible. The troupe had two nights in camping barns, where the students prepared their own meals and had a chance to relax after training walks, before two days of camping.

The snow on Wednesday to Thursday necessitated changes to their planned routes to ensure that the students had clear accessible paths to walk on, which the girls accommodated cheerfully. Despite the very challenging weather conditions, they were able to consolidate and improve their navigation skills and showed that they could cope well with adversity. So far those students in Year 12 who have worked their way up since their Bronze award have experienced the full range of British weather on their expeditions: windy rainy weather on their Bronze practice, an autumn downpour on their Silver practice, brief thunder and hot conditions on their Silver assessed and now snow!

Fingers crossed that we have more temperate conditions on the assessed expedition in July, although they have shown that they can meet the challenges of any weather conditions. The final night of camping was cold but very sunny and the last day of walking was perfect, with spectacular views on the walk from Buckden to Grassington, finishing with a chance to visit the Dales toffee shop before returning home.

 After such great efforts we really would encourage the girls to continue to complete their other sections so that they can achieve their awards. We would like to thank Mrs Norman for leading the expedition, Mrs Wilson for joining from the Silver trip as our spare minibus driver on the last day, and the wonderful retired members of staff who will be known to many of you and your daughters, Miss Spore and Miss Dickson, who used their combined 60+ years of DofE experience to great effect to provide additional training and supervision for the girls on this trip.

Find out more about DofE at St Mary’s here.