All 108 Year 10 Bronze Duke of Edinburgh students attended the Expedition training run by our new Ocean Rock Adventures activity provider. It was a concentrated and gruelling day for both students and staff but all acquitted themselves well.

Ocean Rock Adventures were impressed by the serious application, intelligent questions and the overall commitment and courtesy our students displayed.

For our part we were impressed by the professionalism of the staff and the overall organisation. This is our first year of engaging an Activity Provider to manage the Expedition section of our Bronze award. Whilst an inevitable solution given our growing numbers, 108 this year, we were worried that this might lead to a dubbing down of this section. I am pleased to report that this is far from the case. I learnt a number of techniques and efficient training aspects on that day.

At the time of writing, 54 out of 108 students have successfully completed all three other activities. Ideally all students, having signed up over a year ago, would have these activities signed off. We have an exemplar record for completion of the award at this school. I am confident that this year group will improve on last year’s current record of just under 90% completion.

 Our Practice Expedition will take place next weekend on 28/29 April and we hope all 20 teams will be successful and have a good time.