Canoe camping expeditions for bronze Duke of Edinburgh’s Award

The City of London Freemen’s School has been working with the Royal Kingston Scout District to share resources and enhance opportunities for children to do the Bronze Duke of Edinburgh’s Award Scheme expedition in Open Canoes. The school children and local Explorer Scouts have worked together with the coaches from Kingston Scouts Canoe Club to plan and facilitate training days, canoe camping experiences as well as the full D of E expeditions. The school has provided experience and knowledge of running the D of E expedition programme, as well as fully qualified assessors and the KSCC has provided the canoeing instructors and the loaning of equipment. Training days at the club enabled children to practice capsize and rescue drills. In addition, teams of local Explorer Scouts have joined each of the school led expeditions to share the experiences of the school staff. 

Aims

The aims of the partnership is to enable young people from Freemen’s school, as well as from the local scouting district to take part in canoeing activities for their Duke of Edinburgh’s award. 

Resources

The Freemen’s School Association of parents kindly fundraised and purchased a set of open canoes for the school; these have been invaluable in enabling the continued success of the partnership.

Impact

Each year we have enabled a number of young people to complete their D of E Bronze expedition in Open Canoes from both the school and local Scouts. Many have gone on to complete the award. We hope to develop Silver and Gold expeditions over the coming years.

Pupil Involvement

Pupils from year 9 onwards, c.20 per year.

Frequency

Annual partnership.