In June and July of 2018, six students from Bladon House School took on the challenge of the Duke of Edinburgh practice and assessed expeditions in order to complete their Bronze awards. The practice expedition consisted of two days of walking in the National Forest with an overnight camp at Beehive farm Lake. The two days practice expedition was interspersed with teaching the students about first aid and camp cooking with all those involved, navigating the route using a route card. At the campsite, students erected their own tents and cooked their own meals while also enjoying an open fire and various activities such as archery, football and nerf ball.

After a two week break, all six students then took part in the assessed expedition around the Shirley and Osmaston areas of the Derbyshire Dales. The assessed expedition followed the same two day format of the practice expedition, but this time the students were being scrutinised by an external Duke of Edinburgh Award assessor. The walking route for the assessed expedition was 14 miles of challenging terrain with the students navigating independently using a route card and demonstrating the teamwork they had earned over the past year of activities. The students had another night of camping to conquer with the assessor casting a watchful eye on how they put up their tents and prepared their meals.
Just before the end of the walk, the assessor sat the group down to give them the good news that all had passed the expedition phase and that he was very impressed by their efforts over the past two days. All six students had performed admirably and were successful in completing Duke of Edinburgh Bronze awards

In July 2018, a student from Bladon House School was treated to an evening of “Wild Camping” at Beehive Farm Woodland Lakes in order to practice the bush craft and survival skills he had learned throughout the year.

On arrival at the woods, we decided the first priority was to secure a source of water so we set about collecting, filtering and treating water from a nearby lake. A task made amusing as the Instructor managed to lose his footing and fall in the lake! Once water had been secured we set about building hammocks and shelters in the woods and hanging all our equipment in the trees before collecting a processing dead wood for the evenings fire.

With the fire set, a cooking tripod was crafted in order to suspend our cooking pot above the fire and prepare the evening meal. With hot drinks made with the aid of a Kelly kettle and hot food from the open fire, a relaxing and fun evening was had exploring the surrounding woodland and learning how to set traps. The night was rounded off by a scary “Ghost Walk” around the woods in the dark before settling down in the hammocks for a good night’s sleep.
We rose with the sun to prepare a delicious porridge breakfast before packing away all equipment and making sure that no trace of our night out in the woods was left behind.

In July of 2018, two students from Bladon House School took on the challenge demanding two day canoeing expedition on the River Trent. The Expedition consisted of a 12 mile river trip, by canoe, from Burton on Trent to Swarkestone with an overnight camp next to the river at Poplars Farm in Twyford.

Day one saw the students tackle the 8.5 miles from Burton on Trent to Twyford where they learned to paddle a Canadian canoe as part of a team, practicing forward, reverse and turning paddle strokes. This stage of the trip showed the students a very different view of the school as they looked up at it from the river.Various stops on the shale river banks along the way provided rest and the opportunity to collect firewood for the evening’s open fire.

At the end of a tough five hours of paddling, students reached the riverside camp site where they erected tents and canoe shelters before setting about preparing their own meals and hot drinks using Trangia stoves. The rest of the evening was spent relaxing by an open fire and resting ready for the next day of paddling.

Day 2 saw the students paddling a further 3.5 miles from Twyford to Swarkestone with a short detour up a river tributary to visit the caves of Anchor Church. The expedition finished near Swarkestone bridge after a close encounter with “Fluffy”, the resident aggressive swan than resides near Barrow on Trent, that scared members of staff more than students!
After a well-deserved ice cream it was time to return to school, all tired but having a sense of achievement in completing a very demanding expedition