Parent & Carer Updates

 Dear Parents/Carers,

It was wonderful to meet the students for their first session back in September.  At the end of the first session, students were set some homework to complete which involved completing their code of conduct and program planners. For your convenience, a copy of the homework can be found at the bottom of this letter. Students should hand their planners and codes of conduct into me at their next session. For students in group 1, this will be next Tuesday 7th October. 

The cost of the course is £270. Payments are made in four instalments, as outlined below. Please make your payments via the new Parent Portal. You will have received log in details to this a few weeks ago. If you are having any issues accessing the portal, please email: op@sussexlearningtrust.co.uk.

The installment schedule is as follows:

• Tuesday 7th October 2025: £70 This enables us to register students on the eDofE platform and instruct our expedition associates. Please note that once a student is registered, this payment is non-refundable.

• Friday 7th February 2026: £60 payment. This is required once students have made good progress in submitting evidence for their three student-led sections and are confirmed for the expedition. This payment secures their place for the training day.

• Friday 20th March 2026: £70 instalment towards the cost of the training day and expedition.

• Friday 8th May 2026: £70 final instalment towards the cost of the expedition and final assessment.

The total cost includes access to the online services required for students to submit evidence and complete their award, the training day, the expedition itself, the final assessment, and use of key equipment such as tents and stoves.

Please do speak to us if this presents a  concern.  This includes the cost of the access to the online services which students must use to submit their evidence and actually complete their award, the training day, the expedition, assessment for the award and equipment such as tents and stoves for use on the expedition.  

A reminder that this update, together with information about the program and key dates for DofE at Warden Park can be found on this website here. 

Kind regards,

Ms Wheeler

Assistant Headteacher 

Home work:

1) Read and sign the code of conduct - parents too! Hand in on 7th October if you are in group 1 and 14th October if you are in group 2. Electronic copy here if you lost the hard copy.

2) Read this page  

3) Now read this page. You MUST do this before you start your planner! 

4) Now start completing your paper copy of your planner. What one will you do for 6 months? When can you start it (need to start soon). Have you made contact with the organisation that you want to volunteer at to see if they will take you? 

Finally, if you want to find out more about evidence - read this page here.and here. We will talk about this in greater detail at the next session. 

If you want to start evidencing your sessions, you can get the person who is going to sign your evidence log to sign the paper copy. Paper copies are here for all 3 sections. The person needs to make sure that they make it clear that you have done a full hour and that you are doing the task weekly. Then they need to sign it - it is that simple to evidence your work!