D of E Practise walk - It was our first silver expo. The weekend consisted of a three
day hike in the Galloway forest with giant heavy rucksacks on our backs. Asif that
wasn't hard enough! The first day we managed to get ourselves completely lost on
an "easy" route. We were told we had been walking seven hours in the wrong direction.
We got the minibus to the camp i like to call "Camp Midge." After a lot of Sunning
back and forth to the tent we got inside and fell straight asleep. The next day we
were all on a high, singing and just happy to be away from the midges. i heard shouting
from behind& turning around saw smoke and the two boys trying to stomp out a fire.
We ran back to the road to get help. Luckily there was a cycle race on and we managed
to get the police straight away to radio the fire brigade. We also managed to flag
down a car beforehand with a nurse that was very kind to us while we waited for the
teachers to appear, all of us debating on who was going to explain the situation!
Meanwhile the fire was getting bigger and some of the group were still trying to
keep it under control. It was a great night after all the drama, we had a wee campfire
and I got to play my guitar. The next day we were in a great mood singing our way
down the road, paying extreme close attention to the map. We got home in one piece
and it turned out to be a great experience that i enjoyed a lot. -
Fionn C.
If you are about to leave school & don’t know which direction you should take -
Planit Plus isuser-friendly, Careers Scotland is quite helpful or MappIT for more
on Apprenticeship schemes (although often a bit out of date...), even the government
site directgov has a lot of useful advice.
Thinking of taking a year out - Web sites that can help:
www.yearoutgroup.org
Web site is packed with information and guidance on
taking a gap year or career
break for young people and their parents and advisers.
www.gapyear.com
Information on money, backpacking, jobs and things to do.
www.lattitude.org.uk/
Volunteering experiences overseas for 17-25 year olds.
www.projecttrust.org.uk
A gap year organisation that sends school leavers abroad for a year's voluntary work.
