Long term favourite this one. Normally we do as an IET/practice with NCOs helping, but tried this as assessed to get some through Bronze sooner. Was a step-up for sure, a few stories to tell about cows and getting lost, the DofE classics. New day 1 start route with canal/train route elements to seemed to flow well. First time anyone has tried making a cake/fishing. Slightly more challenging due to some footpath obfuscation around MOD Kineton on day 2 but they made in the end. Campsite was a stunning backdrop to fun in near perfect weather on the Sat and great comradery shown.

Last Friday saw four of our senior 1368 cadets and their guests attend the Royal Palace gardens to celebrate their Gold Duke of Edinburgh Award success in the 2025/26 season. They even got to speak with a few famous people, a goal keeper from the past, and bumped into the Commandant of RAFAC/Air Training Corps again.  The sun was shining on them, a great way to celebrate a great achievement. Like their expeditions, something they won't forget. Well done to CWO H, FS R, Sgt F, and Cdt P. The DofE Scheme remains a core pillar of 1368 Squadron, along with Community Duties, Sports, and Drill/Parades/Discipline. Many things cadets do within their two night a week activities can be counted towards the Award, including our focus on sports nights/athletics, leadership and instructional training (all cadets do blue leadership within first 6 months), classification training, marching band and volunteering and service to the community.  We run 7-8 expeditions a year from Initial Exp...

Last weekend saw first 1368 expedition weekend of the season with 2 groups exploring the wilds of the Shropshire Hills AONB. Pre-Easter planning proved useful and great that we got 8 assessed through their exped plus 4 more through a Practice including a Yr10 newbie, maximising what we needed to do. Some impressive personal resilience, great teamwork shown.  Two cadets from 2286 also joined. Looking forward to the group presentation to find out what "the nugget" got up to ;-) 

Easter hols saw us finishing-off blue leadership and attempting band finish-offs. Great success with blue leadership, badges to come though. Well done to Cdt C on passing Blue Badge band (marching drums) with sustained engagement and high attendance. Some photos also of first class, senior and master badge passes as cadets move up a level. Silver group did stove safety refresher ahead of exped.

Well done to Cdt R  who has achieved her Silver DofE with 1368 Sqn and Cdt M who got her Bronze DofE. Bronze certificates & badges also arrived from Wing for Cdt Mand Cdt B.  The Duke of Edinburgh Award Scheme is a key pillar of 1368. Training is already underway for Bronze and pre-DofE initial expeditions for 0925 and 0226 intakes.

Well done to the 10 cadets who attended 1368 Sqn's first "lets do something new" National Navigation Award Scheme ( NNAS ) practical training in 2026 over Easter at Cookley and Kinver. Also a lot of fun exploring some new places for 1368, discovering stuff like Nannie's Rock, Kinver Hill Fort, Locks, and a Dragon Tree.  This is our first proper year of trying to dovetail NNAS with our traditional DofE Bronze and Initial Expedition Training (IET) build up for newbies. Great to get 2 groups going, Friday turned out to be a lovely sunny day with great views from Kinver hillfort.  Great engagement for newbies plus some doing Silver DofE very soon. It'll be interesting to see how lost they get in upcoming expeditions.

Every year, till the end of March, the number of points for successfully completed Duke of Edinburgh Awards is added up (3pts for Gold, 2 for Silver, 1 for Bronze), and the total score is used to award the Wing DofE Trophy. This year we got 48 points, close to double what we got last year (where we came 3rd by 1pt). Congratulations to 495 (Sutton Coldfield) Squadron achieved an outstanding 50 points, securing 1st place and taking home the trophy. The full results are as follows: 1. 495 (Sutton Coldfield) – 50 points 2. 1368 (Warwick & Leamington Spa) – 48 points 3. 121 (Nuneaton) – 32 points As the Wing DofE Officer states "This year, Warwickshire & Birmingham Wing has increased its overall DofE achievement by an impressive 65% compared to last year. It has been fantastic to see so many squadrons collaborating, supporting one another, and re-engaging with the Award—particularly those returning after several years of limited activity." We do have 4 cadets hopeful...

Well done to 2 Silvers, Cdt B and Cpl R, and 3 Bronzes, Cdt U, Cdt B-R, and Cdt G who've been part of the march harvest. Your certificates have arrived! (actually they arrived Monday). We can give them out in due course. Well done and many thanks to Wing DofE officer for flying them across to us.

Well done to Cpl R and Cdt B, who joined Cdt G in getting their DofE levels signed off before end of DofE season 2025/26 this month.  Still quite a lot of cadets (at least 10) being chased to get assessor reports done. https://help.edofe.org/hc/en-gb/articles/360021224973-Different-ways-to-submit-an-Assessor-s-Report  

Well done to FS R, the 4th of our July 25 expeditioners to bag their Gold Duke of Edinburgh Award in the 2025/26 season. Similar to his beloved Ferrari F1's position in 2025 but what will 2026 bring with a new chassis? Maybe a trip to the Palace with his most favoured parent (Ooo) ?  Great effort though, esp. as he planned the exped route from scratch (most who start Gold don't finish).

Well done to FS H, Sgt F and Cdt P who achieved their Gold Duke of Edinburgh Award approvals on Monday. They were all part of the 6 person team who did Snowdonia expedition in July.  The Award is much more than just an expedition though. The big difference at Gold is a Residential section with people they don't know although (Air Cadets does have opportunities for National and Regional camps which can be used). Timescales are: Volunteering: 12 months/52 weeks Physical and Skills: One section for 12 months/52 weeks and the other section for 6 months/26 weeks Expedition: 4 days/3 nights Residential: Do a shared activity in a residential setting away from home for 5 days and 4 nights. More to come. Congratulations to ex-cadet FS M though who attended her Gold presentation in May at Buckingham Palace.

Well done to 6 cadets from 1368 (Warwick and Royal Leamington Spa) Sqn and 3 from 1289 (Stratford) Sqn that managed to get their Bronze expedition bagged before exped season end. Lucky on weather, finished wet but managed to avoid worst of it. Very solid fitness and good comraderie. Worked really well with 1289 (Stratford) Sqn cadets joining and taking up spare spaces. Staff from 496 and 1289 also came along hence good staff shadowing happened for future joint exped liaisons. Also great that we have potential to get 6 more Bronze's signed off in Q1 next year. The DofE Scheme remains one of the key pillars of 1368 training programme. Although many schools have started running it, we run the expeditions using cadet staff and hence it tends to be smaller scale and lower cost. We expect all cadets to do DofE Bronze in the first year, if they're not already doing it. Accomplishing an expeditions makes them work as a team to overcome challenges as well as learning about each other an...

14 cadets from 1368 attended a Silver Practice and Assessed Expedition in Peak District. Very impressive Silver-level performances again especially the younger participants. Everyone who started finished and both practice and assessed groups finished strong demonstrating excellent teamwork and comraderie, great preparation and personal resilience, which sets us up for the next one. Well done.

Well done to the 1368 cadets that did their Bronze DofE last weekend. Very short turn around to get kit issued/checked, route cards and food done but we did it! The mother of all water fights with a 3 year old (who is going to keep that as a first memory, I suspect). Staff pretty impressed with map reading/good pace and they even took away some learning points in the effect of water on kit weight. Great to get first tranche of Bronze expeditions out of the way, as we have a lot more to get through. 

Last week saw 6 older cadets from 1368 undertake an assessed Gold DofE expedition in Wales. A self-sufficient 4 day Gold expedition is a unique experience and challenge and it was nice that some got to finish off their cadet career with friends they've known since joining. It was an old school, 4 day Gold in wild country. Route was created from scratch by FS R and then tweaked encompassing Rhinog's and Cadair Idris in Eryri National Park. Sqn Ldr W from Staff Wings assessed them and was very impressed by their strong teamwork, fitness and nav skills. New route made it interesting for staff. Well done.

Well done to the 4 cadets who got their Bronze DofE certificates (and remaining badges), Cpl H who got his Silver DofE badge, and the 3 cadets who completed their First Class classification badges.  We also gave out first batch of Blue Pre-DofE badges for the 6 cadets who all did recent IET events to finish off pre-DofE exped (more Pre-DofE blue badges to follow). Next challenge is to get them sewn on to your brassards in the right place! (there are new instructions on this that give more flexibility to cope with different size brassards).

Last weekend saw 18 cadets undertake more Initial Expedition Training (IET) with camping, cooking and map reading. Aim was to get them ready so that stuff like providing forms, passing on JIs, kit checks and food shops are 2nd hat for unescorted Bronze DofE's in Aug or Sept (we will start enrolling current year 8's on Bronze on Aug 1st, when they technically go into year 9).  Adventure Training and DofE is one of the pillars of 1368 Sqn with our desire that every cadet completes their Bronze DofE and gets the opportunity to progress to Silver and Gold expeditions. The Initial Expedition Training that we do contributes to the Pre-DofE Blue Badge that was introduced by the progressive training syllabus to support pre-DofE aged cadets in year 8. IET provides a pathway for their safe introduction into cooking and campcraft and we like to do it for real.

Well done to 3 of 4 cadets who collected Duke of Edinburgh Award Scheme certificates on Wed: Sgt G, Cdt F, and Cdt M (not down) achieved Silver badges/certificates. Cdt K received his Bronze certificate/badge. More soon, hopefully. 1 Silver is pending Region approval with 3 all awaiting an external assessor report for 1 section, hence more soon hopefully. 1368 Squadron has achieved the most DofE Awards in the Wing over the last 5 years and expects all cadets to do Bronze with the Squadron, if not doing at school. It's a lot cheaper doing the award through the squadron than most schools. Many activities done at cadets can also count towards the award in the Volunteering, Skills and Physical sections.

3 Cadets and 1 Staff from 1368 attended a Gold practice expedition at Capel Curig. Really nice to see some smiles in the face of adversity. and friendships with other squadron cadets over what was an unusually wet week even for Wales.  From a 1368 perspective it also means we have enough cadets who've completed a practice to form an assessed expedition, hence July exped ambition a step closer.

Monday saw the Silver actual team (aka the Abominable Gnormans) present on their Silver Exped (RIP the Pink Inflatable Flamingo). Great for younger cadets to hear what older ones get up to, and also the sense of comradery and teamwork that comes from our expeditions when done well (we start with IET with newbies partly for this reason, also team dynamics and leadership). Wrt air loss of Flamingo, I'm thinking what Sqn might need is a good course in the Entry Level Award (ELA) in Health & Safety, and Hazard Awareness 😉 Silver actual expeds now signed off meaning some cadets very close to awards:  Good news: Cdt K's Bronze & Cdt M's Silver both approved last week (badges/certificates pending).