What You Need to Know: The Duke Of Edinburgh Award

The Duke of Edinburgh Award (DofE) is understood around the world, as many countries take part in it. If you are in Year 12, people often say that it is worth ‘half an A level’ if you are actively enrolled with the award.

It is a fantastic scheme, and will always help when you want to find your first job, and will look good on your CV for many years to come. But this is not the main reason for doing it. The best reason for embarking on the scheme is that it is very sociable and enjoyable.

“Oh but I already have more than enough to do at the moment, and I don’t want to do anything stressful.” C’mon, get a life! You can think like that when you are 70!

In the article below I am going to outline some of the the details for you.

The DofE is open to any young person aged 14-24. Each young person builds their own DofE programmes – picking their own activities and choosing which cause to volunteer for – in order to achieve a Bronze, Silver or Gold DofE Award. The DofE is run in schools, youth clubs, hospitals, fostering agencies, prisons, sports clubs and more, all over the UK and internationally.

Every year, DofE inspires hundreds of thousands of young people, from all walks of life, to explore who they are, grow in confidence and develop the skills they need to successfully navigate life. We help them build lifelong belief in themselves, supporting them to take on their own challenges, follow their passions, and discover talents they never knew they had. The DofE is delivered in schools, colleges, community organisations, hospitals, prisons and more, all over the UK and internationally.

The DofE is structured into three levels of Award which increase in challenge and duration: Bronze, Silver, and Gold. The main differences between the Award levels are the minimum length of time it takes to complete the programme, how challenging it is, and the minimum age you can start. There are four main sections of a DofE programme: Volunteering, Physical, Skills, and Expedition. At Gold, participants will also complete a Residential section.

Section 1: Volunteering. 

The idea is to give you a chance to help other people in their community. It is a delightful way to feel part of a bigger picture. By helping others you also help yourself! It develops skills of empathy and communication.

Helping people less fortunate than yourself can also make you appreciate how lucky you are. There are a huge number of ways in which this can be organised. Examples include: teaching young people in a primary school how to play chess, helping in a school sports team for younger students, or joining a nationally recognised volunteering group.   

There is a large list of nationally recognised organisations that encourage young people to join their volunteering organisations. (Check the website below and other links to it) .The volunteering needs to take place over a set number of weeks. It also needs to be ‘signed off’ by a responsible adult, (probably the adult who is part of the volunteer group).

Section 2: Physical

This section is likely to involve getting involved in an organised sport, although any physical activity, (such as dance classes) would count. The important thing is that it has to happen over a set period of time, and take place in your own time. So attending weekly PE lessons at your school won’t cut it! As above you will need to find a suitable adult who can sign off the activity. This will normally be really easy, as long as you talk to the adult before you start your programme of activity. 

So if you wanted to take up running that would be wonderful. You could embark on a series of runs on your own. The only thing about that is that you might struggle to find an adult with enough credibility to ‘sign you off’. So perhaps you would be better off joining a running club, going to some ‘park runs’, and then entering yourself for an organised running event. There are no set standards of what length of run you must achieve.

The key is to show some dedication to your physical activity, to take part for a given amount of time (over a number of weeks), and then to find in advance a suitable adult who will be happy to ‘sign you off’. Normally just a signature and one or two lines about what you have achieved will be sufficient. Don’t be put off if you are not naturally sporty. Participation is more important than performance.

Section 3: Skills

This section is quite exciting as it gives you a chance to take up a new hobby you have always wanted to do. Or perhaps you can take up a hobby you never knew you wanted to do! If it is part of a voluntary activity organised at your school or youth group this would be perfect. It needs to be a new hobby, or something you have not done much of before.

So for instance joining in with a school play, or having music lessons in your own time would fit the bill beautifully. The same stipulations apply: the skill needs to take place over a set number of weeks and to be organized so that some responsible person can vouch for the fact you have done this. (This could be your drum teacher if you have decided to learn the drums for instance). Your local award organiser should have lots of ideas of things you could do. 

These days it is very viable to learn a new skill by taking online tuition on a reputable tutoring platform such as Sherpa Online. The lessons/ sessions would need to be on a topic which is not part of the core curriculum of the school. So you can’t just have some extra maths tutoring as you approach your exams and make this count (I know you are devastated to hear that!). However, you could have some lessons organised online, such as a cooking course, sessions on specialist computer programming, a typing course or anything a lot more fun than these examples.

Do you want to learn how to juggle while running backwards? Well, make it happen! There will be a circus skills workshop somewhere somehow…(It may be easier to organise this in cities rather than sleepy villages in the middle of nowhere).

Section 4: The Expedition 

This used to be my favourite part of the scheme, and for many young people, it is the most exciting. People often have life-long memories about this part of the award. Bronze expeditions are relatively simple, sociable events. Things get hairier as you get older. Occasionally, as my students would remind me, they are memories etched in an element of pain as well as pleasure.

I was organising a ‘Gold expedition’ in the Lake District a while ago and had some fantastic 17-year-olds taking part. It was a blast. Then it rained heavily for 15 hours, a gale blew their tents down, and the students slept in the drying room of the campsite. They rested up and told each other stories until it got light. They had almost no sleep and laughed about it for months to come, (as well as jokingly blaming me for all the problems). When they went to retrieve their soggy tents there were two ducks swimming around in the puddle that had ruined their camping spot. You need to join a team to do this.

You will be encouraged to get out into the Great Outdoors with a group of between 4 and 7 people. For Gold, in particular, you will be pushed a little outside of your comfort zone. But then you could have stayed asleep instead of reading this article. The Gold expeditions involve 3 nights under canvas, and need to take place in relatively remote and challenging environments, ( we are talking about The Lake District but not wild camping on a Himalayan glacier). The idea is to challenge young people, but not to kill them.

Section 5: Residential Trip

This section is for Gold award students only.

Candidates are invited to head off and find a residential course which they can join in with for a few days. Make sure you make it fun for yourself. If you want to learn to surf, head off to Cornwall and join a recognised surfing course. (It would work if the people running the course also organised the accommodation). 

If this is a bit too hairy for you, there will be some gentler options. You could go on a summer music residential course, a cricket camp, or perhaps help with conservation work, (maybe abroad!).

The important thing to do is to check in advance that it fits the requirements of the scheme. You could for instance head off with a load of mates to have a 5-day beach party. It sounds great, but would not work for the DoE, (because it needs to be with people you don’t normally associate with). So do the DoE thing, and then have the beach party afterwards to celebrate!

Enrolment

You will need to get enrolled on the scheme before you start. This is best done at your school or college, as it is likely to have a scheme running and you will be able to work with people you already know, as well as get to know others. 

If you do not have an award scheme at your school, or if you are out of school, there will be a local scheme you can join somewhere. You can also enrol online with an organisation such as ‘Action4Youth’ and they can set you up and give you some guidance. Once enrolled you will be sent your unique DofE number to the email address supplied where you can then access your account and all the resources. You will also receive an award handbook in the post.

It is recommended that candidates check the website below for information. If you want to join an activity you have discovered online, it is recommended that if possible you work with an organisation which already has links with the Scheme. (This will mean that once you complete the course it will be very simple to have it ‘signed off’.)

Find out all about this process and more on their official website -> https://www.dofe.org/