DD2 wants to do Duke of Edinburgh bronze and already has a tight schedule. Would you recommend?

Having helped run a scheme, the only thing I'd advise is to make sure if she does it (which I think is quite achievable), get the expedition dates in the diary early, as they can't be rearranged very easily. Our co-ordinator was driven to distraction by year 10s who suddenly remembered they couldn't miss their ballet exam/netball tournament on the same weekend as the expeditions.

I am not sure whether it helps with Uni applications really. Every uni open day we have been to say they don't give a stuff about voluntary work in Cambodia, grqde 8 violin or climbing Kilimanjaro- only stuff realted to the discipline they are applying for.Ability and passion for the subject is what they want.
That said I think on a personal level the kids can get a lot out of doing Dof E

That's such a shame Theas. Was she not doing any sport at school? Usually, as long as the PE teacher is happy to sign off that the particpant has been attending regularly and has improved over 6 months, that should suffice.

I know I'm going against the tide, but if she's very busy already I'd advise her to get the criteria for what is/isn't allowed towards hours in each section carefully explained. As long as much can be allowed that she is already doing that's fine, but if she has to start completely new skills that maybe don't interest her, or new volunteering that takes lots of hours I'd not bother .

DD1 took on a saturday charity shop job and loved it, for her volunteer work. she was singing at cathedral for many hours as her skill (did this anyway) but the sport was the thing she just couldn't fit in.

IME - and in that of just about every other lecturer I know who's ever had anything to do with admissions - DoE awards are irrelevant to university selection processes. Do them for the intrinsic benefits. Their UCAS value is negligible.

Your daughter sounds ideal for it op as she's focussed.

My son, on the other hand.

So far, he's supposed to have submitted his plan thingy with the names of his assessors. That's all. He hasn't managed to even log onto the website yet.

I fear he only signed up for the expedition.

The skills list does include 'Reading'. Presumably there would have to be a bit more to it than saying, yup, I read The Beano/Hello/ every week for 6 months

LOL, I was thinking that too. Can't wait for mine to start. They'll be doing extreme ironing, cleaning, car washing & lawn mowing!!!!

PBB - you're on to something - although extreme ironing now has more appeal.

BreakfastCricket - how about a book review then? Obviously not something from the Mr Men series, but if there is a book being studied for GCSE, then your DC might be able to do book reviewing as a skill? You'd probably need to check it with the leader, but if extreme ironing is included, I can't see that book reviewing should be a problem.

PBB - what I should have said is that I keep nagging child about not doing enough reading and I'm trying to come up with a clever way of combining it with DofE.

Love the idea about the pamplet, making a meal and taking a photo... and also the idea of keeping it all in school time!

Bronze was well worth the hassle ... the tales of their expedition torment were hilarious!

Well, if your assessor, leader & local authority all signed you off - which is what they must have done if you got Gold - you clearly fulfilled the karma aspect!

for that particular component it was a cheat for me, it was based on achieving a qualification, one which took me a stupidly minimal amount of time to actually do. However, karma wise there was a lot of other good stuff i did

To do Gold you have to be at least 16 years old and there is an extra category, which is the Residential.

You can build on all the sections you have started in your Bronze or Silver, or you can start from scratch. If you have already done Silver, then you have to be at least 17 years old to achieve a Gold Award, as you have to evidence at least 12 months of activity & you can't start until you are 16, if that makes sense.

You aren't cheating if you apply something that you are also doing somewhere else, like the Cadets. The idea is to acknowledge all the good things young people do through a DofE Award. You don't have to do them twice over, just to get the Award - you just have to meet the requirements with what you are doing.

how long you have to each activity. If you have bronze when starting the silver you don't have to do as long. copied from their website

Silver
The next step up from Bronze... you need to be at least 15 to start doing your Silver DofE programme. If you've achieved your Bronze Award, your Licensed Organisation may allow you to start your Silver a month or two before your 15th birthday.
A Silver DofE programme has 4 sections, Volunteering, Physical, Skills and Expedition. You need to do at least 6 months Volunteering and a minimum of 6 months on either Physical or Skills and 3 months on the other. It?s up to you which one you do for longer.
The Expedition section involves planning, training for and doing a 3 day (2 night) expedition.
If you start your Silver without doing Bronze first you?ll have to do an extra 6 months volunteering or doing whichever of the Physical or Skills sections you have spent more time on. Though you can change your mind later, you should decide which section you want to do for longer at the beginning. Knowing how long you?re going to do it for will help you to choose your activity and set your goals for each section.
It will take you at least 6 months for Silver if you've already achieved your Bronze, or 12 months if you've jumped straight into Silver.

if you go straight to gold, you spend longer on each activity. But doing all three levels shows more commitment than just doing gold (which kind of implies oh bugger I need something for my UCAS form )

sorry posted too soon

there will be ways and means to find that hard to fill section. Normally there is only section that is hard to do. two normally come from a pre-existing past times.

She might have mis-interpreted the not using something twice. Yes she can't use the act of her doing ballet in the skills and sports but if she does coaching with younger children then she can use that a service as that is separate to her ballet sessions (if that makes sense). Well that's the way it would have been when I did it.

The expedition is the easy part and doesn't take up much time. A few planning and training sessions and three, maybe four, weekend activities.

Bronze and silver to a certain extent are a bit meh CV/achievement wise, but the time spent doing them is time saved on the doing the gold.

my skill was to take GCSE art as a extra one, think I attended one night after school for two hours. Used it for both silver and bronze. Can't remember my gold one, think I cheated and used something I did with air cadets.

And WTF is 'Snack pimping'?

My DD is only yr9 so I'm still trying to work out what's entailed, but if you look on the website here you can download the Programme Ideas list.

Dance in all its forms counts for physical, and the skills list is most entertaining... Extreme Ironing? Snail farming?

Silver skills with a link to using English (which could possibly be used as GCSE English coursework????)

1. Producing & distributing a newsletter for school or a group they belong to
2. Taking a writing course & trying to get an article published in a local paper, magazine etc
3. Collecting something (old comics / stamps / LPs etc), researching them and write up a report.
4. Make an information pamphlet on a something that of personal interest

I don't know enough about what is involved for GCSE English - but I'm sure a project or piece of coursework could be added to or adapted to also qualify for learning a skill at Silver level.

The skill can be something like baking/cooking, bake a cake or cook a family meal once a week and take a photo of it.
When my dd did hers she joined a lunchtime DT club at school and made jewellery, some of her friends did photography. I would encourage her to find out what's already happening at school, therefore keeping evening/weekend commitments down