Duke of Edinburgh's Award - age

[JessicaBrassica]

I was wondering if anyone has recent experience of DofE. I know you can start it in the school year in which you turn 14 i.e. yr9.

I have a feeling that in the past you could not do the final bronze expedition until you were 14 due to insurance. So although you could do training and practice at 13, you had to wait until after your birthday for the final assessment.

Dd's school have booked the expedition for may half term. Dd and a lot of her friends are summer born and will still be 13 at the end of may.

Can anyone confirm if 13yos can do the Exped or will they have to wait until y10? (Or find another unit).

Ds2 did it aged 13 last year. He was year 9

I thought it was 13 for bronze and 14 for silver. My daughters school tended to do the practice in June with the final expedition in September to make sure all the August birthdays were old enough.

I'm sure the school will know and also be aware of all the children's DOBs. Why don't you ask them?

help.edofe.org/hc/en-gb/articles/115001278345-What-are-the-eDofE-age-rules-

Year 9 school year for Bronze
Year 10 school year for Silver
Must be 16 for Gold

Just looked at that link - seems strange that the school year for their purposes starts on the 1st August. My DD is an August born so wouldn’t be able to do it with her year group if they started in Year 9. I used to run a D of E group but we started bronze in year 10 so they were already all 14.

Not so strange. Scottish Schools begin in August.

Thank you!
@KnickerlessParsons (love that btw) I have asked school. They don't know. Leader says he'll ask but we need to be all paid up next week and I didn't have the confidence in him finding out in time. It seems fairly basic to me! He's also scheduled training the week of a y9 residential when half the year are away... Faith not high here.
@LunchWithAGruffalo . Yes. Quite!
@Muchtoomuchtodo thank you. That's really useful to know. Things have clearly changed - maybe the advice is clear if you don't over think things!

@stargirl1701 that’s true, I hadn’t thought of that. Would make more sense if there were different rules for England and Wales then as it does prevent some in England from doing it with their year group.

Ds1 was 13 when he did his bronze.

My DD did it this year - expedition was in June and she wasn't 14 until end of August. The only difficulty was finding volunteering opportunities but luckily she did it with her old Brownies.