Duke of Edinburgh skills and volunteering ideas? What did you do do?

[Wupity]

just Looking for some ideas for this. My dc doesn’t learn a musical instrument and we don’t want to start lessons just for this. So not sure which skill we could do. He likes outdoorsy stuff and scouts type activities.

for volunteering I am thinking about maybe getting him to ask the local junior parkrun to ask if he could volunteer regularly there. Or he could volunteer at the local beaver group.

just wondered if anyone else had some other ideas their dc did

duke of Edinburgh is something he really wants to do. I know it isn’t rated highly on cv but he just wants to do it

My son tutored my friends son for his 11÷

My daughter volunteered at a cat rescue - loved it and is still doing it 18 months on.

Yes I'll ask dd when she's back.

DD didn't do DoE but Chief Scout and that has the same requirements:

Volunteering - with the Beavers, she really hit off with them and is now doing it for 2 1/2 years

Skill - her drama lessons counted as she could see continuous improvements as she went through the grades. Friends of hers did baking, photography, self-taught cartoon drawing.

Son volunteered at junior park run and his skill was sign language

Churches are great. Singing in the choir or bell ringing for a skill. Helping with coffee, Sunday school, clearing / cleaning for volunteering. Strava for sport is a great idea

DS would like to do climbing as his sport- it could work quite well as the climbing centre is round the corner from the school, but I'm really skint at the moment and struggling to afford the extra £9 for a weekly session 😬

Volunteering....well, he's only 13, but his brother's cub pack will 'ave 'im!

For skill he's dickering between cooking and photography.

I'm finding it a little difficult though, as surely the point of the DoE is that it develops the kids' initiative, rather than us spoonfeeding opportunities to them? But he's done nothing to ie research volunteering opportunities himself. Maybe he's still that bit too young?

If you are happy to spend some money on an online course there are lots of options here (and also on the DofE Opportunity Finder pages).

www.ubee.org.uk

DD did a First Aid course from here and it tied in quite nicely with the volunteering she was doing.

Just remembered that DS did volunteering with the younger children at Cricket. It wax DD who did the climbing course.

Our park run have a waiting list for DofE volunteers because they need to be supervised.

They don't allow children (young teenagers) out as marshals on the course alone. I thought this was quite sensible. But it does mean they are limited to an extent.

Volunteering was a bit tricky for a 13 year old as charity shops round us will only take them from 15 and beavers/ cubs from 14. So park run it is.

DS was going to do cookery as a skill - I thought he could just upload to the website, I didn't realise he needed someone to sign him off. Better look into this a bit more.

DS volunteered as Young Leader at scouts

If he's in Scouts, he could (as a PP said) become a Young Leader and volunteer in a younger section. YLs are becoming increasing used in Scouting (we have to have them in Squirrels) and they're a valued member of our team.

Cooking is an easy skill, or duolingo...there is an online volunteering site where you count wildlife, last year it was penguins, my yr10 loved it!!

Oh, and tutor can sign it off, I do!

DS is doing agility with our dog for his skill (he already does it) and tutoring our friends’ DS for his 11+ for his volunteering as he goes to the local grammar school.

Things my dds have done-
Physical - hiking, recorded on strava signed off by scouts
Volunteering - supporting junior brass band (both play an instrument), signed off by conductor and supporting younger dofe students, signed off by school
Skill - craft, took photos and was signed off by teacher, cooking, evidence using photos to be signed off at school. Learning Spanish, signed off by tutor

My DS learned to play chess as his skill during the pandemic as limited opportunities available at that time. He did litter picking as his voluntary work. He also walked a little dog for a neighbour who was vulnerable and afraid to go every day for 4 months. He was going to coach cricket to younger DC but couldn't do it due to Covid.

DD volunteered at rainbows last year for her bronze. She loved it so much she never left.
She did cooking for her skill. (I don't know who signed that off to be honest)
This year she is going to do swimming.

Within reason you can do anything and there are loads of ideas on their website

eldest got a cheap sewing machine from Aldi and taught herself to sew using you tube and made 4 lovely cushions for our dining room table and then made a quilt for her younger sibling - technology teacher signed it off from school. She became a young leader and helped with a beavers group for a few hours a week. She learnt to canter on her horse.

for gold she is learning to ride a bike (she has a physical disability), she is teaching young children to swim in her school they have a swimming pool, she is then reading to children in the junior school once a week - she is then doing some local volunteering regarding the local park and litter picking and weeding - not quite sure what else but she seems very busy!!

Parkrun is a really good one, as they're usually short of volunteers, and the organisation at a national level welcomes them (they have standard paperwork and event directors get briefed on it (some run directors too, I think)). It's also good because if you find you're busy on the Sunday for juniors, you could probably swop to the Saturday main event so you keep the 12 weeks pretty much on course to be properly done in that time (not extended to catch up missed sessions to make 12).

Mine have some charity shop, volunteering at Parkrun, Boys Brigade, one did an online penguin watch or something during covid, I can't remember exactly. He had to watch cameras of penguins and count them or look for particular ones? I can't remember. Ds did transcribing census records for Freecen. I thought that would have been insanely boring but he found it fascinating. Was always coming through to tell me about unusual names or occupations.

I do agree with the previous posters who have said that a big part of the point of the DofE scheme is that they take some initiative and research this sort of thing themselves.

But, if he is already doing Scouts, and chooses to become a Young Leader for his volunteering, then he could do his Young Leader Training for the skills (if agreed previously with the assessor as Modules probably won't be weekly).
Potentially there is the opportunity to learn other skill through Scouts too. Our County has a Climbing club, and a some Groups (mostly, but not exclusively the Sea Scout Groups) who spend the Summer weeks on the water. All the Groups I know would be happy to take members of other Groups out if they want to learn a particular skill over a number of weeks.

Or what about something like chess ? Or teaching self basic guitar, even from on-line courses ? Things like that he could do in own time rather than committing a specific night a week, and won't cost you. You'd have to find someone to assess, but that could be discussed with the people he is doing the scheme through.

Both of mine have done DofE and I do think it's a great thing.

Ds1 volunteered at his old cub pack and ds2 is volunteering at Oxfam.

Ds1 did graphic design for his skills and finished up screen printing a t-shirt. Ds2 did cooking. His mate was doing the same and the two of them cooked a 3 course meal for both families as their end point - it was bloody lovely!

My DD did swimming as a skill and volunteered with Rainbows.
Doing a sport and voluntering at youth group ( perhaps one where they had previously attended ) seemed a popular choice.