To be frustrated by DofE requirements

[Frenchcremefraiche]

My daughter has just turned 15 and is trying to complete (well, START tbh!) her Bronze DofE.

On paper it's fine: learn something and do some volunteering.

In reality it's really, really hard! All suggestions appreciated!

There are so many exclusions to the skill requirement. She doesnt get home from school until 6 which limits evenings. Not that there are many lessons/groups after school anyway. Then there are so few activities that count as a skill on the weekend. Anything vaguely "sporty" doesnt count as a skill even if it's something she's never done before and is going to classes to learn it (eg ice skating). She's been doing online guitar lessons but because she started those before DofE, they dont count. There is a minimum hours requirement and Ive found a few in person classes but they arent long enough. It needs to be something in person because it needs to be signed off so teaching herself or doing something at home wont count.

Then volunteering, because of her age, very few places can help. Any informal groups that are willing to take her want a parent present because they cant take responsibility for her / arent DBS checked etc which I get but obviously she doesnt want me hanging about. It has to be a regular thing so she cant organise eg an afternoon litter pick. Plus she needs someone to sign it off anyway. She looked at helping at a local beaver/scout group but one said no and the other has her ex boyfriend helping so she said no. In her naive 15year old way she wont help at brownies because they are "sexist".

Any suggestions on what she can do? She's on the verge of having to quit because she cant meet the requirements.

If she teaches herself a new recipe every week and records it in a diary with photos, will the school home ec teacher not sign her off? That's what mine did. Then another year I self taught the piano and my school music teacher had me play something for him and then signed me off.

For volunteering I did babysitting for free for one of them.

I was in a charity shop recently & some 14 year old were asking if they could come to that shop as volunteers

Also suggest go to local library & ask about opportunities in the local area

Might have already been said but cooking is the easiest one to do for skills - there are loads of companies that specifically offer this for DoE - each week you make one of their recipes (following written instructions/videos) and then you send them a photo of your creation and they respond with some vaguely encouraging words. At the end they do all the DoE admin and write the report.

DS used this one below (it was the cheapest and it was fine) but lots of others are available if she is interested in a type of cuisine, or bread-making, or baking etc - just google

Duke Of Edinburgh Online Cook At Home Course | The KC Classroom

There’s loads that she can do volunteering wise; there’s been some good suggestions given already. I’m a Parish Councillor in our village and we regularly support young people. (Including my own) completing their DofE.
Our local Scouts also run the scheme as well as school and lots support there and get good experience and have a great time as well as their qualification.
The gold residential does not have to be expensive, the easy way to complete it is via the NCS scheme
https://www.gov.uk/government/organisations/national-citizen-service

It's so much cheaper to do it yourself with the added bonus that as they progress you get dinner cooked for you once a week.

Riding for the disabled take them at 14. We used to get a lot through

They can volunteer in Oxfam from 14. If there is an Oxfam shop near you ask in there.

Sorry I haven't read the full thread. My dD has just completed silver... Some suggestions based on what her groups have done:

Skill
Cooking - the food teacher at school assessed with them cooking at home I've a week on a theme - so learning to make bread, providing a weekly family meal, or just learning different equipment depending on the kids start level.

Typing or coding - similar idea signed off by school comp sci teacher

Craft work - knitting, crochet whatever signed off by design teachers

Language skills - can't be language she is doing at school but could be one she ditched and therefore teacher in school might support

Learn a DIY skill off YouTube again design teachers in school sign off.

Music if she has an actual.lesson it is just online then that counts provided online teacher will sign off. It doesn't thave to be new, but she has to have new goals / progress. So she's moved from grade 1 to grade 2 or she's learnt X set of skills.

Sport - can she volunteer coach at whatever her sport is?

Volunteering

Litter picking - look for local wombles group , they will likely sign off if she sends photos of rubbish bags for collection etc rather than her having to join their picks if timing doesn't work. Or maybe in school?

Supporting group at school - eg lunchtime maths support for yr7s

Old people's homes often seek people to come and chat to residents

Organising a shoe box / gift tree tag type charity collection

Scouts/Guides/Cadets etc are alright if you are already involved. They don't really work to for outsiders who don't want to commit to the wider programme.

My DD is currently doing her DofE and is using pre existing sports for her physical and her piano lessons as her skill. She is just setting new goals. She is volunteering at Brownies which I know you said yours won’t do, but litter picking was an option her teacher suggested to those who couldn’t find a specific volunteer group, or volunteer at school after school or lunch clubs to help out, or do something sponsored for charity.

Who is she doing DofE through? It sounds like they are over complicating things.

My son is about to start his through school and I was at a talk about it for parents last week.

The school have volunteering opportunities in school. Help at homework clubs, lunch time clubs and school library. My son is a scout and wants to be a young leader so will probably use that. His swim club also offer volunteering opportunities. I wouldn’t discount churches, setting up for Sunday services but not actually staying for the service could be an option.

Physical can be setting a target to improve at a sport you already do.

Skill does not have to be in person learning. You can set time aside to learn something at home. Learn something from online course, YouTube or a book. We were told cooking is a good skill to learn. Choose meal, shop for ingredients, cook and then photograph meal. Photographs can be uploaded to DofE app and new skills can be demonstrated.
Have you seen this list? Nobody is expected to go to classes to learn any of these skills.
https://www.dofe.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/programme_ideas_-_skills.pdf

His school have a weekly drop on that children can access for support. The teachers will review their evidence and sign them off.

It doesn't have to be directly supervised - as a form tutor I've signed off for kids doing Duolingo, improving their chess.com rating, running one hour per week, even cooking - they just had to show me evidence (eg screen hours spent on chess.com, photos of the meal they'd cooked each week, Strava data for runs etc etc). This is a little bit of work for a form tutor though, I suppose some schools won't ask teachers to do this?

For volunteering I have older kids helping out at lunchtime clubs for younger kids - they do 45 mins club and I trust that they've done 15 mins prep.

I think it must depend to a large degree on whether the school has a strong DoE ethos or not - we do as much as possible to support the kids within school.

FWIW my understanding is that her guitar can count, but she can't back date it, she has to do 3/6 months starting from whenever her eDoE officially begins.

To be honest, if she's at a private school with a late finish & she can't manage to be mature enough to travel using public transport etc to get places, or suck it up and volunteer with brownies, she doesn't really sound suited to DofE, its suited to building independence and resilience and problem solving skills. It's not supposed to be easy. That said whoever she is doing it with is not correct about the rules, you've shot down lots of suggestions on here that are perfectly acceptable like online courses.if she's doing it at school, can she swap to doing it via scouts?

Is money an issue? I do think one problem can be cost of some activities but things like duolingo are inexpensive.

Get her the join Army Cadets, every aspect of bronze dofe is done via their normal cadet evening or weekends away.

Cost is minimal- £30 to sign up all equipment provided

Weekends away £14, £5 if you get free school meals.

The thing about learning the guitar is bollocks. Yes they can still use learning the guitar as their skill as long as they are focusing on a different part, could be to learn a new cord, new song etc. In fact DofE encourages people to use things they already do and focus on different aspects to improve.

She can also use cooking, take photos, upload them and have her assessor sign them off.

I’m a DofE manager for my school. If they are saying this then it sounds as 1) they have no clue on how to run it or 2) are making it harder than it needs to be.

I would have a word with whoever she is doing it with and state you’ve looked things up and spoken to others involved in running DofE and actually she can do things online (DofE website has online courses for the sections).

My lad did an online money course for skills. It was free. It was about budgeting etc and every minimal work . It was called my personal finance skills .
litter picking is a good one. Or volunteer at a park run locally maybe as a steward.

i do think often it’s who you know for these things to get help.

Does her school have a library she could volunteer at? I generally have at least student a year that comes and helps out as part of DofE

A million years ago when I did my Bronze, we were told that since we were all so privileged already we would have to do harder things than the rules allowed for.
Your daughter's school ending at 5:30 leads me to think maybe she is suffering from the same attitude?
Some of us were certainly more privileged than others, but the attitude was blanket and very unhelpful. You have my sympathy.

Mine did some litter clearing. Though they did admit some years later that they (and friend) may have taken some litter of their own to clear up for the photos because the chosen area wasn’t that messy. 🫣

You just need to find a non relative to sign off.

The child next door to me learnt to bake for their skill. Each week they sent me photo of what they had made and told me which techniques they used and often bought me a sample. Then I signed them off.

My daughter did litter picking as her volunteering and again a neighbour who also litter picks signed her off.

You could volunteer at an after school club at a local school. Help look after the children there.

Find a Sunday school and volunteer?

Out local kennels needed dog walkers. There are literally hundreds of options

Does she have any friends doing DofE @Frenchcremefraiche if so what are they dining. As all of the things you are saying school have said no to are all things permitted at my Dads school and teachers will sign off any progress evidence when there isn’t any leader for example.

also it doesn’t have to be weekly (as in consecutive) weeks. It needs to be at least 3 months for each section with one section being 6 months.

my dd can only volunteer every other week and as long as she does at least 3 months she is fine.

Can her explorers group not help her find a cubs/scouts group to volunteer at. Mine would have always been very keen to help get something like this arranged using their contacts

Has she thought about volunteering at school? My son had a weekly hour of collecting up recycling from the classrooms, signed off by the school.

Surely part of the life skill here is in her learning to sort this out herself and then learning the consequences if she doesn’t do it? I don’t think you’re doing her any favours by trying to solve this problem for her. DoE is partly about encouraging independence

Over 40 years ago, I volunteered at my local library as part of DoE Bronze and Silver, which led to a paid Saturday and school holiday job for the sixth form. Could she volunteer to learn about the Dewey Decimal System, help shelve books which may help librarians and library assistants who need reasonable adjustments or just a rest from more physical duties. Help prepare books, such as wrap in covers and insert stickers. Help younger children find resources for homework. Help older readers find books; at that time I had regular ladies looking for the latest Mills & Boon or Georgette Heyer.

Alternatively, I just had a look on the DoE website and they had a course sponsored by the well-regarded Goerthe Institute to learn German and another course on photography.

Our boys both joined a conservation group, because of their age we had to attend too in order to supervise.
They also used playing a musical instrument, they played this prior to DofE, just needed the teacher to sign the hours sheet and answer a few questions.