D of E - evidencing?

[PiperPublickOccurrences]

My almost 16 year old is about to start the DofE silver award. He hasn't done the Bronze, but was allowed to start straight into the silver as he has his Gold Scout award which is roughly equivalent.

His volunteering is sorted - he's been helping in the local charity shop for well over a year and the manager will happily confirm this. He also has to do 6 months developing a "skill" and 3 months on active pursuits. He's decided he's going to learn to cook, and will make a two course family meal each week. For the activity, he wants to go cycling, pushing himself to go further or faster each time.

How do D of E ask for evidence of this? Are photos taken on a smartphone or those ride tracking apps acceptable?

They need signing off by a relevant person e.g. a group leader or a professional in that area.

If he's doing cycling could he join a cycle club and get signed off by a coach?
For his cooking, he could ask a cookery teacher to sign him off once he has presented all his evidence.

He will also need weekly evidence of what he's worked on. When students sign up to eDofE each section has to have a goal ad well so each week's work moves towards the goal.

Hmm. Didn't think it's be as straightforward as me taking pictures! Although as he's doing it through school perhaps he could ask the home ec teacher to look through his records and sign it off.

They have a meeting next weekend so he'll find out more then.

I'd get him to ask the Food Tech teacher in his school if they could review his progress regularly and provide written feedback, e.g. discuss the method for making yorkshire pudding, photos of the outcome, discuss how to improve and repeat the process to show improvement has taken place. They can just be brief comments as the teacher probably won't have time for more but as long as your son keeps a well organised and dated file of pics and comments this should cover it. ( bottle of wine for teacher as the end of course!). With the cycling get in touch with a local cycling club and see if any of the officials could monitor his progress and provide written evidence. Perhaps observing him regularly and recording improvement in times or techniques. As long as the evidence comes from someone who is recognised in the field it should be acceptable. Your son need to check that what he is doing is ok with his DoE coordinator.

As Maisy said your son's plan needs to be approved before he continues with the course.
In the past I have had young people who have embarked on a project and have done several weeks of it but haven't seeked approval prior atarting and what they are doing doesn't meet the criteria for that section and I had to tell them their work is void.

An approved person has to sign the work and the evidence is uploaded on to the Dof E site on to your son's account and the assessor will approve it on line.
Evidence can take the form of a written piece explaining the processes he has learned, the progress he has made and the outcome, videos, photographs.

Does it need to be an approved person? Certainly when I was 17/18yo I signed a number of younger friend's forms when I played tennis with them once a week to say they'd progressed.

It needs to be someone of appropriate standing and experience. (E.g. one of my students had their dance coach sign off their volunteering with younger groups, anotjer had their gym coach sign off the fact they had competed in national competitions).

DD kept weekly diary, including photographs, of what she did each week, uploaded onto the site, then had someone official (teacher / coach / person in charge of volunteers) sign her final form.

he can put his cycle rides on strava & share the evidence with PE coach (DD did this, except was running, for her bronze DoE).

I had to keep a diary. We also took pictures. For my skills section I decided to try drawing and navigating. The volunteering involved me tutoring children. But I was doing my award as a private individual. Mom made me keep a strict track of what I was doing for each part of the qualification. The most important thing is to ask for approval.

The main thing is to pay attention yo what the goal / aim of each section is. It's not enough to say 'I want to improve my cycling or I am going to cycle 3 times a week'. It needs to be something like 'after 6 months I want to improve my time in the local cyclocross races' or 'I want to complete the coast to coast cycle route' and then each part of the physical has to demonstrate how they work towards it. E.g. have they done a speed session tonight and then a distance tempo ride at the weekend, what did they focus on? Have they done any intermediate events between starting and their main goal? The assessor has to be able to verify that what the student has done meets the criteria.