DofE - outside of school

[tisonlymeagain]

If you don't get accepted to do DofE through school, and you're not currently a member of any groups like Guides outside of school, are there other places you can sign up to do it?

DD really wants to do it but it's not looking likely that she'll get a place as seemingly school have sent out letters to those who have been accepted and we don't have one (as yet).

There are odd groups that do - I know there was one near me when my dc were younger - t had sort of morphed out from a Youth Club and ran alongside it on another night. People could choose to just go for the DofE if they wanted to.
As far as I am aware, now though, you do have to be part of something, you can't register independently as I did as a youngster.

Is there a reason she doesn't want to join Explorers or Air / Sea / Army Cadets or similar, if she is that keen ?

It does need to be through a licensed group though

There are private companies in some areas that offer it; some of them around here also contract out to schools to run their programmes, especially for the higher levels and if they want to do things other than hike (canoeing, cycling, etc)

This page allows you to search for companies that do various aspects of the award:

www.dofe.org/opportunity-finder/approved-activity-provider

Though you might still have to get the school to do the actual registration. It would likely be the expedition that they couldn't accommodate everyone on, though, so if you were able to arrange that independently, they might allow that. Or another type of group that has a license.