Duke of Edinburgh Silver Award

This page is specifically for members working towards their DofE Silver Award

General

Requirements

You can start Silver at the start of the school year in which your 15th birthday falls. You must spend 6 months on the Volunteering section, and 6 months on either the Physical or Skill section and 3 months on the other – it’s your choice which you choose. If you haven’t done Bronze you will have to spend an extra 6 months on either Volunteering or whichever of Physical or Skill you chose to spend 6 months on. You can see the full requirements here.

The small print you may not notice

• You need to do your programme for at least 6 months (or 12 months if you haven’t done Bronze).
• No activities can be counted for Silver before the start of year 10 (ie the school year in which you reach 15 years old)
• You must complete a programme planner on eDofE for each of the Volunteering, Physical and Skills sections and get it approved before starting the section.
• No activities can be counted before the ‘start’ date on the approved eDofE programme planner
• Programme planners will not be approved unless there is a measurable goal and unless there is an independent named assessor complete with either an email address or contact phone number
• For the Volunteering, Physical and Skills sections you should spend an average of one hour per week on the activity; this must be spread evenly across the time you are doing the activity (but it doesn’t have to be exactly 1 hour per week).
• You must keep an Activity Log and upload it to eDofE when you have finished.

Getting ‘sign off’

Once you have finished a section you must get your assessor to complete a report on line so that the section can be ‘signed off’. Ask your Assessor to go to the Assessors’ Report page. You must also upload a completed Activity Log.

You should also, if you can, upload to eDofE any other relevant documents, together with photographs showing you completing the section – the more you upload the better.

Make sure you avoid the following mistakes which commonly result in rejection of evidence:

1. programme planner: must be approved before you start a section
2. activity log: must be uploaded as a pdf file clearly showing the whole page(s)
3. activity log: all entries initialled by one of the people listed in the notes at the top
4. activity log: must cover the full period required – (ie the period between the first and last dates must be at least as long as the required length of the section (3, 6, 12, 18 months))
5. activity log: must show sufficient hours – (13 for a 3 month section, 26 for a 6 month section, 52 for a 12 month section, etc)
6. activity log: must be evenly spaced over the required period of the section – if not 1 hour per week then roughly 4-5 hours per month
7. assessor’s report: must be written by the assessor named on the programme planner
8. assessor’s report: must cover the full period shown on the activity log
9. assessor’s report: must be submitted on line
10. Young Leader training: evidence of YL training must be uploaded when using YL service for the volunteering section
11. supporting evidence: photos etc, although not mandatory, provide good supporting evidence of completion of activity

Volunteering

You must maintain an Activity Log and upload it when you have completed the section. You can download the Activity Log here.

If you can’t decide what to do then click here for some ideas.

If you are volunteering as a Young Leader there is a Scout Association requirement to undertake YL training and this needs to be evidenced. You should undertake at least two hours of relevant training during the period of your volunteering, and the dates are checked! Normally you will do this by attending YL training (including Module A if you haven’t already done it), getting it signed off in your YL log book, and uploading the completed pages of your log book to eDofE.

Physical

You must maintain an Activity Log and upload it when you have completed the section. You can download the Activity Log here.

A physical activity is something that requires a sustained level of energy and physical activity (and usually involves building up a sweat!)

If you can’t decide what to do then click here for some ideas.

Skills

You must maintain an Activity Log and upload it when you have completed the section. You can download the Activity Log here.

The Skills section is about discovering what you’re really good at. Maybe you want to get better at something you already do, like playing a musical instrument, or learn something for the very first time, like how to design a website?

If you can’t decide what to do then click here for some ideas.

Expedition

You must spend at least 2 days and 2 nights on a Practice Expedition before doing your Qualifying Expedition. For the Qualifying Expedition you must spend 3 days and 2 nights on you Expedition; you must be “out” for 7 hours each day or which at least 3.5 must be travelling. The Expedition will be in the an area which is not familiar to you.

All DofE Expeditions must meet all of the ‘20 Conditions‘.

Before being allowed to start your expeditions you must complete, or demonstrate to your Leader/Supervisor that you have already completed, the training requirements. This will include at least one practice expedition. If you have previously completed the Bronze Award or the Cheshire Hike you will probably have already completed the training for DofE Silver but you may need to do a bit of revision.

Your expedition MUST have a purpose – it’s not just a hike. There are some ideas here