Duke of Edinburgh Award Question

should be fine if they are willing to do it
alternatively, are you having regular lessons with an instructor, if so they could sign it even though it isn't with them every week
or just get a neighbour who sees you go past to do it or even a relative (so long as they have a different surname)
they don't check as long as it's a different name, as as long as you're doing it it's not like you're cheating
might be a bit tricky where they have to put your progress unless you plan on passing your test at the end of it though

I'm doing gold D of E too Get a neighbour to sign, ring their bell and tell them your going when you get back, ask them to sign. I think you only need someone to witness, rather than teach... I'm not 100% sure though - ask your leader?

I never had a log sheet Just got the book filled in at the beginning and end! Hope it's ok...

Thank you for your reply. One further question I have is regarding proof of your skill etc. For example, at the bottom of the log sheets which I have downloaded it says that I can include photographs, scans etc in order to serve as additional proof for your 'achievement pack. Have you done anything like this, or have you just been getting people to sign your sheet? All I have so far are signatures, mind you I've only been oding the award for about three or four weeks, so I suppose I could start taking pictures if necessary.

Also, what are you doing for your physical section? I'm thinking of doing general cardio-vascular fitness training at the gym every week in order to allow me to do runs for charity, like 6, 8 and 10km. Would I be able to get someone at the gym to sign it for me if I just mention to them at the start of every gym session if they could briefly check my progress and then sign the form at the end?

Thanks in advance.

I'll reply to your first post first - The Assessor need only be somebody who can say that you've done what you said you have. For obvious reasons, you should really be avoiding having a friend or a relative do this for you. My advice would be to get somebody at the hire centre to sign it for you. There's a section for "position/qualification2, and as a DofE Leader, if I saw, "neighbour" or, "Dad", I'd be a bit dubious..

It's totally up to you what you do in terms of adding pictures and such. When you complete your Award, you'll either have that hard copy, or you'll be able to order a nicely printed (optionally leather-bound) copy which will include everything. Now personally, I always think it's nice that you have something to keep from your DofE - the Record Book or the printed copy, so adding pictures to it would require very little effort but it'll add that extra touch, which you'll probably appreciate further down the line. It's far from necessary though - it's more for your personal benefit

And yes, having somebody at the gym sign your book is ideal - somebody you don't really know personally, has a position/title you can put down, and probably has some qualifications you can make known in your record

Cheers for that mate, very helpful advice.

Also worth noting with the physical - see if you can findsome way of benchmarking yourself. If you can say you've reduced your body fat % by x amount, or improved your speed on the mill by y amount, then it'll look awesome, and it's half the point of the section - to improve

How did they check on your progress? Did you just fill in a performance check every now and again? Or did your sectional instructor just really trust you a lot?

Hah, I guess they do I don't think they do it with any of the people at my award centre, but it is a very well run place so I don't think they're doing anything wrong...

Or by sectional instructor do you mean the person who signs off that section? Because with driving for example, my instructor was always with me so he didn't need to check up on my progress by writing it down...

Just the person who is in charge of your Duke of Edinburgh, for example I meet with a person from my local council every so often. I'm not sure what the correct title is to be honest though lol. I think I would have to have a lot of signatures on my log sheet as, when I started, he said that he would be trusting me to go ahead and do the volunteering, physical and skill etc without having to check up on me every so often.

That completely depends on your Centre - I've never heard of this log sheet, so I can only assume that it's something your Group Leader/Centre Coordinator has made, whereas I only have 1 signature for my Physical, one for my Skill, one for Service.

I think a lot of DofE Leaders are confused at the moment, as eDofE was meant to be the place to keep a log, with the Keeping Track booklet as a backup, but eDofE has sorta failed and is pending review, so Groups are finding their own ways to do things.

I'll be honest though - providing you don't have a 4 month gap in the log sheet, I'm sure you'll get the section signed off no probs

This is the log sheet here, which is actually called an activity log according to the website:

http://www.dofe.org/go/downloads/

There are individual log sheets for the physical, volunteering and skill parts of the course, and they help you keep track of what you do each week for each section. By what people have been telling me on here, I think I may have been putting in more effort than is really necessary, but I suppose that's only for the best really.

You can find the activity log sheets under the Welcome Pack Assessor Pages and above the Programme Support Resources section. The reason why I had been going so ape **** on my sections is that my leader guy had said that they expect you to do at least an hour a week for each section, and I got the impression that he would be a bit pissed off if we missed a week or anything. I suppose it's a good attitude to have though.

Thank you for your reply. How is your DofE Gold Award going? What are you doing for your skill?

It's going quite well actually, especially as I'm so increadiby unorganized. Skill was the easiest one for me to do because I cam just count my driving lessons for it I'm doing ballet and helping out in primary school for the others What are you doing?

Thank you for your reply. One further question I have is regarding proof of your skill etc. For example, at the bottom of the log sheets which I have downloaded it says that I can include photographs, scans etc in order to serve as additional proof for your 'achievement pack. Have you done anything like this, or have you just been getting people to sign your sheet? All I have so far are signatures, mind you I've only been oding the award for about three or four weeks, so I suppose I could start taking pictures if necessary.

Also, what are you doing for your physical section? I'm thinking of doing general cardio-vascular fitness training at the gym every week in order to allow me to do runs for charity, like 6, 8 and 10km. Would I be able to get someone at the gym to sign it for me if I just mention to them at the start of every gym session if they could briefly check my progress and then sign the form at the end?

Thanks in advance.