Volunteering, Physical and Skills
For these sections of your award it is a good idea to have a clear goal and perhaps try something new.
Ensure your activities are approved on eDofE before you start in case they don't fit the DofE requirements.
This opportunity finder may be useful to find activities, including residentials for the Gold award.
Volunteering
Ideas inside school:
Junior or senior prefects, peer mentors, DofE Young Leaders or DofE ambassadors
Ideas outside of school:
Charity shops, helping elderly or disabled neighbours, food bank, Park Run, Zooniverse - online projects, Dartmoor Rangers, National Trust, supporting younger pupils at sports clubs, scouts etc.
Your volunteering activity must NOT be unpaid work for a business. The requirements are that you volunteer for an individual, charity or community organisation.
If you need to learn a skill to be an effective volunteer e.g. first aid skills to volunteer for St Johns Ambulance, this is okay. Learning the skill can be 1/4 of the total volunteering time.
Two DofE Young Leaders will be recruited from year 12 each year. They will complete online training to support DofE within school, by monitoring teams' progress and helping to deliver the award. More information available here DofE Young Leaders.
Y12 DofE ambassadors can also be involved in delivering the programme and can use this as their Volunteering activity.
Physical
Examples:
Team sports - football, rugby, rowing etc
Individual sports - table tennis, tennis, running, etc
Your physical section can be as simple as going walking regularly, cycling, visiting the gym, Couch to 5k etc. Just make sure you have a clear aim and can record evidence of what you have done.
Aim to achieve greater physical fitness - this is ideal preparation for your expedition section so start early!
Skills
Ideas: First aid, driving lessons, umpiring, cooking, playing a musical instruments, singing, LAMDA, computing skills, design, online course in business skills, caring for animals etc.
Discover new talents and passions, or further develop a skill that you already have.
It cannot be something you do as part of your school course.
You need to show progress and development over the time period.
A common error is to confuse which section an activity falls into: e.g. developing football skills is a Physical, learning how to referee is a Skill.