DofE Assessor's Reports: what are they, who can be your assessor, and how do you submit evidence?
Working out what evidence needs to be submitted, who is allowed to write the evidence, how to submit it, and what the evidence should contain can get pretty confusing. In this article I’ll break down everything you need to know about evidence for DofE so you can feel confident that once you hit submit there won’t be any unexpected hiccups.
A DofE assessor is the person who oversees one of your sections, and writes your Assessor’s Report which is submitted as evidence on eDofE. They cannot be a member of your family, but friends may be allowed.
What is a DofE assessor, and what is a DofE leader?
First things first, it’s important to understand the different terms used by DofE, because it can get a bit confusing. There are a number of different people involved in helping you to achieve your award, and each of them have a specific, and separate, purpose.
You’ll have a number of assessors who each oversee or run one of your DofE sections, and who write the evidence you submit to eDofE. The assessor can be almost anyone, from the football coach who you do your Physical section with, to the neighbour who is teaching you how to cook for your Skill. There are some rules on who can and can’t be your assessor though, which I go into later in this article. Generally, an assessor will have no external connection to DofE.
Your leader is the person who approves activities, signs of your evidence, and helps to make sure your award is going smoothly. If you’re doing DofE through your school, your leader will likely be a teacher. Note that your DofE leader is completely different from your expedition group leader — confusingly, an expedition group leader is a DofE participant (i.e. student) within your expedition group, usually a friend or colleague, who the group self-select.
Who can be your assessor?
There is a lot of freedom in who your assessor can be for a DofE section — the only strict rule is that your they cannot be a family member. As DofE explains, “They must be independent. Therefore, they cannot be a member of your family.” DofE doesn’t state whether a friend can be an assessor, but the implication is that they can as long as they meet the following criteria.
DofE says that your assessor must be “interested in helping you to achieve [your award], has some knowledge of the activity you are doing and can be available over the time you’re doing it”. This means that your friend couldn’t be the assessor of a Skill section in plant growing if they only bought their first houseplant last week.
You’ll find that for your skills, physical, and volunteering sections there is usually someone who is the natural assessor: the dance coach, the charity shop manager, the piano teacher, the personal trainer and so on. However, if one of your sections doesn’t seem to have an obvious assessor, speak to your DofE leader and they will help to solve this issue.
For your expedition section the rules are slightly different and typically the expedition providers will have their own qualified assessors.
How to collect the evidence you need
What evidence are you required to submit?
Once you have completed one of your DofE sections you will need to submit an Assessor’s Report as evidence. An Assessor’s Report contains details of your achievements throughout the section, and can only be written by your chosen assessor.
You will need to submit an Assessor’s Report for every section other than the expedition, which has different rules as mentioned above. For the expedition the evidence will usually be submitted and signed off on your behalf without you having to do anything. If you have any questions, ask your DofE leader.
What needs to be included in an Assessor’s Report?
The Assessor’s Report must be personal to you. It will not be approved if the same report could be applied to a different student. As DofE states, “the feedback within the Assessor’s Report must be personal to the individual and usually made up of several short paragraphs.”
Before you submit your Assessor’s Report, also make sure that it has all the necessary details and contact information to reduce the chance of your evidence being inappropriately flagged. (This happened to me once: I forgot to add my assessor’s email address and the evidence was rejected. It wasn’t a big deal — I just had to add the email address and resubmit the Assessor’s Report, but it was a bit of a hassle and took a few additional weeks before finally being signed off.)
You’ll need to include your assessor’s full name, role (e.g. Head of Choir), phone number and email address. Below I’ve added a sample Assessor’s Report supplied by DofE, and one of my actual Assessor’s Reports from my Gold award. If you want to read the pdf document I took the sample from, you can find it here.
My Assessor’s Report from the Skill section of my Gold award. I play the trumpet, and had regular lessons and was involved in a number of groups.
Do you ever need to provide evidence to your assessor?
In some situations you may need to provide evidence to your assessor to show that you are still regularly participating in your activity, for example if you’re not seeing them in person. This is separate from the Assessor’s Report and may not need to be submitted on eDofE.
You can record your continued engagement in an activity by recording an activity log, taking photos or videos, or from screenshots of apps such as Strava. In the wake of the coronavirus pandemic, DofE have written a super helpful article on how to provide evidence for an assessor you can’t see in person.
How to submit an assessor’s report
1. Assessor’s Report card
In the welcome pack you receive at the start of a DofE award you’ll find a number of Assessor’s Report cards, one for each section. In my opinion these cards are the most effective way of completing Assessor’s Reports, as it makes it impossible to forget any of the details you’re required to provide (assuming the whole card is filled out).
On the back of the cards there is also information on what the ‘assessor’s comments’ should include, which is helpful for an assessor who may have never filled out a DofE Assessor’s Report before. The photo of one of my real Assessor’s Reports seen above was completed on an Assessor’s Report card.
To upload an Assessor’s Report card to eDofE, you can simply take of photo of the card and upload it using via the Photos button under the Add evidence tab, as shown in the screenshot below. Also, make sure tick the box at the bottom to confirm that it’s the Assessor’s Report.
2. Photo of a hand-written report
This method is, in effect, almost identical to that of an Assessor’s Report card. The only difference is that your assessor can simply write the report on a blank piece of paper, which you then upload to eDofE. When using a blank piece of paper, though, make sure you include all the necessary details and contact information to avoid having your evidence rejected.
3. The Assessor’s Report portal
Assessors can submit their Assessor’s Report for you directly via the Assessor’s Report portal, which you can find here. It’s a convenient way they can submit their report without having to hand-write anything, and it’s especially useful if you’re not seeing your assessor in person.
In order to use the Assessor’s Report portal, they’ll need to know your participant ID number, your award level (e.g. Bronze), and which section they are assessing (e.g. volunteering). You can find the portal via this link.
Note that, unlike with the other methods, when submitting via the portal you will not see the Assessor’s Report appear in your eDofE until it is approved by your DofE leader — so no need to panic!
4. Email of an Assessor’s Report
Your assessor can email you their Assessor’s Report, which you can then submit to eDofE using the Text button under the Add evidence tab. Simply copy and paste the email content into the textbox, add any necessary contact details, tick the “Assessor’s Report” checkbox, and then submit. Below is an example of how you can submit an Assessor’s Report as plain text on eDofE.