What Skills can you do for DofE? 8 brilliant ideas you won’t have thought of
As one of the core sections of a DofE Award, every participant will want to make the most out of their Skills section. Unlike Volunteering and Physical, the Skills section is an opportunity to develop yourself in a talent, be it technical, tactical, mechanical, or otherwise. As such, it’s important to find a skill that you will feel a sense of accomplishment at getting better at. In this article I’ll go through my 8 favourite preapproved ideas for a DofE Skills section that you might not have thought of.
First things first: how long is your Skills section?
Before you sign up to lessons or start contacting friends and colleagues, it’s important to know how long your Skills section is going to last. On DofE, with each successive award, the Skills section becomes longer:
Bronze - 3 months (or 6 months is you select Skills as your longer section)
Silver - 3 months, or 6 months if you select Skills as your longer section (and 12 months if you haven’t completed Bronze and you select Skills as your longer section)
Gold - 6 months, or 12 months if you select Skills as your longer section (and 18 months if you haven’t completed Silver and you select Skills as your longer section)
For a full breakdown of timescales on DofE, check out my post on How long is DofE?.
1. Learning to drive
If you’re surprised to see learning to drive on this list, I can understand why! For many 17 and 18-year-olds learning to drive is a right of passage, and one that’s not usually associated with extracurricular qualifications such as DofE. However, learning to drive is on DofE’s list of preapproved activities, so you can rest assured that your evidence will be accepted.
It is important to note, though, that you are still required to engage in the activity for at least one hour a week for the number of months your Skills section lasts. For example, if you were learning to drive as the skills section of a Gold Award, you would need to have lessons for a period of at least 6 months (and possibly 12 or even 18, as specified above). This could leave you in an uncomfortable situation if you passed your driving test after, say, 4 months of learning to drive.
Additionally, a family member (such as a parent) cannot be your assessor. Ideally, your assessor would be a qualified driving instructor, and failing that, a family friend or acquaintance. For more information on who can be your assessor for DofE read my detailed post on DofE Assessor’s Reports.
Top tip! If you are considering learning to drive (whether as part of your DofE Award or not) it’s definitely worth checking if you are able to save money on your car insurance through DofE discounts. To find out more about DofE discounts, read my post on What are DofE Cards and DofE discounts?.
2. Unpaid work experience
This is another brilliant option for those who want to focus on their future prospects later in life when selecting their DofE section activities. Do note though, the work must be unpaid. As DofE states, “while the activity still needs to be in the participant’s own time, developing work skills through optional unpaid work experience or training would count for this section as life skills. This is a good way for participants to use the DofE to help them bridge the gap between education and employment.”
There are various methods you can use to find unpaid work experience. The simplest — and often best — is to simply ask around. Ask your family, ask your friends, and ask your school if they know of any local businesses who would be interested in a temporary unpaid intern.
Many larger companies nowadays are actually reducing the number of unpaid interns they take on due to legal issues regarding not paying people for their work. If you find an internship you like, and it is paid, suggest working one extra hour a week for free. If you did a 4-hour shift every Sunday afternoon, and got paid for 3 of those hours, I see no reason why this wouldn’t count (although I would still suggest double checking with your Leader).
3. Blogging
Of course, I had to put this one in — I only wish I’d started DofE Hero earlier so I could have used it for my Award! But in all seriousness, blogging is a brilliant DofE-preapproved way of spending your Skills section for a number of reasons.
Firstly, starting a basic blog is completely free. You can use website-builders with free plans such as Wix or Blogger to design a simple website in 10 minutes. (I built DofE Hero through Squarespace and believe that it is without doubt the best website-builder there is, but it does require slightly more technical skill, and they also don’t have any free plans after the initial 14-day free trial ends.)
Secondly, if your blog performs particularly well and you start gaining significant traffic, you could even make money from it! Whilst you are technically not allowed to profit from your DofE sections (i.e. paid work), making a little ad revenue from a blog starts to blur the line. Blogging is on DofE’s list of preapproved activities for the Skill section, so it should be OK — but if you do want to look into monetising before finishing your DofE section, I would suggest speaking to your Leader first.
One important thing to bear in mind is that blogging does not have a natural assessor. If you’re at school, you may want to find an English/History teacher who is happy to help with your writing skills and review your progress. Outside of school, ask your family if they know any journalists/authors/teachers who would be willing to be your assessor.
So, you’ve decided you want to start a blog for your Skills section, you’ve found an assessor, but you don’t know what to write about! Although I am by no means a blogging guru, if I were to give one tip to find the perfect niche for you, it would be this: get a piece of paper and a pen, and write down every social group you are a part of. For me, it might look like this: male, former DofE participant, loves skiing, plays the trumpet, Chemistry student, flannel-shirt wearer, passionate hiker, and so on. Pick one of your groups and dive in headfirst.
4. Chess/card games
Board games and card games are not only super fun, but a great skill to improve at over time. Card games that you could pick for your Skills section include poker, bridge, rummy, or even a medley of lots of different ones. For board games, chess is a great choice as mentioned in the heading, but you could equally pick Monopoly, checkers, Scrabble, and so on.
For chess specifically, you could join a weekly after-school club, and ask the supervisor/teacher to be your assessor. If there are no available in-person chess clubs, you could sign up to chess.com and simply play for one hour a week. You can play people online, play the computer, and engage in challenging puzzles. If you pick this route, make sure you find an assessor in advance. This could be as simple as a family friend who enjoys chess and is happy to check up on your progress every week or so.
For other board and card games the process is very similar. If you can find a local club or community, then that’s the best way to go, otherwise, look for an online solution.
5. Learning an instrument/singing
Learning to sing or to play a musical instrument is one of the more common routes people go for their Skills section, and that’s OK. For all three of my DofE Awards I used my trumpet lessons for my Skills section.
If you aren’t taking lessons, consider joining a school band, as simply playing for one hour a week in your bedroom won’t qualify. For me at least, playing in a band at school with friends was one of the most enjoyable parts of playing an instrument.
If you’re on the hunt for a music teacher, First Tutors allow you to input your instrument, your level, and your postcode, and then gives you a range of suitable potential teachers.
6. An extracurricular GCSE or A Level
This is an interesting option for a DofE Skills section. While for most people the prospect of an additional, optional GCSE or A Level is something not even worth considering, for other people it is a useful way to combine an activity they are already doing with the DofE qualification.
For those who may be naturally multilingual and have decided to take the GCSE or A Level in that language, then, provided you are engaging in weekly lessons/learning for that GCSE or A Level, you can use it for your DofE Skills section.
Equally, many people attend Saturday or Sunday school where you have lessons for a specific GCSE or A Level. Again, this will qualify for your DofE Skills section.
7. Drawing/painting
If you are arty — or not arty at all and looking to improve (that would be me!) — then honing in on your drawing or painting skills could be a perfect activity for your DofE Skills section.
It’s also not limited to just drawing or painting: you can do sculpting, basket weaving, brass rubbing, catapult building, ‘camping gear making’, canoe building (seems high stakes?), ceramics, crocheting, DIY, egg decorating, embroidery, furniture restoration, glass blowing, jewellery making, knitting, leatherwork, calligraphy, mosaics, pottery, snack pimping (Google it), woodwork, and many more.
As long as you can find a suitable assessor and can commit to one hour of activity a week for the necessary number of months, almost any activity that falls under ‘creative arts’ will qualify.
8. Growing carnivorous plants
Now, I included growing carnivorous plants on this list because, had it not been on DofE’s list of preapproved activities, I would have never thought of it.
When it comes to growing your own carnivorous plants, I am about as helpful as an inflatable dart board. However, Tom’s Carnivores seems like a good place to start.
Still not found what you’re looking for?
If you still haven’t found something that ticks your boxes, you can read the full list of DofE preapproved Skills options here for more inspiration.