Hi all,
Recently I have been contemplating in participating my DofE award. However I will be completing this late. Therefore i was wondering whether I should start from bronze. Or if its permitted do my gold now.
Just asking for any opinions or guidance on the topic.
Thanks.
You can start at Gold, but it increases the minimum completion time to 18 months from 12 months. With additional time required on volunteering or skills.
See diagram below
It can be worthwhile going from Bronze as it gives you experiences you can learn from throughout!
It really depends, mainly on how long you have left in cadets.
If you can guarantee you will be able to get gold expeditions in the time you have left (however long that may be) then i’d say go for it. However, if you can’t guarantee it and there’s a risk you will not be able to complete the gold in the time you have left, then go for bronze or silver.
Remember, bronze or silver is worth much more in the real world than a half finished gold award.
It more depends how close you are to the DofE upper age limit. I have supervised and assessed junior staff when completing their DofE
What’s it got to do with time left in cadets? As long as you complete by your 25th birthday you can gain the award, that’s in the ATC as a cadet or staff, or through another Operating Authority.
But back to the question. Get bronzeunder your belt and then start silver. It’s better to go to an employer showing you have Bronze and working towards your silver than working towards gold.
I agree with you, however if you’re leaving the corps at 18 and you’re considering starting gold at 16.5 then its unlikely you’ll finished unless you have exped dates planned.
If they are leaving at 18 and are 16.5 then they are ideally placed to be a direct entrant to Gold. It’s October now so they can start their volunteering which is the longest it and have 6 months before the Expedition Season starts to get the Expedition dates planned and settled. (If there is no Squadron Team their are plenty of Wing or even Region Gold Expeditions out there, that’s what a Squadron DofE Officer is for!)
Your wing sounds much better at DofE than mine…
What?
If someone left the Corps at 18, they can carry on somewhere else.
DofE is not an ATC thing, believe it or not tens of thousands have done the DofE and never been an Air Cadet, who’d have thought, eh?
Of course you can, but someone in that situation needs to consider if they actually will do that.