HomeDo DofEAchieving your Award

Two young people wearing dresses holding their hands in the air to celebrate in front of Buckingham Palace.

Achieving your Award

We recognise your amazing achievements with a Bronze, Silver or Gold Award. Here’s how to achieve your Award and how you get it.

Once you’ve finished your activities, you need to make sure:

You’ve done all your sections for the minimum time required, for an average of an hour a week, or the required timescale for your expedition.
Your Assessors have completed their Assessor’s Report for each of your activities. The report should describe how you met your goals and how you’ve progressed.
You’ve uploaded all your evidence to eDofE, including the reports from your Assessors.

Your Leader will check and approve each section in eDofE after you submit your evidence. You can submit each section for approval as you go along or everything at the end.

When your Leader has approved your final section they will send it to your Licensed Organisation (LO). They will check that everything is in order. All being well, they will tell you that you’ve achieved your Award – congratulations!

Approval process

Your DofE Leader approves your DofE activities. If you do not have access to eDofE, your Leader can check your Welcome Pack. Next, your LO checks it.

If it’s approved: your LO will give you a DofE badge and certificate
If it’s not approved: your DofE Leader or LO will contact you if there’s a problem with your section(s). They will ask you to explain or correct a problem.

There are many reasons for why your Award may not be approved. For example:

If you’ve done the wrong activity for a section (like trying to use football as a skill, it comes under Physical)
If you did not spend enough time on a section
If you haven’t got enough evidence
If you’ve entered the wrong dates
If the expedition details are incorrect

Make sure your DofE Leader approves your activities before you start.

Getting your Award

Bronze and Silver

For your Bronze and Silver Award, you’ll get your certificate and badge locally. Ask your Leader where this will be. It could be at school, in your group or at a larger local presentation.

Gold

When you finish your Gold programme, you must complete the Gold Award Form on eDofE. Forms submitted through eDofE will be sent for approval automatically.

If you have printed forms, send them to your Leader. They will sign it and send it to your LO and DofE County office to approve.

When your Award is approved, your LO will give you a choice of a Gold badge or brooch. We will also get in touch to invite you to a Gold Award celebration at a Royal palace.

Your certificate and badge or brooch will be posted to you in the month after you achieve your Award. It will be sent to the address registered on the Gold Award celebration event page of your eDofE account.

If you don’t get your certificate and badge or brooch within two months of achieving your Gold Award, please email [email protected].

Digital badges

You’ve put in the effort. You’ve built the skills. Now, show the world what you’ve achieved.

Your DofE digital badge is a verified, shareable way to showcase your Award on LinkedIn, CVs and in further education or job applications. It’s proof of your resilience, teamwork and leadership – qualities employers are looking for right now.

Log in to eDofE and download your digital badge under ‘My Achievements’. Then you’re ready to start sharing! We also have a step-by-step guide on how to get your digital badge.

Achievers clothing

Once you’ve achieved your Award, you can order clothing from the DofE Achievers Range. The range exclusively features the Award level Royal Cypher in Gold, Silver and Bronze thread. You can only buy clothing with proof of achieving your Award.

Lost badge or certificate

Bronze and Silver

Please speak to your DofE Leader about giving you a replacement. This will be up to your LO.

Gold

The DofE reviews requests for replacement badges and certificates on a case-by-case basis. Please supply as much evidence as possible so we can consider your request, especially if you achieved your Award before 2013.

Evidence might include: