Your school doesn't run DofE? You can still do it.

Plenty of schools don't offer the award, drop it after Bronze, or cap the places. None of that stops you. The Duke of Edinburgh's Award is run through licensed centres, and a Scout unit is one. We're one, in Ludlow.

Ask us how to start How DofE works here

The bit nobody tells you

School is one route to the award, not the only one

The award belongs to the Duke of Edinburgh's Award charity, not to any school. Schools deliver it as licensed centres, and so do Scout groups, cadet units, youth services and others. The certificate is identical whichever centre you go through, because it's the same award.

So if any of these is you, nothing has gone wrong and you haven't missed your chance:

Your school has never offered DofE
It offers Bronze and then stops
Places were limited and you didn't get one
You've moved school, or you're between schools
You're home educated
You started at school, and it stalled

Bronze: £33.50
Silver: £33.50
Gold: £40
Most schools: £150–£600
Start from: 13½

Those are the DofE enrolment fees. We're volunteer-run, so there's nothing on top for training or leader time.

How it works with us

Four steps, and none of them involve your school

You join the unit

You do the award as an Explorer, so you join Triffid first. Plenty of people have come to us for exactly that reason, with no Scouting behind them at all. You get three Mondays to see whether you like the rest of it before anyone signs anything.

We enrol you

We're a licensed centre, so we register you and set up your eDofE account. You can only be registered with one centre at a time, which matters if your school has already enrolled you — tell us and we'll sort out the order of things.

You pick your sections

Volunteering, Physical, Skills and Expedition, plus a residential at Gold. Things you already do count: a sport, an instrument, a Saturday job's worth of helping out. Activities you do at school still count too, even though you're registered with us.

We run the expedition

Training, practice and the assessed expedition, in the Shropshire Hills and the Brecon Beacons, with wild country for Gold. We lend the tents. There's a full kit list so nobody turns up having bought the wrong thing.

An honest comparison

Doing it outside school is often the better version anyway

It costs a fraction. Bronze through us is the £33.50 enrolment fee. Schools bundle in staff time, external providers and minibus hire, and charge £150 to £600 for the same certificate.

It runs on your timetable, not the school year. We aren't tied to an academic calendar, so you start when you're ready rather than in the September when the sign-up sheet goes up.

The expedition isn't a school trip. It's run by people who camp for fun, with a unit that camps all year, so the expedition is the thing they already do rather than an extra duty in a teacher's week.

You get the rest of it thrown in. Camps, activities, badges, and a group of people who'll still be your mates after the award is signed off.

Some school DofE programmes are excellent, and if yours is one, do it there. This page is for everyone whose school hasn't got one.

I thought it was going to be rubbish. Turns out it's the best thing I do all week.

— Triffid Explorer, age 15

Licensed DofE centre No school needed Start from 13½

The full detail on DofE here

Questions

The ones we get asked

If yours isn't here, email us and ask it.

Identical. There is one Duke of Edinburgh's Award, and licensed centres deliver it. Nothing on the certificate says where you did it, and no university or employer distinguishes between them.

Yes, you'd join the unit — we run it for our Explorers rather than as a service to the public. That's less of an imposition than it sounds: most people who came for the award stayed for everything else. Come for three Mondays and see.

You can only be registered with one centre at a time, so it's a question of getting the order right rather than a dead end. Tell us where you're up to and we'll work out what carries over.

Yes. What you do for your Physical, Skills and Volunteering sections doesn't have to happen through us. A school sports team, an instrument lesson, helping at a club — all of it counts while you're registered with us.

Not a thing. You join the unit like everyone else and do the award through us. If anything it's simpler, because there's no school programme to untangle first.

The enrolment fee, plus small expedition costs for food and transport, plus £15 a month subs once you've decided to stay. No charge for training or leader time, because every leader here is a volunteer. If money is the obstacle, say so — nobody has ever missed a trip here because of it.

Start it this term instead of next September

Email us, come along on a Monday, and we'll talk through where you are and what you'd need to do. Ludlow Scout Hut, 7pm.

Email us How joining works