Can you fail DofE? 7 things that can get you kicked off
As a valuable qualification for a CV or Personal Statement, you may be wondering if it is possible to fail DofE. So while you may be pleased to know it is not possible to fail DofE as a whole, you can fail specific sections. In this post I’ll go through seven different reasons that you may have to retake part of your award.
It is not possible to fail a DofE award, but you can fail expeditions or have evidence rejected. This means that in some instances individuals will have to redo an expedition, or even restart entire sections.
1. Turning 25-years-old
Possibly the only way to actually fail DofE is by turning 25. Now, to be clear, you don’t “fail” in the exam sense — you don’t receive a grade and there are no red crosses on your student record. You fail because you are no longer able to complete the award, even if you’ve already done 99% of it.
DofE has a very strict policy on this, and it applies to all three Bronze, Silver and Gold awards: all sections must be completed before your 25th birthday otherwise will not receive the qualification.
If you are in your early twenties and are just starting DofE now, consider skipping straight to Silver or even Gold because if you have to postpone one or multiple of your sections — for any reason — it may prevent you from completing the award as a whole.
For example, Gold DofE takes at least 12 months to complete, and that’s if you’ve already done Silver. With quite strict timescales, it’s important you plan in advance if you’re in your early twenties. Nobody wants to find out their hard work was for nothing! If you’re interested in learning more about the 25-year-old deadline, or general timescales for DofE, check out my blog post, how long is DofE?
2. Not putting evidence on eDofE in time
DofE has strict rules on how far you can backdate. As I wrote in my post, how long is DofE?, sections of DofE can be backdated by up to 3 months. It is not possible to backdate any further than this as the software on eDofE will not allow you to input anything more than 3 months in the past.
If you completed any of your sections more than 3 months ago and have not yet uploaded the evidence to eDofE you may start running into some complications. If you are in this situation, don’t panic — it not likely you’ll have to redo any part of the section, but you may have to get new evidence. See what you can do on eDofE first (you never know!), but if that fails speak to your Licenced Organisation about what you need to do.
3. Cheating or breaking rules on the expedition
Your expedition providers will set out a number of rules before you start your expedition. If they tell you that you can be kicked off for doing something, don’t endeavour to find out if it’s an empty threat. Of course, you may get away with it, but it’s not worth the risk.
If you fail an expedition you’ll have to join a new expedition group, possibly with a different provider, if you still want to complete the award. I know people who have done this and it is a huge hassle, especially if you do DofE through your school, who’ll have specific dates for when they run expeditions.
So what counts as cheating?
The easiest, and likely most common, way of failing your expedition is by using your phone without permission. A major aspect of DofE expeditions involves map and compass navigation — if your assessors believe you have been using GPS, this will likely be considered cheating.
There are some instances where you might be allowed to use a phone. For example, if you need a camera for your expedition aim, your providers may permit this (although only use your phone as a camera if you have preapproval).
Other forms of cheating that I’ve seen people fail for first hand, or heard about second hand, tend to be common sense. If you pop into a pub to go to the toilet and an assessor sees, you will likely be failed. If you buy ice cream from the Mr. Whippy you happen to walk past and an assessor sees, you will likely be failed.
4. Doing a Volunteering/Skill/Physical that doesn’t qualify
Much less exciting than buying a forbidden ice cream on your expedition, you need to make sure that the activities you do for your volunteering/skill/physical sections qualify, before you start doing them. Although it is unlikely, the worst case scenario is that you have to completely redo that section.
I have posts on the best ideas for the Volunteering, Skills and Physical sections, which you can find via the links below:
What volunteering can you do for DofE? 7 simple ideas anyone can sign up for
What Skills can you do for DofE? 8 brilliant ideas you won’t have thought of
What Physicals can you do for DofE? 9 original ideas you didn't know about
DofE also have pre-approved lists of activities for each section — you can find all the necessary documents here. If your activity is on the list then you don’t need to worry, but if you have chosen to be a bit more imaginative with your DofE sections then it is definitely worth double-checking with your Licenced Organisation before your invest your time into it — after all, your Licenced Organisation are the people will be approving your evidence.
5. Getting injured on the expedition
Although it feels unfair, if you get injured on your DofE expedition and cannot complete it, then you will have to retake the expedition at a later date.
As DofE states in its 20 conditions of an expedition, “all expeditions must be by the participants’ own physical effort, without motorised or outside assistance”. If you twist your ankle and can’t continue to hike by your own physical effort, you will unfortunately fail that expedition.
While you’ll never be able to completely remove the risk of injury, you certainly can minimise it. The most important thing to do is make sure you have good-quality hiking boots with ankles support. For more information on what you need to bring on an expedition, read my kit list, which goes into much more detail on hiking boots, as well as more generally what you need to bring for your expedition.
6. Going on a your Residential with too many friends
You’ll only need to complete a Residential camp for Gold DofE, so if you’re doing Bronze or Silver you can ignore this point. For the Residential section of Gold there are a lot of stringent rules on what will qualify — 12, to be precise. These rules involve the length of the camp, the activities, where you stay, and who you can go with.
In terms of whether you can go with friends, DofE states that you must go “alone or, if with a few friends, as part of a much larger group of people who are unknown to you”. I go into a lot of detail on what this means, as well as breaking down the other rules for a Residential camp, in my post What counts as a DofE Residential?
The most important thing is to make sure your programme qualifies before you commit any money or time to it. If you go on a residential camp with five friends, it’s simply not likely that your Licenced Organisation will approve it, at which point you’ll have to find and complete another camp in order to complete your Gold award.
7. Driving a lawnmower you find on the expedition campsite
Ok, I know this is a bit of a specific one, but I’ve put it in for two reasons: firstly, it’s funny, and secondly, I’ve seen someone actually get kicked off before for it.
It’s quite self-explanatory: if you find a large lawnmower at the end of the field that you are camping in on your expedition, and the key was left in the ignition, and you turn on the engine, and an assessor sees, you will have a very hard task in explaining yourself out of it.