Running a balanced programme

Equipping young people with Skills for Life is one of the key goals of The Scouts. To do this young people need to be supported by amazing leaders delivering an inspiring programme. We want all young people involved with The Scouts to have access to and want to take part in all aspects of our programme for their age group.

An imaginative and diverse programme will enable young people to fulfil the requirements to achieve the relevant top awards for each of the Section and develop “Skills for Life”!

A brilliant programme equals:

Top awards achieved
Skills for Life gained
More young people wanting to join The Scouts

Local support

To achieve this, we work to ensure that all adult volunteers in the County are able to confidently provide a challenging, relevant and rewarding programme. We provide the following support to adult volunteers:

Encourage engagement with Young Leaders in programme planning and delivery
Share good programme resources and ideas
Run skills sessions & workshops so adult volunteers have the skills and knowledge to run the programme

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Programme ideas

Programme planning information can be also found by clicking on the following links:

Scouts

The Scouts website contains over 1000 activities for all sections that can be used to help plan your programme.

More information

Scout Resource

Scout resource is an independent website run by adult volunteers with lots of programme ideas for all sections.

More information

Scout Adventures

Outdoor programme ideas provided by Scout Adventures, the people who run The Scouts Adventure Centres.

More information

Virtual resources

As a way of developing and sharing resources we create regular Programme Campaigns to highlight particular parts of the Programme over a period of time with ideas and resources for each Section.

The virtual programme resources contain all that is needed to run a particular topic, along with the links to how it all fits within the programme.

View virtual resources

Top awards

We want all young people involved with The Scouts to have access to and want to take part in all aspects of our programme for their age group. Taking part in the whole programme should fulfil the requirements to achieve the relevant top award. Each Section has different top awards:

Adult volunteers should aim for every young person who attends each Section to have the ability to achieve the relevant top award. We celebrate the top awards that are achieved by our young people at an annual Awards Day.

Chief Scout’s Awards

The Chief Scout’s Bronze, Silver and Gold Award are the highest awards in the Beaver, Cub and Scout sections respectively. To complete them you need to complete all of the challenge awards for that section, together with a set number (six in Beavers, seven in Cubs and nine in Scouts) of activity or staged activity badges of your choice.

The Chief Scout’s Platinum and Diamond Awards are progressive, meaning you can achieve these as you work towards the King’s Scout Award. (The Platinum Award is only available to Explorers, while the Diamond Award is available to Explorers and Scout Network members.)

King’s Scout Award

There are few challenges more prestigious than the King’s Scout Award – it’s the highest award available to young people in Scouting. This one really is a badge to wear with pride. You must be aged between 16–25 years old to complete the King’s Scout Award and be a member of Explorers or Scout Network for at least 18 months from the date you started to achieve the award.

Duke of Edinburgh’s Award

The Duke of Edinburgh’s Award (DofE) is a voluntary, non-competitive programme of practical, cultural and adventurous activities, designed to support the personal and social development of young people aged 14-25, regardless of gender, background or ability. It offers an individual challenge and encourages young people to undertake exciting, constructive, challenging and enjoyable activities in their free time.

The Chief Scout’s Platinum Award, the Chief Scout’s Diamond Award and the King’s Scout Award have similar requirements to the Bronze, Silver and Gold DofE Awards.

By registering with both the DofE and The Scouts you can gain twice the recognition for the efforts you put in. The DofE is the world’s leading youth achievement award. Both are recognised and highly respected by potential employers, colleges and universities. Should you move area, for university or work etc. you can continue with your DofE within Scouting in your new area.

To find out more about DofE, visit the Scouts website here, or the DofE website here.

Young Leader Award

The Young Leader Award is presented in recognition of completing the Young Leader modules and missions. It contains 11 modules and four missions for Young Leaders to work through whilst volunteering in their chosen section. Modules give Young Leaders the skills and knowledge to be successful in their role, while missions allow them to put everything into practice with support. As well as developing valuable life skills, the scheme is an opportunity for Young Leaders to make a positive impact in their communities and to fulfil the service elements of many of the top awards in Scouting.

Further details of the award can be found here.

Explorer Belt

The Explorer Belt is a challenge of a lifetime. It is a chance to take part in a ten-day expedition that brings you a real understanding of a different country, its culture and way of life. You will develop this understanding by travelling through your chosen country, working as part of a small team aged 16 – 25 to complete a series of projects and most importantly by meeting local people. It is an experience and an achievement that you will remember for the rest of your life. More information can be found here.

Scouts of the World

The Scouts of the World Award (SOWA) is an international award initiated by the World Organization of the Scout Movement (WOSM) with over 50 National Scout Associations taking part. In the UK this award is exclusive to Scout Network.

SOWA challenges you to think about global issues and how they impact on communities through planning and delivering your own community development project. This could take place anywhere in the world!

The award will support you to take action and work to improve the lives or environment of other people, you’ll also gain invaluable experience relevant both for future careers, study and towards other awards in Scouting.

More information on award requirements can be found here.

Online Scout Manager (OSM) for programme

Online Scout Manager (OSM) is an online administrative system designed to make it easier to run a section. More information on OSM can be found here. There are four areas of OSM that are designed to make it easier to run a balanced programme with your section.

Programme planning

The programme tool allows you to build your weekly programme as you go, or in advance, linking it to the different badge requirements. You can either make your own activities or use ones already available on OSM. These activities are added by other leaders using OSM and can be searched for by a variety of means such as by sections or type of activity.

Using the programme tool, you add in the meeting date, add in the activities, then link in the badges and share sections of this weekly plan with other leaders and parents. This gives you the ability to inform others of the programme in advance making sure everyone can know what is planned from one week to the next and which badges are being targeted that term.

The tool allows you to track what you are offering to make sure you are providing a well-rounded programme of ideas and activities designed to suit all ages and abilities within your section. The badge and tag section shows which badges you are focussing on and any gaps you may have. Risk assessments can be added to make sure everyone is safe during the activities.

Badge tracking

You can link the programme to the attendance register in OSM allowing you to allocate the badge requirements you have worked towards that session. These are then added to the individual young person’s badge record, showing what they still need to work on to complete the badge, and telling the Leaders when it is due. This is also useful to inform your programme ideas as you know the elements you need to include to help them achieve their top awards.

Parent portal

Programme and badges at home

Using the “at home” functions of OSM, you can add documents and media links to allow the young people to work towards their badges at home or fill in any incomplete components of badges.

Through the parent portal, parents can upload videos, pictures, or written evidence of the young person’s achievements to OSM, ticking off the badge requirement they think the young person has achieved. Leaders are then able to confirm this based on the evidence provided and award the badges, or parts of badges, achieved which are then added to their badge record automatically.

Share this page

There are a number of resources available and sources of support, to help you plan your Programme.

Local support

Programme ideas

Scouts

Scout Resource

Scout Adventures

Virtual resources

Top awards

Online Scout Manager (OSM) for programme