Scouts

The Scouts section of the Scouts caters for children aged 10.5 to 14 years old. It is the fourth and last Section of a Scouts Group, and while children do leap up to Scouts from Cubs, we do accept children who have not been Cubs and who are of age. We currently have one Scout Troop.

In the Scouts section all activities are age appropriate, and if your child is "leaping up" from Cubs they will be offered the chance to attend both Cubs and Scouts meetings in order to help with the transition.

In Scouts, activities are generally Leader-led but the children are offered the chance to influence what activities they would like to do and help plan the programme of activities for the term. Children will learn #skillsfor life in a fun, friendly, and inclusive way. Being a keen teaching environment for camping and pioneering skills, there will be some activities which will use fire; cutting tools; or have a greater risk of injury. All such activities are risk-assessed and suitable mitigation is put in place to avoid accidents. We teach children to respect the dangers inherent with such activities and to develop the ability to assess dangers for themselves.

Within a Scout Troop we have Patrols. These are smaller groups of Scouts - a bit like the Sixes in Cubs, and each Patrol has a Leader, and a Second. If your child is chosen to be a Leader or Second they will be given a set of "stripes" to show their role within the Patrol and they will be expected to take on responsibilities for their Patrol by setting the example and helping with activities.

Investiture

After a few visits to meetings your child will hopefully want to keep coming. If this is the case, your child will then be invested into the Scouts Section in a short ceremony at the end of a meeting. At this point you will need to buy your child the Scouts shirt or Scouts Blouse (see our FAQs page for details on where you can purchase it).

At their Investiture, your child will be asked to recite the Scout promise (see side bar) and then they will be given their Neckerchief, and three "starter" badges: The Scouting membership badge, the District Badge and the 6th Farnborough Scouts Group name tape badge.

Along with the Scout Promise there is also the Scout Law (see side bar). This is a set of principles each Scout is expected to live up to whilst they are a Scout and hopefully even after they leave Scouting. They are a set of personal values which we hope will help your child develop into a contributing member of society.

Uniform

The Scout uniform is made up of the official Scouts shirt or Scouts Blouse and the 6th Farnborough Group Neckerchief and woggle. There are other optional items you can buy - such as the official Scouts trousers (which are hard wearing and stand up to the out door activities well!), but this is up to you.

Your child's Neckerchief and woggle will be provided by the Group as part of their Investiture. It's also likely that your child will make their own woggle using paracord as one of the activities.

Badges

Within the Scouts Section there are three types of badge Scouts can earn:

  • Activity badges - There are 59 activity badges ranging from Activity Centre Service to Writer. They are dark-blue circular badges with a red border
  • Staged-activity badges - There are 16 staged activity badges. A staged activity badge is one on a particular theme, but there are different levels that can be awarded. For example, there is a Swimmer staged activity badge, which at level one a child has to be able to swim 10m, but at level five it goes up to 1,000m. They are blue circular badges with purple border
  • Challenge badges - There are nine challenge badges for Scouts to earn. Challenge badges are designed to encourage children to step outside their comfort zones and try something new or that may scare them - such as giving a talk to the Troop. They are dark-blue hexagonal badges with a red border

Awards

If your child completes all nine challenge badges and at least six of the activity badges (including staged activity badges) - they can earn the Cheif Scout Gold Award, which is the highest award a Scout can get.

To find out more about badges and what your child need to do to achieve them, please visit The Scouts Association website - or look at the parents section of OSM.

Below is a screen shot from OSM showing a child's badges and their progress on them so far. Badges start off "greyed out" and "fill-up" with colour as activities are completed so you can easily see how they are progressing towards completeing a badge. To find out more about OSM, please see our (see our FAQs page).

A screen shot of OSM showing a child's badge progress

Moving on to Explorer Scouts

When a child reaches 14 they leave our Scout Group. The next stage if they wish to stay in Scouting is to move on to Explorer Scouts Unit. There are two such units operating in the Blackwater Valley District, and more information on Explorer Scouts can be found on The Scouts Association website.