Scout Leadership Course Session Activity Notes

Session activity

Scout Award Scheme: Wall of agreement

Time to allocate for this activity

30 minutes

Resources required

Standards Examples.

Activity Notes

This short activity is designed to encourage Scouts to understand how to set standards of expectation for the award scheme as a Troop Council.

Introduction (5 mins)

The presenter will briefly explain the role of the Troop Council in the Award Scheme. This will include the following facts:

• Most awards in the Scout Award Scheme are approved by the Troop Council.
A Patrol Leader has responsibility for instructing and passing the award requirements for the members of their Patrol.
• On completion of an award, the Patrol Leader will ask the Troop Council for their approval to award the Scout. The Troop Council must consider each application on its own merit.
• The Troop Council may ask for details of the Scout's activities - especially if there is any concern that a Scout has not complete the requirements fully.
• In deciding if a Scout has completed the requirements, the Troop Council must consider what the requirement is and whether the Scout has really done their best.
• Agreeing a set of standards as a Troop Council can help this decision making process.

The task (15 mins)

Each Scout or Patrol receives a Standards card. They must read it and make a decision to either present the award or not. In turn, each Scout sticks their standard card to the wall under the heading "Pass" or "Need more" and explains their choice.

Other course participants are invited to agree or disagree with the decision. If they disagree, then they must give a convincing arguement why. A majority vote of the Scouts present may be needed to reach a decision.

Where a decision is made not to award a badge, the Troop Council must provide information to help the Scout reach the desired standard. Continue with different comments as time allows.

Record Keeping Discussion (8 mins)

The presenter will lead a discussion on the different approaches to record keeping in the home Troops of the Scouts present. This will be steered towards the following:
The Patrol Leader should be keeping records for the Scouts in their Patrol at Pioneer and Explorer Levels. Those at Adventurer Level will be working more with the Scout Leaders to keep their records up to date. Remembering what each Scout has done is difficult without records. All Scouts, espcially younger Scouts, like to be able to see their progress. Keeping their own record book and/or having an overall Troop wall chart is a good, visual way to show progress. There are some electronic record keeping systems available at various Scouting websites.