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Introducing the new Explorer programme

Rotate through stations to discover badge topics, explore requirements, design your own ideas, and reflect on the Challenge Awards.

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You’ll need

  • Pens or pencils
  • A4 paper
  • Big pieces of paper
Explorer Activitybadge Sample Reqs
PDF – 67.9KB
Download Explorer Activitybadge Sample Reqs
Explorer Activity Badge List
PDF – 52.4KB
Download Explorer Activity Badge List
Explorer Activity Badge List With Pics
PDF – 1.1MB
Download Explorer Activity Badge List With Pics

Before you begin

  • Use the safety checklist to help you plan and risk assess your activity. Take a look at our guidance to help you carry out your risk assessment, including examples. 
  • Make sure all young people and adults involved in the activity know how to take part safely.
  • Make sure you’ll have enough adult helpers. You may need some parents and carers to help. 

Planning and setting up this activity 

  • Set up 3 stations ahead of time. Ensure that every young person can move around the space according to their needs and can access each station accordingly. 
  • You may want tables as chairs for each station as there will be paper and writing involved.  

Running this activity 

  1. Gather the group and explain that this activity is all about the new Explorer programme. Has anybody heard that Explorers was being re-designed? Did anyone participate in any activities surveys as part of the research? 
  2. Explain how things aren’t changing dramatically or overnight. There will be a lot of part of the programme that are still familiar, but it should make it easier to earn badges, lead more directly to top awards, and give space for the programme to be YouShaped - allowing every young person to have more of a say in what is done to earn the badges. 
  3. Today is focusing on learning about the badges and challenge awards, what parts excite you, and starting to think about what fun we may want to have to earn these badges! 
  4. Take some time to talk through the activity badges, challenge awards, and experience principles. You can use the Discover the new Explorer programme presentation and script to support this conversation. 
  5. Split the group into 3 smaller groups. There will be 3 stations to rotate around looking at different areas of the new programme so make sure everyone is ready and able to move around the space as required. Give everyone 5-10 minutes at each station.
  6. Bring everyone back together for station 4 at the end.  
  7. Take some time to engage with the reflection after the activity.  

Station 1: Badge topics

  1. Provide the group the list of all the badges currently being offered as part of the new Explorer programme. This has been included as an attachment with this activity. Do not show them the requirements, we are only looking at the badge topic at this station. 
  2. Ask the young people to individually group all the badges into 3 categories based upon how interested they are in completing the badge based on the name: highly interested, sorta interested, not overly interested. 
  3. Once they are categorised, see if they can take it one step further and put them in order of most interested to least.  

Station 3: Making your own badge requirements

  1. Remind the group how each badge is designed with 5 experience principles: Discover, Experience, Mobilise, Solve, and Create. 
  2. Using some of the badge topics, see if you can create your own requirements connected any to experience principles of your choice. 
  3. An example of how this may look with taking the Chef badge and turning it into the Backwoods Chef badge: 
    1. Chef: Discover – Choose a recipe, a cooking technique or a traditional food, and find out about its history.
    2. Backwoods Chef: Discover - Research traditional outdoor cooking methods used by different cultures, like ember baking, clay cooking or spit roasting. 

Station 2: Badge requirements

  1. Provide the group a collection of badge requirements. They should come from a mix of badges and be a mix of experience principles. This has been included as an attachment with this activity.
  2. Working as in pairs, small groups within the station or as the whole group at the station, see if you can guess which badge each requirement is for. We purposely are not giving a list of badges with this station, so they must be creative in coming up with badge topics and names. 
  3. Reveal the answers when everyone is content with their guesses.  

Station 4 (all together): Challenge awards

  1. Gather the group back together for the last topic, Challenge Awards. 
  2. See if anyone in the group who was involved in Scouting before Explorers remembers what a Challenge Award is and what they did to earn it in other sections. 
  3. Start off by asking everyone to reflect individually on how they would define each of the 6 Challenge Award topics: International, Community Impact, Employability, Leadership, Adventure and Values. Think about it as ‘what does x mean to you’? 
  4. After a couple mins, have those that are comfortable share their answers. See where there are difference and similarities between answers and embrace both. 
  5. Now, ask everyone to get into small groups with those around them. Take a few moments to see how you can link the Challenge Award topics to the Activity Badges discussed earlier in the activity. 
  6. Again, take some time to share answers as a whole group.  

Reflection

This activity was all about the new Explorer programme. What excites you about it? Are there any parts that you feel unsure or nervous about? 

How do you think this new programme will help you enjoy Explorers even more than you already are? How do you think this new programme will help you in life outside of Explorers both now and in the future? 

Safety

All activities must be safely managed. You must complete a thorough risk assessment and take appropriate steps to reduce risk. Use the safety checklist to help you plan and risk assess your activity. Always get approval for the activity, and have suitable supervision and an InTouch process.

You must run your activities in line with the Safeguarding Code of Conduct for Adults (Yellow Card) and report any concerns to the UK HQ Safeguarding Team.

  • Make sure everyone is able to move around the room and participate in a way that meets their needs
  • If someone does not want to write, pair them up with someone else to do together or have them record or share their ideas in another way 

All Scout activities should be inclusive and accessible.