Completing your Wood Badge
Find out about the Wood Badge and how to complete it
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Page last reviewed: September 2025
What's the Wood Badge
The Wood Badge is an international award. It shows a volunteer’s personal commitment and achievement to learning and development with Scouts.
It started in 1919 when Baden Powell gave wooden beads to volunteers who complete their training. He found these wooden beads when he served in the British Army. They belonged to the King of the Zulu nation. Read Wood Badge to learn more about its history.
Completing the Wood Badge is optional and you can choose to work towards it as part of your ongoing development.
Learning required for your Wood Badge
There's one Wood Badge, and the learning you need to complete depend on your role.
Who is this for: Section Team Leaders and Members and 14-24 Team Leaders and Members. Roles focussed on Programme delivery.
To earn your Wood Badge, you’ll need to complete:
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Growing Roots learning
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Creating inclusion
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Delivering a great programme
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Skills of leadership
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Working with adults
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Growing the section
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Residential
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Practical skills
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International
Volunteers who joined Scouts before November 2024 and had their Growing Roots learning automatically signed off when we launched our new digital tools will need to complete Creating Inclusion and Delivering a Great Programme to earn the Wood Badge.
Who is this for: Lead Volunteers, Team Leaders (except Section Team Leaders), Leadership Team Members, Team Member in a District or County Team. Roles focussed on leading and supporting volunteers.
To earn your Wood Badge you’ll need to complete:
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Growing Roots learning
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Creating inclusion
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Leading Scout volunteers
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Achieving Growth
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Skills of Management
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Meeting the challenges
Volunteers who joined Scouts before November 2024 and had their Growing Roots learning automatically signed off when we launched our new digital tools will need to complete Creating Inclusion and Leading Scout Volunteers to earn the Wood Badge.
How to start your Wood Badge
First you need to assign a Wood Badge to your profile in My Learning. Remember to choose either the Section Wood Badge or the Manager and Supporter Wood Badge depending on your role.
When you enrol in each course in My Learning, you’ll see what you need to do to complete each skill.
You might need to attend learning delivered by Trainers locally to be able to complete the skill. Ask your Volunteering Development Team about learning that’s being delivered locally and how you register.
Once you’ve completed the requirements for each skill, request to be assessed through My Learning. A Learning Assessor will do the assessment and credit the skill in your My Learning profile.
Completed learning is recorded in My learning and you can see what else you need to complete to earn your Wood Badge.
When you complete all the skills, your profile in My Learning and My Membership will automatically show Wood Badge achieved. The HQ Awards team send out a certificate and Wood Badge to District, Counties / Areas / Region (Scotland) who’ll then present your award.
Read the My Learning digital tool guide to find out how to assign a Wood Badge to your profile and request to be assessed in a skill.
Future development of the Wood Badge
We’re continuing to develop our learning opportunities so that you can access the learning you need for your volunteering.
Growing Roots
Find out about the learning you have to do as a volunteer new to a role and what this means for current volunteers.
Find out more about Growing Roots