We’re moving to a more engaging learning experience and you’re going to love it!

It’s been 20 years since our current modular adult training scheme was introduced and it’s now time to replace it with a more relevant and enriched learning experience for all our volunteers.

The journey to our new learning experience has started, and we are now moving in to the first stage (of three stages), that will transition us to our new learning and development requirements and opportunities.

The new national programme of learning will use new digital tools to make learning more accessible, personalised, and relevant to you and every volunteer. The new scheme will also reduce and remove much of the administration work of manually recording and validating learning. It will be inclusive, accessible, relevant, and focused on the skills and knowledge you need to deliver or support great experiences to young people.

Here’s the low down…

Learning will be broadly split into growing roots, and branching out. Growing roots learning, is the mandatory learning that all volunteers need to complete and branching out, is where you will have the option to continue your learning and complete your Wood Badge.

The Wood Badge will be structured as a programme of learning personalised to you. It will be focused on being engaging, relevant and something you’ll want to do. Branching out and continuing your learning and gaining your Wood Badge will be open to everyone that has a role in Scouts. (We will provide lots more information over the coming months!

Interactive Learning Tree

What are we asking Districts to do?

As we prepare ourselves for introducing the new Learning framework across Northern Ireland, we want to be ready with the most accurate data. We want to maximise the time that we have at present to reflect our records with on the ground Scouting, whilst providing people the opportunities to achieve their Woodbadge under the current infrastructure and before we move across.

So, as a District Lead, you should be:

• Working with your District Training Teams to acknowledge those within the District that are half-way through their learning journey and see whether the LOVE (Learning Optional, Validation Essential) framework can be applied to assist in validation.
• Working with your District Training Team, we would ask that you prioritise the following modules: Essential Information (Module 1), PLP (Module 2), Tools for the Role (Module 3), Tools for the Role – Managers and Supporters (Module 4 – If required), Trustee Introduction (if required), Safety and Safeguarding. If we can get all leaders through these modules, this will simplify our data migration to the new system.
• Utilise the support from the NI Adult Support Lead, Ciaran McGrath, and Deputy NI Adult Support Lead, Danielle Markwell, in assistanting those with Managers and Supporters validation.

Additional Resources

• Scouts UK’s PowerPoint Slides – Engaging Learning
• Contact our NI Transformation Lead Scott Robinson at scottrobinson@scoutsni.org