![](https://prod-cms.scouts.org.uk/media/19839/fdl-02-01.png?width=800&height=450&v=1d9bece98158d70)
Play YouShape ladders
You’ll need
- Pens or pencils
- Chairs (optional)
- Printed activity sheets
Youth voice and the organisational strategy 2025+
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We want young people to take a leading role in shaping our next organisational strategy so that we stay relevant, interesting and engaging for generations to come. We want to hear from all backgrounds and corners of the UK, and all ages; 4-24! We’re so grateful for the time you’re taking to ensure your young people have a voice in our movement, and hope you find these activities thought provoking as we shape the future of Scouts in the UK!
Chris Styles, UK Youth Team Member (Youth Voice)
Special edition activity - closes 14th October
Before you begin
- Use the safety checklist to help you plan and risk assess your activity. There's also more 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
- You may want to mark out the lines for teams, such as with masking tape, cones or chalk. You may also wish to mark arrows on the floor to show people which direction to go in.
- As this activity is for Scouts UK research, we ask that you make the parents and carers of all young people taking part are aware of the activity. They must acknowledge or consent to their young person taking part. You can do this by sending a letter, we’ve attached one to use to this page.
- We know that Squirrel Dreys introduce the session with a story. We’d suggest using ‘What We'll Build’ by Oliver Jeffers, a story about building a future.
Running this activity
- Gather everyone together and explain that in this activity they’ll be thinking about the things they like about Scouts, anything they'd like to do more of, and what they’d like to make better or change.
- Ask everyone to get into two equal teams. .
- Each team should get in a line, facing each the other team. Leave enough space between the two lines in the middle for moving up and down. Each person should have someone from the opposite team facing them. They can stand or they may want to sit down, either on the floor or on chairs.
- Explain that you’ll read a story out. Each pair will be given a word that appears in the story. When the pair hears their word, they must:
- Go through the ‘ladder’ to one end of the line (the space between the two lines) in one direction
- Go around the outside of the lines to the other end.
- Go back through the ladder and return to their space as quickly as possible.
- The first person to get back to their space earns a point for their team (their row). You may want an adult volunteer or young leader to help keep score.
- Give each pair a key word from the story that they need to remember.
- You could demonstrate how the game works by reading a short bit of the story with some of the key words to allow players to practice running through the ladder, but without keeping score.
- Once everyone is ready, read the story aloud. You may want to pause after or emphasise the key words.
- After the story’s finished, add up the scores for both sides and announce the winning side.
- Now everyone understands the game, create a new story using the blanks sheet. Ask everyone the questions on the bottom of the sheet and use them to fill in the blanks.
- If you’re running this activity for the whole section, you could choose or vote for the most popular answer. You could also run this activity in smaller groups.
- When the story’s complete, give everyone a new keyword from the new story and play again. You may need more than one pair per word.
- At the end, you could find out more about some of the answers. For example, why they choose that? What do they like about Scouts and what could make it better, and why? Will they want to still be in Scouts in 10 years time?
- You can submit your groups most popular answers through our form.
Please remember to collect:
- Photographs of your top 6 crafts
- List of ranked answers from the blue cards
- List of ranked answers from the green cards
If you need any support or advice, feel free to contact Annie at annie.voller@scouts.org.uk.
The data collected from this activity will be anonymous. This means that we won’t collect any information that could personally identify someone.
The data you provide us with is securely stored in our internal encrypted servers, in line with General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) law. Your data will be stored until this project ends. After this time, your data will be deleted. This research doesn’t ask you any questions that would allow you to be identified. We’ll treat all information you provide as confidential. For more information on how we manage your data, please see our Data Protection Policy.
If you’ve any concerns about how your data is being used for this research, you can contact: Data-Insights@scouts.org.uk
Please submit the below via the Smartsheet form:
- The answers to the set questions
If you need any support or advice, feel free to contact Annie at annie.voller@scouts.org.uk.
Reflection
This activity was all about finding out about what young people want from Scouts in the future in a fun game. What was your favourite part of the game? Did you enjoy the game and teamwork? How did it feel to hear your key word and race to sit down?
You also had to offer your suggestions. What ideas did you come up with for the new story? Are there any activities you’d love to try or do more of?
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.
- Active games
The game area should be free of hazards. Explain the rules of the game clearly and have a clear way to communicate that the game must stop when needed. Take a look at our guidance on running active games safely.
- To make this activity easier, you could give the young people a selection of words to choose from for the blank activity.
- To make this activity harder, you could give each patrol a blank story and they can fill it out themselves and play it with each other.
- If anyone has problems with mobility, they could partner up with someone who can be the runner and they need to tap them when they hear the word. You may want to make these adaptations for everyone or available for the whole group, so no-one feels singled out.
- If someone in a pair or group struggles with mobility or moving round, think about how the game could be adapted. Could it be the first person to put their hands on their head, rather than to run back to their seat?
All Scout activities should be inclusive and accessible.
If you enjoyed this activity, try out another activity to help us shape the future of Scouts or try the YouShape award, which is all about young people bringing their ideas to Scouts.
Young people could see if they can come up with any more ideas, or they could try to plan their dream Scouts term. Can you then do any of these ideas?