Scouts around the globe

You’ll need

Scissors
A4 paper
Pens or pencils
Sticky tack
Tables
Chairs
Access to a computer
Access to the internet

Before you begin

Make some game cards by dividing sheets of paper into quarters, writing key dates in Scouts history on two of them and the reasons why they’re important on the other two. Cut these quarters out and stack them in piles of key dates and piles of reasons. Here are some examples you could use for your dates and reasons. Now take the pile of dates and stick these up on the walls of the activity area. Be sure to make a note of which date links to which reason, if you don’t know all the answers!
If you’re going to be pressed for time in this session, or have no internet connection in your meeting place, have everyone research a chosen topic about the World Organisation of the Scout Movement at home and bring along with them some useful facts and figures.

Scouts in the past

Explain that you’ll be learning about the history of the World Organisation of the Scout Movement. Open up the floor to discuss what your group already knows. You could start by asking:

- Who started the Scout Movement? Baden-Powell started Scouts in 1907.
- Where was the first camp? The first ‘test’ camp was held at Brownsea Island, England, with boys from different social backgrounds. They took part in activities that taught them about camping, observation, woodcraft, chivalry, lifesaving and patriotism.
- Why was it created? It was created to teach young people skills for life through a programme filled with outdoor activities, adventure and fun.

Give everyone a card with a description of a significant event on it, those prepared earlier. Each person should think about their event and stand by the date that they think it happened. Give everyone a few minutes.
Go around the room and have everyone read out their significant event and the date they’ve chosen. See if anyone can correct anyone else. Go through the correct answers and have everyone move to the correct positions where needed as you go.

Test your knowledge

Everyone should now get into teams of five. Each team should sit around a table with some writing materials and a device connected to the internet.
Explain that everyone has 15 minutes to come up with a short quiz about an international Scout Movement topic. They should use the internet to research the topic and come up with some facts and figures to use. If groups already prepared research, they should spend some more time framing their questions to make their quiz fun.

‘Topics’ could be given out beforehand or chosen by groups themselves. They could include ‘jamborees’, ‘events’, ‘anniversaries’, ‘countries’ or ‘membership statistics’. When compiling the quizzes, groups could choose whether to include ‘true or false’ style questions, multiple-choice answers or questions with one definitive answer.

When everyone’s ready, each team should stand up and between them read out their questions to the rest of the group. Groups should answer on some spare paper. They may discuss the answer quietly in teams. Give everyone 10-20 seconds per question, and read each question aloud twice.
Continue until everyone’s read aloud their quiz questions. Now, in the same order, groups should give the correct answers. Total up the scores and see which group are the quiz masters!

Scouts futures

Talk through some projects from across the globe that the Scout Movement are currently working on. Examples of these can be found here. Give each team a Scouts project to focus on. They should find out what they can about what the project is, how it works and what its purpose is.
While they’re doing this, teams should also start to think about projects that they feel the World Organisation of the Scout Movement should be working on now and in the future. Write these ideas down, explain how they should work and what the purpose of them will be.

Ideas could be related to international events, humanitarian causes and environmental issues.

Teams can now feed back and discuss what they found out about current projects and which potential projects they’d like to see the Scout Movement get involved with. Allow each team enough time to answer questions.

Reflection

Scouts has been around since 1907 and since then it has helped millions of young people develop skills. Did you realise how big the global movement you’re a part of is? What did you learn about the history of Scouts that you didn’t know before? International Scout events have been going on since Scouts began. Are there any you want to go to in the future?

This activity required you to work as a team to discover new information, answer questions and present ideas to the rest of the group. How well do you think you worked as a team to do this? Think about the way you communicated and listened to each other throughout. Is there anything you would do differently next time?

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.

Scissors: Supervise young people appropriately when they’re using scissors. Store all sharp objects securely, out of the reach of young people.
Online safety: Supervise young people when they’re online and give them advice about staying safe. Take a look at our online safety or bullying guidance. The NSPCC offers more advice and guidance, too. If you want to know more about specific social networks and games, Childnet has information and safety tips for apps. You can also report anything that’s worried you online to the Child Exploitation and Online Protection Command. As always, if you’ve got concerns about a young person’s welfare, including their online experiences, follow the Yellow Card to make a report.