What are the changes or new features in your NSO’s Progressive Scheme?
An NSO’s Youth Programme must apply to each age section so that young people can move seamlessly from one age section to the next. As the needs and aspirations of young people evolve over time, the Progressive Scheme has to keep pace. These NSOs share the changes and new features in their NSO’s Progressive Scheme.
The approach of the RAP model is so explicit that it forces our leaders to think in why+how=what when they are planning activities.
Launching the Mares Limpios Campaign (Clean Seas) with the run of a pilot of Personal Progression Proposal, with the following features (December 2019 to February 2020):
- Setting challenges to change the use, consumption, and commitment habits to our Planet Life.
- Setting the bronze badge as the minimal indispensable learning on the topic.
- Setting the silver badge for Scouts to choose among the topics: My House, My Environment, and Sustainable Nutrition.
- Setting the third badge for the link with other organisations to conduct the cleansing of water bodies.
- Designing the digital educational materials synthesised in a challenge list. The follow-up was made through social media posts, explicitly explained in the challenge list.
- Using mascots to allow the theoretical knowledge approach. The three topics were: (a) endangered animals, (b) animals affected by pollution-diseases, and (c) barely or totally unknown animals.
Results were: (1) about 300 badge applications in 21 of the 32 Mexican Republic States, from which only 10 are close to the seas, (2) the disposal of 38,855 single-use plastics in recycling containers, and (3) 33 cleansed water bodies.
We are now studying other educational data that will allow us to make future decisions.
Integrated Progressive Programme: The Youth Programme scheme is progressive from one section to the next. The scheme is designed to enable youth peoples to progress with the sectional learning objectives and ultimately the final learning objectives.
One programme incorporates five complementary structures for guiding the young person on their learning journey.
The Personal Progressive Scheme is based on identifying personal challenges to enable the development of knowledge, skills, and attitudes through programme activities, which will enable progress towards the learning objectives in each area of growth – social, physical, intellectual, character, emotional and spiritual.
Adventure skills are a range of skills areas that enable youth members to participate in Scouting adventures in a safe and competent manner. There are nine skills areas each containing nine increasingly advanced levels which span the age sections, and which include specific requirements relating to the relevant skills area. External recognition is an integral element of the adventure skills and they are aligned with external awarding bodies requirements where available.
Special interest badges enable young people to design their own challenge in five different category areas. They are encouraged to set their own targets for improvement within a specific framework, and have their achievement verified by an appropriate person.
Nautical badges enable any Scout to access the symbolic framework of Sea Scouting. These are mapped into all sections as opposed to previously where the focus was on the Scout section. It also allows for individual youth members to access the Sea Scouting framework without having to be in a Sea Scout group.
The Chief Scout Award is a superlative award available to youth people in each section with age-appropriate requirements to complete an expedition, an intercultural activity, adventure skills, and special interest badges. The Chief Scout Award in the three older age sections is linked to the external International Award in the form of the national President’s Award (GAISCE) and Duke of Edinburgh Award.
Incorporated throughout the programme is the Plan-Do-Review process. The Programme Development Team followed this process as we developed the new programme. Plan-Do-Review is the process recommended in the Youth Programme for planning programme cycles, activities, and events. It is also the process that young people follow in carrying out any of their own projects and activities.
An aspect of the Achievement Pathways, formerly referenced as the Award Scheme, is focused on maximising engagement with outdoor and adventurous activities. Titled Outdoor Adventure Skills, they provide a standards-based framework spanning all sections within the Youth Programme and link
to national vocational education standards, enabling members to achieve formally recognised qualifications and skill sets in addition to the non-formal education of the Youth Programme and Scout Movement.
Individualised learning continues to be a focus through the use of goal setting to ensure challenges that are relevant and appropriate to the individual.
Our new Youth Programme is aligned to our purpose. There are three main elements to the progressive award scheme that offer continuous development for young people using the One Programme concept:
- Bronze, Silver, and Gold Progression
- Capstone Awards
- Adventure Skills
- Better World Framework
Each of these elements of the Youth Programme offers different learning opportunities for young people. We also acknowledge that our new programme is well adapted to different branches including Air, Sea, and Land Scouts. This means that the Youth Programme can be flexibly adapted to suit water-, air-, and land-based activities for Scout groups with a particular special interest focus.
Bronze, Silver and Gold Progression
Bronze, Silver, and Gold milestones are achieved through completing certain numbers of Participate Assist Leads. The structure is exactly the same in each section, thereby supporting a One Programme approach. A Capstone Award is achieved in each section after completing Bronze, Silver, and Gold. The Bronze, Silver, and Gold progression badges were part of the previous progressive scheme and were retained as they are familiar to our young people and adult volunteers. However the structure behind them changed significantly and is now non-prescriptive.
The structure of our Capstone Awards changed and we also included a new Capstone Award for the Kea and Cub age sections. This award is seen to be a rounding off of the developmental experience a young person will have in each age section, before they transition to the next. The Capstone Award is to recognise personal development across the areas of personal growth and what the young person has accomplished from their time in Scouting.
The Adventure Skills provide the pathway for adventurous experiences. They are designed to help young people gain the skills they need to participate in, assist with, and lead adventurous experiences. The Adventure Skills are competency based and have been designed around the One Programme concept with nine levels to each programme. They can be achieved by young people at any stage in any section, allowing the Youth Programme to adapt to the competency level of the individual young person.
Each area is accompanied by competency statements and supporting information so that young people are equipped with the right skills to undertake their own adventurous activities in Scouting. Scouts can also assess other young people that are a minimum of two levels below the assessor.
The Better World Framework is a range of programmes that encourage young people to Experience, Act, and Share to create positive difference in their local and global communities. These programmes have been adapted from the WOSM Better World Framework and applied in an Aotearoa New Zealand context. The programmes have been designed to empower young people to take action in their local communities, while thinking globally about their actions. They have also been designed so that the programmes will adapt and change over time, so they remain relevant and contemporary.
Tuakana Teina is a Māori philosophy of interaction and participation between different generations. This Māori term means the sharing of knowledge and experience between Tuakana (older) and Teina (younger) people. Tuakana Teina covers the different interaction and levels of experience we use in Scouts and has been used as a principle not just in building intergenerational partnerships, but also in the assessment and achievement of competencies within the Youth Programme. Young people can assess other young people across the award scheme supported by adults, building on the Youth Leading, Adults Supporting culture of the Youth Programme.
All young people are different, have different interests, and learn in different ways. The Youth Programme has been designed with this in mind, and is intentionally non-prescriptive. This means that young people can engage and participate in the Youth Programme in different ways that are suited for them. There are no set standards that a young person must subscribe to. Instead it is their personal best and the decisions that the young person wants to make through their participation in the programme.
The areas of personal growth with the educational indicators and educational steps for each section are wholly new concepts. Going back to a section-based programme is another change in the scheme.
We separated the sections (Cub, Scout, Venture and Rovers) and involved more local-based activities. We also made the Cub Scout section book more pictorial to make it easy to understand and attractive to children and parents.
The Revised Youth Programme’s badge schemes in particular the progress badge schemes, which outline the core experiences that each and every young person should undergo as part of life in that age section, have the following characteristics which are focal points of the Revised Youth Programme.
- Clearer specifications on the Team System within the scheme requirements to promote and strengthen group life and the Scout Method.
- Sharper focuses on holistic development (SPICES) instead of technical standards in order to achieve better alignment with the “21 Century Competencies” and contextualisation of traditional Scouting activities in order to better connect them with the educational objectives.
- Progressive difficulty ranging from active participation at lower tiers to active team leadership and planning at higher tiers.
- Greater degree of choice and flexibility of activities and pursuits which allows young people to tailor the activities to challenge themselves appropriately.
The progression system must continue to be based on the acquisition of competencies (knowledge, skills, and attitude), supported by activities that serve to approach and acquire competencies.
It will be part of the programme update to review the skills network, as well as the activities, bringing them closer to the reality of young people and the needs of society.
The application allows detailed control of the personal progression of young people. For example, it lists the paths to be followed within each age section, the achievements, and the list of favourite activities.
As for the Scout leader, the application allows them to monitor and validate youth activities in real time; and to list and favour the young people they accompany, with access to information about their progress.
Both the young person and the leader interface are interconnected, which allows greater dynamism in the administration of all activities and in the interaction between them. mAPPa is easy to use and allows constant updating of information, materials, educational content, activities, and evaluations.
Another great highlight of the mAPPa is the feedback with the national registration system. This integration will facilitate the updating of information and speed up the records that must be made. You can choose to manage the information in the system or in the application, as both will be updated instantly.