The facts about our adult learning and personal development opportunities
Scouting is dedicated to the development of young people. Each week over 3500 adults volunteer, in a variety of roles across South London, helping to achieve this aim.
Whilst our primary purpose is the development of young people, we also want you to have the skills and knowledge you need to carry out your volunteering role and feel confident to help keep young people safe during scout activities. There also we help to you outside scouts too.
Our national adult learning framework is call the Learning Tree. It's made up of Growing Roots learning and Branching Out learning. Growing Roots learning is the mandatory learning you need to complete and Branching Out the learning is the optional learning you can access to further develop your skills and knowledge should you wish.
To gain the award of a Wood Badge you need to complete both Growing Roots and Branching Out learning.
Access to this learning and progress tracking will be available from 28th November once our County gains access to the new digital learning tool on scouts.org.uk.
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You can check out the Growing Roots webpage.
The Branching Out learning is being developed, but you can see what it might look like in the future on the Learning Tree. UKHQ will add more content and information as it becomes available.
Some of this additional learning in Branching Out learning is required for specific roles, accreditation, or permits.
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Branching out learning consists of two parts:
Learning
Learning is any activity that helps you to gain skills, knowledge or values. The most beneficial learning, as far as the scouts is concerned, is that which helps you to fulfil your scouting role more easily and with increasing success.
We aim to make learning accessible to all, regardless of geography, education, personal circumstances or special needs. Our learning is also designed to provide opportunities to enable you to interact and share your experiences with other volunteers around our county.
Validation (Demonstration)
Validation is the process of finding out if you are able to put the learning covered by a module into practice in your role in scouts. All learning for your role requires validating regardless of whether you have gained the skills from previous experience or by taking part in planned learning. Some learning is validated automatically by our learning system and some learning will need to be carried out by your District Volunteer Development Team.
Each subject, has a fixed list of validation requirement. There are a number of validation methods for you to select from. Validation methods are simple and effective and should always be something that you do as part of your normal role.
The focus should be on you ‘doing something’ and this will often be backed up by discussion. Validation should not be seen as an exam – it is a positive experience in which you will receive supportive feedback.