Although they are unable to meet up face-to-face, many scout groups are keeping connected online with students working towards awards and badges. This has been the case for Sophia (Year 6), who has achieved the Chief Scout’s Silver Award with St Augustine’s Scout Group.

Sophia joined St Augustine’s Scout Group as a Cub in September 2019. She was previously a Beaver at the Orchard School Beaver colony (a branch of the Flitwick Scout Group) where she achieved the Chief Scout’s Bronze Award. She achieved the Silver Award in March 2020, but due to the pandemic she has only just received the award. Throughout the pandemic Sophia has continued scouting via zoom. In April 2020, she was invested as a scout via zoom – the first time this has ever happened. Even over zoom the scouts have still been able to work towards badges, most recently they completed the World Challenge badge with Sophia researching human rights in particular women’s rights, which will go towards her achieving the Chief Scout’s Gold Award.

To achieve the Chief Scout’s Silver Award, which is the highest award which can be achieved by a cub, seven challenge awards and six activity badges have to be earned.  The challenge awards include Our World Challenge, Our Skills, Our Outdoors Challenge, Our Adventure Challenge, Teamwork Challenge Award, Team Leader Challenge Aware and Personal Challenge Award. For example, for the Outdoors Challenge Sophia had to camp overnight, pitch a tent, cook a meal for her Six (group) and for the Personal Challenge Sophia taught herself to play the keyboard. The activity badges include for example Chef, Entertainer and Road Safety.

We asked Sophia why she enjoyed scouting, she said: “Everyone is friendly and welcoming. We do lots of fun activities especially going on camps.” Well done, Sophia!