Helping girls to move section
Ensuring that girls have the opportunity to transition into the next section is part of a successful guiding experience
Moving up to the next section doesn't have to be daunting.
There's loads of ways to encourage girls to stay on as they get older. Here's everything you need to make their transfer as easy as possible.
Key things you need to know to help your girls move up a section:
- Rainbows to Brownies (PDF)
- Brownies to Guides (PDF)
- Guides to Rangers/Young leaders (PDF)
- Rangers onwards (PDF)
Encourage girls to move to the next section
It's important that all our adult members know the ages that girls should transfer between sections.
Tell stories - talk positively with young members about what happens in other sections. Share your own experiences, such as trips you've been on or amazing things you've done. Tell them about the great things they’ll be doing when they move on up.
Map it out - let girls know about all available units in their area. The most obvious one may not be the most suitable for them.
Make the most of events - invite girls from the section below to join your unit at age-appropriate events. For example, if you're heading to our Big Gig, why not ask if the 10-year-olds in your feeder unit would like to come along?
Multi-section fun - take part in local events involving other sections so girls have the opportunity to meet and learn more about each section.
Join it up - parents and girls might find it easier to stick with guiding if sections meet on the same evening. Try to coordinate times and locations if possible.
Taster session - invite girls at the top end of a younger section to come along to a meeting for a taste of the activities available when they move up. Send girls home with an information pack about the older section and, when the time is right, contact each girl and her parents personally to invite her to join the unit.
How about seeing if the older girls in your unit would like to organise a taster session for the potential new members?
Camp out - Rangers could invite Guides to join them at camp for the day, so they can discover all the adventures in store if they choose to move up.
Helping hands - involve young leaders and Rainbow and Brownie helpers in your unit so younger girls can see what leadership opportunities are available for Guides and Rangers. This can even help towards their Leadership qualification.
Talk to parents - discuss their daughter’s next steps. Parents may not know about the other sections in guiding.
Section Gold awards - our programme includes a number of ways girls can prepare for the next section and is designed so that girls have consistant activities and themes that run throughout.
For example, after completing all Activity Theme awards for the section, girls can work towards their Section Gold award. The final part of each Section Gold award focuses on looking forward to their next steps in guiding by visiting a unit in the section above or talking to an older girl about her experiences.
Communicating about availability and places in your area
It's important to share information across your local area about where spaces are available.
You can update your unit's GO record to include the maximum number of young members your unit team is happy to take. This doesn't limit the number of members you can have, but will help your local area to spot gaps and start to fill them. To add this information on GO, Click on My units and View units on the action tab. Change the number under Total unit capacity and click submit.
This information can then be run off in a report by commissioners, and shared at district/division meetings.
Ellen Mitchell, leader with Shirley district Ranger unit
So far we have run two taster sessions and have another in the pipeline. It's still early days but the Guides were really excited by the sessions we ran with them, so their leaders think they will be ready to join us in the autumn.
