Planning and recording for your unit
To help you plan a varied and challenging programme for your unit each term, we've created these tools
Make sure girls in your unit try things from all six of our programme themes, work towards skills builders and awards, and experiment with different activity topics by using these tools.
Designed specially to help you work with your girls and leadership team to plan and keep track of your unit programme, these templates can be printed out and used at home or in your meetings.
Programme planner
This planner has space for 13 weeks of activities (an entire term) and we've added in an example Guides programme for the first six weeks to show you what it might look like when all the elements slot together. Feel free to delete it and add your own or edit to fit your unit's plans.
It’s a great tool to help you plan the new programme for each term with your girls and leadership team.
Recording girls' progress in GO
Since July you’ve been able to add information about the badges and activities that girls do to their GO record. It’s a way to help you see how they’re progressing towards awards – and creates a lasting record for girls of their guiding achievements.
If you haven't used the new recording tools before, simply sign into GO to get started. You can also find help files there to guide you through the process step by step.
Improving the recording experience
Thank you to everybody who has sent in feedback about their experience of using the new tools. This is just the first version and we’ll be using your feedback to make improvements. Lots of you are using it, which is fantastic.
One of the first things we're looking at is making the recording of skills builders easier. We also knew some things wouldn't quite do everything we needed from the word go – like the transition arrangements for Gold awards. It was simply too expensive to develop the tool for these when they were only temporary.
But rest assured, there’s lots going on behind the scenes to improve the recording of girls’ progress in GO. And we’re continuing to log your feedback, so please bear with us and check back soon for updates on when work will start.
If you come across something you think could be better please send us your feedback to [email protected] so that we can learn from your experience and make it even more useful in the future.
Why keep a record in GO?
Adding details of unit meeting activities, skills builders and interest badges girls have done to the programme section of GO will help you offer a varied programme, which doesn’t repeat what girls have done before, and best supports them to achieve theme and section Gold awards.
With programme elements crossing sections from Rainbows to Rangers, keeping a record will help you support girls to build on their interests and achievements. It will also help other leaders to do the same when your girls transition up a section or need to transfer to a new unit.
And when girls do gain badges or achieve awards you'll know exactly what you need to order in.
Weekly record sheet
We know that many of you don’t have access to GO in your unit meetings, so the downloadable planner and weekly record sheet have been designed to help you collect the info you need for inputting the next time you log into GO.
Use this print out alongside the programme section in GO to keep track of what your girls do each meeting. If you can't get online at your meeting place, this sheet is great to fill out in your meetings, so you can update GO at a convenient time.
This template has been designed to work alongside and reference your term plan. We’ve used a Brownie unit as an example of how this can be used, so do modify or delete this to work for your unit.
Try the unit programme planning e-learning
For more support on planning and creating a balanced and varied programme, why not try the unit programme planning e-learning.
