New interest badges coming in 2025
Get the latest updates on our new interest badges
Original publish date: 3 July 2024.
Read the latest news on our 72 new interest badges coming to Rainbows, Brownies, Guides and Rangers in July 2025.
In July 2024, we announced we’re working directly with members to create 72 new interest badges for girls across all of our 4 sections – Rainbows, Brownies, Guides and Rangers.
Did you know interest badges are the part girls told us they enjoy most about our programme? We promised to review our programme after 5 years. When we did, we listened to the voices of volunteers, girls, parents and carers. And one thing was clear: everyone loved interest badges!
What are interest badges?
Interest badges are a type of Girlguiding badge girls can earn by exploring new interests or diving deeper into their passions.
They make up 1 out of 3 parts to our programme - which is part of what girls get up to in Girlguiding.
Browse our current range of interest badges
We currently have 72 interest badges for girls. Take a look at what we've already got!
5 quick facts about our new interest badges
- When we reviewed the programme, girls told us that interest badges were the part of our programme they enjoy the most. To give them more of what they love, we’re doubling the number of interest badges for every section! That’s 72 new ones in total (12 for Rainbows, 18 for Brownies, 24 for Guides and 18 for Rangers).
- They’ll be available in July 2025 in time for the new terms starting in August and September 2025.
- Fun fact: over 27,000 volunteers, girls and their parents or carers have had their say in this project so far. Whether it’s your thoughts on our programme, designs you’ve sent us through the topper activity or feedback from our programme testing pool, your voices have been a big part of this project. Thank you! We couldn't have done it without you.
- Interest badges can now be done in units. Girls also told us they enjoy doing badges even more when they do the activities with their friends so we’re making them more flexible for everyone.
- We’re creating a little badge book just for the new interest badges. That means you won’t need to spend any extra money on buying books for the badge activities you already own.
Thank you to over 27,000 of you!
Fun fact: over 27,000 member voices have played a part in helping us bring these badges to life! It was a real guiding team effort. Here’s how:
- We asked over 14,800 members (including volunteers, girls and their parents and carers) what you thought of our programme. This shaped important things like what themes and activities are most enjoyed by girls.
- Every single new badge has been tested by over 700 units and more than 11,000 girls.
- 31 members of Amplify, our youth steering group, have helped to shape badge ideas, challenges, designs and more – including writing 4 new girl voice interest badges from start to finish!
- Around 500 members shared their own interest badge designs by doing our topper activity. A topper is a stand-alone activity that girls can do at home or in their units. Toppers aren't a part of the core programme so they can be used for any occasion!
Your interest badge designs
Lots of your interest badge designs from the topper activity were used as inspiration. Whether it was the full idea or design elements or your suggested challenges, they were a big part of shaping the full list of new badges.
Take a look at some of your suggestions:
One idea was to challenge your imagination to come up with your dream animal and dream house!
Another idea was a decorator badge which challenges girls to understand style, aesthetic and create items to decorate a comfortable and useful space.
Or what about code breaking? This interest badge idea gives girls the chance to understand a code by reading and trying to break it! After that, they could go on to design a code of their own.
Download the free interest badge topper
Submissions to send us your designs from our 72 new interest badges are closed, but you can still keep this activity safe if you need a fun activity to do at home or with your unit.
8 new interest badges we've revealed so far...
Since November 2024 we’ve been giving you a sneak peek of a few badges to get you excited. You've seen 8 new interest badges so far. They are:
- Bee rescuer (take action) for Rainbows.
- Celebrations (express myself) for Brownies.
- Thrift (take action) for Guides.
- Nostalgia (express myself) for Rangers.
- Wayfinder (have adventures) for Brownies.
- Book reviewer (be well) for Brownies.
- Bookworm (know myself) for Guides.
- Booktivist (know myself) for Rangers.
Your questions, answered
- Girls pick an interest badge to do (at home or in their unit) and when they do them. It could be over the weekend, in just a few hours or around other commitments your girl has.
- Girls decide how they complete challenges. Each interest badge contains 3 challenges and we let girls choose how to do them in their own unique and creative way.
- Girls share what they've done with the volunteer who runs your local unit. When the activities have been completed, their leader will sign it off in their badge book and order their new badge from our online shop.
The number of interest badges for each section will double. You’ll get 12 for Rainbows, 18 for Brownies, 24 for Guides and 18 for Rangers.
That will make the total number of interest badges for each section 24 for Rainbows, 32 for Brownies, 48 for Guides and 32 for Rangers.
Yes. We're creating new 'little' badge books or Rainbows, Brownies, Guides and Rangers. Each one will only host the new interest badges for your section. This means you won’t need to spend extra money on replacing a badge book with activities you already own. You can simply add to the current badge book you’ve got!
We’re planning to merge our current badge books and little badge books for each Rainbows, Brownies and Guides and update them to our new brand in the future. Handbooks will also be updated then too.
July 2025 around the same time as programme’s 7th birthday! So you’ll have them before the new terms start in August and September 2025.
Yes. As part of our programme review, Rangers told us they also wanted a ‘little’ badge book. We'll be listening for your feedback on those so we can make them better for the future.
The little badge books for our new interest badges will cost less than the current badge books. They're smaller and use less materials and the price will reflect that. We're working with our team to find a price that is affordable for our members whilst still factoring in quality and the costs of producing them as sustainably and economically as possible.
No, there will be no new programme themes. All the new interest badges will come under our current 6 themes.
Our current interest badges are designed in our programme theme colours. Your feedback said you'd prefer to clearly see which badges belong to which section. So that's what we've done!
The background of each new interest badge is now colour-coded by section. That's light blue for Rainbows, yellow for Brownies, dark blue for Guides and purple for Rangers. And the theme colours are just around the edge.
You can expect our current range of interest badges to be updated with the same design when our new uniform launches in 2026.
No, we’re keeping the current range of interest badges the same for now. We’re simply adding to the collection with 72 new ones across all sections.