New Girlguiding interest badges are here
Celebrate our programme’s 7th birthday with 72 new interest badges
Original publish date: 3 July 2024.
Ready to celebrate programme’s 7th birthday with us? Explore all 72 new interest badges with our new badge posters.
Our new interest badges and little badge books are finally here! And just in time for the new terms to start in August and September. You'll find more popular themes that girls love (like cooking and animals), the first ever badge book for Rangers (in this programme) and badges written by girls or inspired by your designs!
Check out our new badge posters to see the new badges across the sections. You can use our badge finder to find out a bit more about each one.
Download our new badge posters
We've created 4 posters to check out the new interest badges in each section.
Order your little badge books now
To find out what new challenges are in store for you, buy the little badge book now. Each one only hosts the new badges for your section (including the first badge book for Rangers!) so you won’t have to spend money buying programme resources you already own.
What is a little badge book? Why not add to the existing badge books?
The little badge book is the only way to get the new interest badges for now. In 2026, we'll be releasing a version 2 of our original (big) badge book, ready for the 2026/27 guiding year. It will feature our new brand, new uniform, and our redesigned original badges. We’ve are also taking the opportunity to listen to all your feedback on our original interest badges and refreshing them. This includes making it clearer than ever about what you need to do and changing some challenges that just don’t work now.
The little badge book also contains a long-awaited programme tracker for girls. The little badges books were created so that everyone who has a badge book already doesn’t need to buy a whole new big badge book. Instead, they can just access the new badges. The little badge books will be on sale until we launch the refreshed big badge book.
Read more about this project
Here are 5 quick facts about the development of our new interest badges:
- 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 loves interest badges!
- 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’ve made them more flexible for everyone.
- We’ve created little badge books 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.
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.
Thank you to over 27,000 of you!
Bringing these badges to life 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 (PDF, 138KB). 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... brought to life
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 designs that have been made reality:
Check out the Brownies imagination badge in the badge finder.
Check out the Guides codebreaking badge in the badge finder.
Check out the Guides interior designer badge in the badge finder.
Read guidance for volunteers
Want to know what the new badges mean for you as a volunteer who delivers activities to girls?
Read our updated guidance and answers to frequently answered questions.
- 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.
Monday 21 July 2025 which is 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.