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Awards

Queen's Guide award

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The Queen’s Guide award is the highest award you can work towards in guiding.

It gives you the chance to develop your skills, give back to guiding and support your local community. It’s open to members aged 16 to 30 and must be completed within 3 years from the start date or before your 31st birthday, whichever is sooner.

Why should I get involved?

The Queen’s Guide award isn’t just a great achievement to share with other members of Girlguiding. It also shows potential employers and further education organisations you've challenged yourself and achieved goals in lots of different ways.

The programme can also be matched with activities you are already doing in guiding, meaning you can get more than one award for the challenges you are taking on – such as the Duke of Edinburgh's Award (DofE), Lead Away permit and going away with license.

What do I need to do?

The Queen’s Guide award is all about personal challenges and taking part in guiding. It’s made up of 5 sections:

  • Personal development challenge: Develop a skill in or outside of Girlguiding to enhance your personal growth. This could be anything from ballet to circus skills, gardening to playing a musical instrument. And you’ll get to share your skill with others in guiding too!
  • Guiding challenge: Take an active part in guiding at different levels. Make a difference in guiding by doing 4 projects focused on girls, volunteers, growth and retention, and inclusion.
  • Community action challenge: This is your chance to increase your knowledge of an important issue through research and practical activities, then share what you learn with other Girlguiding members.
  • Lead the way challenge: Take on a leadership role in an outdoor environment and try something new and adventurous! You have 3 options to choose from: residential, outdoor activity or expedition/exploration.
  • Social experience challenge: Challenge yourself in a new setting and focus on building new relationships. Experience something you’ve never done before and develop your interpersonal skills by going on a residential or attending an event.

Doing the Queen’s Guide award and the Gold DofE at the same time

If you’re working towards your Gold DofE you could do one residential to count towards both awards – you just need to make sure it's long enough.

Before you decide to count something for both awards, you’ll need to make sure your DofE leader and Queen’s Guide award coordinator are happy with your plans.

And check to see if an activity you’re doing for one award might count towards a section of the other.

For the volunteering, skills and physical sections of the DofE award, you need to make sure you are doing on average an hour a week during the time period. For more information on the timescales, chat to your leader or take a look at the DofE website.

If you have any queries about the Queen's Guide award, you can email us at [email protected].

Get started

Download the programme to find out what you need to do to achieve your Queen’s Guide award.

Queen's Guide award programme resource

Click here to download a printer-friendly version of the programme resource.

Queen’s Guide award celebrations

Once you’ve completed your award, it’s time to celebrate! Your coordinator should organise your local presentation to celebrate.

Queen’s Guides will also be invited to national celebrations. In 2023, it’ll be held in November in central London. To be invited, make sure:

  • You’re an active member of Girlguiding on GO with an up to date email address.
  • You haven’t previously declined 3 invitations to a celebration event.
  • You’ve never attended a celebration event before.