Rainbows Badges

[denimflame]

Is there any mums out there that have little ones that attend Rainbows Girlguides. My daughters 4 and she started rainbows in September. I'm wondering how long it usually takes for her to do her promise and earn badges as the girls in her group are getting badges and she's confused as to why she's not getting any yet. I'd speak to the leaders but honestly they seem as though they don't want to be there half the time I try to greet them on drop off and they don't even say hello back I just awkwardly send my daughter in to sit down and leave. I'm changing her units but just as an insight on how long she should be waiting for these sort of things? Thanks!

Children can earn badges through the unit or independently by working through a Rainbow Badge Book. I think each topic has three badges the child can earn at home and one for the unit ? You can order the badge book online, buy from local Girl Guide shop or your leader might have one you can look through.

You also tend to get badges for trips, birthdays and other events, but I think it depends on the leader really

Promise badge is around 6 weeks or some units have regular ceremonies and all new girls do the promise at the same time so it can be longer.

It really depends on the unit but most of them they do their promise within about 6 weeks of starting. My daughter’s Rainbow pack got a badge pretty much every other week but now she’s at Brownies they’re few and far between. Also, at Rainbows she was allowed to send in photos or take to the meetings evidence of stuff she had done for the interest badges at home and then they gave her the badges, so your unit might be expecting the girls to do the badge work themselves? You can buy a badge book to show you what you have to do for them.

There are different types of badges. Interest badges we do at home. Skills builders you do in meetings, and when you have an interest badge and the corresponding skills builder plus the right number of meeting hours doing the right activity you get a theme award. There are also topic badges and badges for activities - mine has a pumpkin badge, a physics badge and a wedding challenge badge among others!

My daughter's rainbows gives out badges once a half term, apart from interest badges which seem to be as they are earned. Her leaders send out enails suggesting badges to work on to get awards. She was enrolled quite a long time after starting so they could do a group together.

Thank you for the quick replies they're very helpful! It seems as though she should've really gotten one or I'd have been spoken to about it by now she's been there for 10 weeks 😣i think they do hand them out there as she's come back saying everyone got one but her. I've enquired to move her units so I'll have a word with her new leaders thanks guys!

Ours do a badge giving the last week of term, and any new ones get enrolled at the same time (everyone in the pack gets at least one badge, or it gets delayed until they do, so no rainbow is left out).

Does she have a uniform and badge book? And have you sent her with it as proof? Some consider it as still trying it out until you buy the kit, so don't enrol until they know you have it.

I'm a Beaver Scout leader, so not Rainbows but similar. We tend to work on badges over a number of sessions (not necessarily one after the other) as we link them to fun activities rather than working through requirements all at once. It can often take a while for new children to get their first badge for this reason. Could it be something similar? We also tend to wait for a few children to need to do their promise so we can have a celebration, so children who join other than at the start of a term can end up waiting longer.

I find we don't have time for discussions with parents at drop off unless it's urgent as we have very limited time and need to be able to get the children registered and the activities started. Would you have more luck asking to speak to the leaders after pick up (you may need to wait until the children have all been collected) or e-mailing/phoning instead. We're always really happy to explain to parents what we're going to be doing and how their child will progress but really don't have time to do that when the session is about to start.

Hi yes she had her uniform on the 2nd week! And they said she wouldn't need to get a badge book yet but then never elaborated on when or why 😬

Hi thanks for your reply! I've tried to speak to them when she first started about the forms and they're going on a school trip so more info about that and they were a bit cold about it like they expected me to already know and then everytime I greet them with a hello and they stare at me like I'm some sort of alien 😬I can appreciate that they don't have much time and pick up and drop offs can be a bit much all at once but they have a leader that deals with the kids when they first come in and gets them to sit in a circle and then there's three that stand by the doors so I'd presume there'd be enough time for me to quickly ask something of concern but they've never given a nice vibe to be honest. I've also witnessed one of them be quite snappy at my daughter and then seen I was there to pick her up and changed her tune. I don't know. I was in and out of brownies as a child so never really did the whole badge and promise thing but i can remember it being a lot more warmly than what I'm catching from this team unit. We've moved areas anyway and I'm transferring her to a unit closer and hoping they're a nicer bunch! 😓

I'm a squirrels leader in the scouts so similar but not quite the same
We try to do the investments within a couple of weeks of a squirrel starting and try to only have new starters at the start of a new term, occasionally a half term and will investment as a group.
The scouts badges work by doing a 3-4 different activities to be awarded the badge. The team I am in try to leave the last couple of weeks clear of activities so that we can run some top activities for children that might have missed and activity whether that is through missing a session or the rest of the group doing that activity before they started so that we can get as many badges completed each term as possible

The scouts have a preset activity programme which you can follow if you like. We don't follow the programme as we found it was doing a little bit of lots of badges and we thought that doing activities over sequential weeks for particular badges would work best for the kids we have.

I don't know how the rainbows compares but with the scouts there's quite a lot for free reign in how you run your sessions so there isn't much of you will get X number of badges in this time frame. My daughter has only got 2 badges since September but got 5+ badges on July alone at the end of last term!

Do they have parent volunteers to help with sessions? I wonder if it would be worth volunteering and getting an idea for how they run sessions and whether it's in keeping with what you would expect.

Do the girl guides have an online record page? With the scouts you can see which badges have been completed in your child's area and whether they have been awarded yet.

If you are looking at moving her groups I'd have a chat with the other rainbow group to see what to expect. Squirrels in the scouts is 4-6 it might be worth comparing what they offer to the rainbows and what's the best fit for you and your daughter

Hi
fellow rainbow mum here and rainbow leader

Ok so I think I may be able to help.

firstly if others are getting badges then done grey yours will too - this I promise is a good sign of a good rainbow group. If you can't ask the leaders then chat to other mums about badges and see what ones they're kids are getting?

firstly addressing the promise:

The rainbow promise is a big thing there is a bit of prep and a ceremony associated with it so often we bulk kids together for these and do one a term or half term. If they still haven't done it by mid spring term definitely chase this.

as for badges there is no technical restriction to getting badges before the promise is taken in rainbows the ONLY badge you can't get is the gold award badge. If you haven't had a badge book yet definitely ask for one. If they say that you can't have one until their promise is done then they aren't actually being fair to then not prioritise the or promises.

there are some old school leaders who refuse to give badges before promises but it's not how it works for rainbows as they're so little it's not the done thing now

right now badges
you have round badges called interest badges these you can do at home they're unlikely are the round ones
they're unlikely to do these in group but some of us try to do one now and again if we have a low badge group
there are 24 of them spread over 6 themes
know myself
have adventures
skills for my future
express myself
be well
take action

you'll need your child to do 3 challenges per interest badge but you can do them anyway you like (video, writing, drawing, collage, art photos etc) and either bring to rainbows and show the group or email / text a copy to the leader as applicable

Some leaders only award badges on particular weeks such as once a term or once a month as especially with a large group it can be very overwhelming but they should have told you this already.

then there are skills builder badges which again sit under each of the above themes
they are hexagons
these you can't do at home they're done in sessions as a group
they can be time consuming to complete and you do have to have regular attendance to get them
they must complete 4/5 activities to get one badge and the activities range from 20 min to an hour so usually it's a minimum of 3 weeks meetings to get this done
also the activities are occasionally a bit dry/ boring or take a lot of set up so we will often intersperse them with unit meeting activities and just general fun or seasonal crafts or visits etc.

They must also complete 120 min worth of unit meeting activity in a theme on top of any time spent on a skills builder to get a theme award. These activities are much more fun than skills builders but we do have skills builders they LOVE like first aid so don't worry. They range from games to challenges and role play and crafts. It's hard to do more than 45 min worth in a session. So it's 2-3 weeks to do this.

Then to get the theme award the rainbow has to have also done a corresponding interest badge of that theme

It's well worth asking the leader what theme they're working on this term and do one of those interest badges at home
Take photos or bring stuff in and hopefully they will get a badge.

As for the dismissiveness at drop off I'm sorry you've felt that way
I'm sure some of mine do too as I'm usually run ragged setting up especially if it's a big activity 🫣but I promise I'd be happy to talk to any of my rainbows parents about badges.

You can also check on go to see what they're working on we are supposed to log all the work on there but I'll admit it's a pain and I just use a spreadsheet 😫but I've had no complaints yet as my groups get lots of badges done and we have a group what's app for questions.