Look Wider

Senior Section and the Look Wider programme

Look Wider is the personal development programme for the Senior Section, based around the Five Essentials. It is for anyone in the Senior Section aged between 14 and 25. This includes Guiders, Young Leaders, Rangers, those working on the Duke of Edinburgh's Award and Queen's Guide Award; GOLD participants; members of the Youth Forum, LINK and SSAGO and delegates to the British Youth Council.
Look Wider offers participants the chance to:

Identify and meet challenges
Set and then achieve personal goals
Realise their potential and their dreams
Gain and share knowledge
Develop skills
Acquire self-confidence
Try a variety of qualifications, awards and schemes.

Each Senior Section member can work on Look Wider on their own, or as part of a group. They can choose whether or not to systematically work through Look Wider, or dip into challenges as and when they want to.

Look Wider is structured round the Octants - Creativity, Fit For Life, Community Action, Out of Doors, International, Independent Living, Personal Values and Leadership. Within each Octant there are three Phases - each representing a different level of skill, knowledge and experience:

Phase 1 - Starting something. This is about having a go at something new. To complete Phase 1 you need to do three challenges.
Phase 2 - Building on it. The aim is to develop either something from Phase 1 or another skill or interest. You choose one activity and work on it regularly for at least three months, or for a concentrated period of time, for example, at a residential training weekend.
Phase 3 - Taking things further. You focus on one activity and either teach it to others or gain a qualification in it. You don't have to start at Phase 1 - you can jump right in at Phase 3 if you like. To suit your other commitments, you can work on more than one challenge and Phase at once.

Each Octant has over 50 suggested challenge ideas and it is up to the you to decide what level of challenge to set yourself. With your Look Wider team and Senior Section leaders you agree whether the challenge you have set yourself will fall within Phase 1, 2 or 3. If the suggested challenges don't appeal to you, then you can make up your own challenge and agree this with your peers, along with which Octant it falls under. At the end of your challenge, you review it with your Senior Section leaders, Look Wider team and other Senior Section members. In doing this, you can assess how well you did and set further challenges for yourself, taking on board all that you have learned. If you complete the three Phases of an Octant you will be presented with an Octant certificate. If you do Phases 1 and 2 in every Octant you can receive the Chief Guide's Challenge certificate.

Acknowledgements and thanks to the NetGuides Senior Section : you can find further information and ideas for Look Wider challenges on the NetGuides website