Programme Planning
One of the most important things is planning ahead. Putting time into planning your programme will bring with it so many rewards. Allow time to plan with your whole team, bringing everyone together will help you shape the programme and ensure everyone is fully involved. Don’t forget to ask for the views of the children. Part of this involves spending time reviewing what you have done previously and learning from what went well and what didn’t. Ideally, you should be planning at least a term in advance, and also consider putting together an initial rough outline for the session, so everyone is aware of key dates and you can ensure the programme works around these.
Download an Annual Programme Planner Template at boys-brigade.org.uk/programme
INVOLVING YOUNG PEOPLE
Getting feedback and ideas from your young people is key to delivering a successful programme. Consider how you could create opportunities to do this, this could be built into your programme each term, so that you can then plan more effectively for the next term. The best way to engage the children and young people will differ by age group, but don’t just think it is just the older members that will have ideas on what they want to do and views on what they’ve already done – include all age groups.
With the Juniors age group involving the children can be as simple as asking the group to vote on a range of activities. Once the children and young people have shared their thoughts and opinions with you, ensure you put their ideas forward and incorporate these into your next programme planning meeting. It’s important once you’ve done this, that you make sure that your young people are aware of how and where their ideas have been included. This will boost their confidence and make them feel included and listened to, and that their voice matters.
Check out a video we have produced on participation on our Vimeo Channel at vimeo.com/theboysbrigade/participation
PLANNING TERMLY
Planning a term at a time in detail will mean that preparations can made in good time. For each Company a term may be something slightly different, for some it could be the periods between starting the session and Christmas (Autumn/Winter), Christmas and Easter (Spring) and then Easter until the end of the session (Summer) – for others something different, but for all of us it is a ‘defined period of time’, and one that we can use to make planning more manageable.
You can refer to the Termly Programme Planners available on the Programme Hub at boys-brigade.org.uk/programme which will help support you in planning your programme.
It will be handy to have a list of your meeting dates for the term you are planning, so you can start putting things against these as you go along. It might work well at the start of this process to consider what key dates are coming up within the term including school holidays, Christian festivals, national days, awareness days, Church and Battalion events. Awareness days or weeks can provide a great basis around which to plan your programme. Check out awarenessdays.com which contains a list of most of the National and International awareness days, weeks, months and events.
Download a Programme Planning Templates:
- Termly Programme Planner (Microsoft Word)
- Weekly Programme Planner (Microsoft Word)