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 your young people, or actively involve them in the programme planning. 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.
INVOLVING YOUNG PEOPLE
The Seniors programme is specially written for young people to pick up and run the activities themselves. Therefore involving Seniors in planning and delivering their programme is key for this age group.
It is suggested that at the start of a term Seniors should look through the activity cards on offer and create a programme plan, centred around their interests. As well as using the activity cards, Seniors could also introduce their own activity ideas too.
When it comes to delivering the programme each week, Seniors should be able to pick up the programme cards, read through the instructions, and deliver the programme themselves as a group. Leaders will need to be on hand to provide assistance and ensure the correct resources and safeguards are in place.
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)