King's Scout Award

Introduction

The King’s Scout Award (KSA) is the top achievement for Explorer Scouts and Scout Network members. Earning it is a huge achievement!

You must be at least 16 to start working towards your King’s Scout Award and if you haven’t achieved Platinum or Diamond yet then they may be the place to start.

What you have to do

There are five main tasks you need to complete to get your King’s Scout Award. Some of them may sound daunting but remember that this award is meant to be completed over multiple years and you can always ask leaders for help if you get stuck.

Requirements can be adapted to suit each young person’s abilities. You can read about reasonable adjustments here.

Membership

There are two key parts to consider here. To be eligible you must both:

  • Be aged between 16 and 25 years old. You must start the award after your 16th birthday and complete the award before your 25th birthday.

  • Be a member of Explorer Scouts, Young Leaders or Scout Network for at least 18 months at the time you complete the award.

Nights away

You must complete 24 nights away as an Explorer Scout, Young Leader or Scout Network member, of which 12 must be camping. Any nights away can count for this section, whether used in another part of this award, or to count towards the Chief Scout Platinum or Chief Scout Diamond Award.

International, community & values (ICV) list

You must complete six activities in total, two from each topic area of the ICV activities list. A minimum of two must be from the KSA ICV list and the others from any of the KSA, or Chief Scout Platinum or Diamond ICV lists.

If you have completed your Chief Scout’s Platinum Award, you will have already done two activities and will only need to do a further four activities. If you have completed your Chief Scout’s Diamond Award, you will have already done four activities and will only need to do a further two activities.

DofE Gold or equivalent

If you aren’t working towards it already, you can find information on DofE Gold here.

The reason we say “or equivalent” is that you technically do not need to have been awarded DofE Gold to finish your King’s Scout Award but the requirements for this section are identical. If you are going to put in the effort, we encourage you to get Duke of Edinburgh while you are at it.

A presentation

Once you have completed all of the above tasks in their entirety, you need to present what you did for each of them to an audience. Even though it is the last task you do, this is worth thinking about early on to make sure you capture lots of photos and other evidence of your experience. Try to inspire and motivate others to achieve the award.

Evidence

To show you have completed these tasks we ask you to write a little bit about your experience and upload it to OSM or email it to your leader. If you are not sure about how much or what type of evidence you need for a task you should contact your leader as early as possible. Evidence is crucial to making sure you get recognition.

You also don’t need to wait until you are finished every task to start uploading evidence. Uploading as soon as you are finished each task or subtask means we can ensure your work meets the requirements.

You can download this logbook as a guide.

If you haven’t used OSM before, check out our step-by-step guide by clicking here.

Once you are logged in:

  1. Click on the “Badges” tab on the left side under your name
  2. Click on the “King’s Scout Award” badge under “Challenge Badges”
  3. Click “Complete at home” and follow the instructions

If there are any parts you are unsure of then you can contact the YL training team with any questions.

Thank you for taking the time to complete this at home :)