Patrols in a Troop

[packwife]

Can someone explain to me the reasoning behind having all the older, higher ranking scouts in one patrol? In your explaination, can you explain how putting all new WebeloII's in one patrol together with no older scouts? Is this the way other troops set up their patrols too? Its been bothering me for a while now and yes I did mention it to the SM that maybe the older scouts would attend the meetings more frequently if they could get more involved with the teaching.Yes I am on the committee and have brought it up there too. Our SM gets extremely angry when we try to bring up new things. Thanks

[FScouter]

Theres lots of persuasive arguments either way. Older boys can teach skills regardless of what patrol they are in. The SPL, assistant SPL, troop guides, instructors all work outside the boundaries of patrols.

 

Most important I feel is that the boys will be happiest as members of the patrol they want to be in. Will a 17 year old be happy if he is assigned against his wishes to be part of a patrol dominated by 11 and 12 year olds? Will an 11 year old fit in well with a patrol of 16 and 17 year olds? Maybe, but only if he wants to be there and the other members want him there too.

 

Boys want to be with their friends, and well-meaning adults ought not to be deciding who a boys friends will be.

[jr56]

Often, boys are happiest with other boys their own age. This does not mean that a bunch of young first year scouts are thrown together intoa patrol with no guidance. That is what troop guides and troop instructors are for. These are positions of responsibility for older boys, that allow them to work with first year scouts. Hopefully your Scoutmaster knows this and has a syatem like this in operation.

[EagleInKY]

If you do a search on "New Scout Patrol" or "NSP", you'll see that there has been a lot of debate over this in the past. Personally, I support the NSP, and not just because it's the way endorsed by the BSA. I believe the NSP provides a transition period for new young scouts to get integrated into the troop.

 

As has been mentioned, the boys in the NSP are grouped with guys their own age. A troop guide and an assigned ASM works with them, along with other older scouts. Their goal during the first 6-12 months is to get the boys up to understanding how boy scouts works. Most troops phase boys from NSPs to "regular" patrols after that time period.

 

This also ties into a program called "First Class/First Year" (FCFY). The concept of this is that if a boy makes First Class by the end of his first year, he's more likely to stay involved and be successful in scouting. Personally, I've found it usually takes 12-18 months for most boys to make First Class. However, FCFY is still a goal that we strive for.

 

Usually older scouts are put into a seperate patrol since they are more likely to go out and do some fun things on their own. 15,16,17 year old scouts may be interested in a survival campout or doing some adventurous trips that younger scouts aren't ready for. This gives them an avenue to do those types of things, while remaining in the context of the troop.

 

Hope these ideas help you. Good luck.

[LongHaul]

Packwife,

Think about it from this angle. The troop is made up of patrols just as the US is made up of states. We didnt break the country up into states the states came together to form the union. The patrols come together to form the troop. As new scouts enter the troop they are formed into a patrol which ideally should remain together for the remainder of the members scout tenure. As boys leave scouting and patrol membership dwindles, patrols combine to retain functioning numbers. Boys are grouped by age so that they learn together and develop the patrol identity. As others have said this is only one approach to the patrol method. No matter what approach a troop employs, the experienced scouts should be teaching those who need instruction helping them to become teachers.

LongHaul

 

[acco40]

Who should assign Scouts to a patrol? The Scoutmaster? No. A committee member? No. The Committee Chair? No. The Scouts? Yes! A patrol should be a peer group, a group of boys that want to be together. In our troop, we have one patrol that is made up entirely of high school age boys. Two other patrol are 100% middle school boys. One is a mixture of middle school and high school freshman. That is how the boys wanted to form patrols.

 

Our patrols had been set for about three years and were getting out of whack from a numbers perspective. Some patrols exceeding eight, some under four. Time for some shuffling. This is how we accomplished that task. I (SM) divided up the boys into four patrols. Publicly, I did this arbitrarily. In reality, I ranked the boys by age. No, the boys never quite figured that out. I then told them that they could shift to any patrol they wanted to with one stipulation. If one Scout left patrol "A" to go to a different patrol, a boy from another patrol had to enter patrol "A" to keep the numbers somewhat even. They took the full hour and a half to do some horse trading but it all worked out in the end.

 

Usually, I get feedback from the older boys that they really don't want to be in a patrol with the younger boys. I also get feedback, not from the younger boys but from the younger boys parents that they want their sons to be in patrols with the older boys.

 

Another way to look at it is this - let's say a patrol is made up of four newly crossed over Webelos Scouts, two first year Boy Scouts (2nd Class), one second year Star Scout and one third year Life Scout (13 years old). Who do you think would be the best patrol leader? Well, the oldest highest ranking Life Scout of course. That would be true when he reaches 14 ,15, 16 and even 17! So, those Webelos would have been in the troop for five years and never really got a chance for leadership? Not a good situation.(This message has been edited by acco40)

[SR540Beaver]

acco,

 

I agree that ideally the boys should determine the make-up of their own patrols. How do you handle it when there are two boys who DO NOT need to be in a patrol together? No, I'm not talking about not getting along. I'm talking about boys who can't seem to keep from getting into trouble when they are together.

[acco40]

You mean like my youngest son and is cohort? How did you know??! Yeah, that can be a problem. When he was elected as SPL, we wait a week before he chooses his ASPL. Well, after we got home I told him of my desire for him to pick anyone except his infoamous cohort. Well you can guess what happened!

 

I don't like to be heavy handed and don't have a great solution. The only thing I can think of is to start with them in different patrols.

 

 

[Beavah]

Yah, packwife. I hear ya. I'm an old grey beavah, and the notion of new scout patrols and kids havin' to be with same-age peers all the time is one of those newfangled things.

 

Around here probably 3/4 of the troops do NSP and age stratified patrols. As someone here mentions, they always seem to be re-formin' and re-configurin' their patrols because of numbers issues. Seems like their kids are a bit "young for their age" because the young ones don't really have the experience and example of workin' alongside older boys all that much.

 

About 1/4 of the troops still follow the older BSA system of "permanent" mixed-age patrols, which are often geographical (kids who live close to each other). I think the younger kids learn a lot by osmosis and example havin' to mix, and that gives the 7th graders and 8th graders younger guys to watch out for, which is a good thing. The PLC then becomes the older scout leadership core/"senior patrol." This system also makes it more natural for the higher-ranked scouts to earn leadership credit in positions of responsibility. Some of these do a new scout thing for a few months as a transition, but merge the new boys in under the patrol leadership of older boys in a fairly short time.

 

Different strokes. Plusses and minuses to each method. I think age-stratified patrols are more comfortable for adults who want to do more leadin' themselves. If yeh put a parcel of 11 or 12 year-olds all together, it requires more adult "presence" for control and safety. It's also more akin to what da parents and boys are used to from school. I like the "feel" of the mixed-age-patrol troops a lot better, especially the level of youth leadership and independence of their patrols, but also the friendships that form easily across age lines.

 

 

 

 

 

[EagleInKY]

There are a number of ways to form patrols. The SM-managed approach is not a good one.

 

Beaver - "I agree that ideally the boys should determine the make-up of their own patrols. How do you handle it when there are two boys who DO NOT need to be in a patrol together? No, I'm not talking about not getting along. I'm talking about boys who can't seem to keep from getting into trouble when they are together. "

 

I used old Bob White's approach to organizing patrols. This worked pretty well. This is where the boys tell you who they want to be in a patrol with (and if you want, who they DON'T) want to be with. Then you do a little cypherin', and come up with a patrol structure. It's based upon the boy's wishes, but you do the organization. This gives you a little latitude in breaking up that. I chose not to do that this year, and the patrol is paying the price for it now. But that's how they learn, eh?

 

Beavah -

 

We employ a combination. We use the NSP for the first 6-12 months, and then used mixed age up to around 15. In our next iteration, we're probably going to introduce a senior patrol. This would be made up with guys who are 15 or so, higher in rank, and want to do some adventurous stuff on their own. There's been some interest in doing this and we are probably going to give it a try next year.

 

You are correct, patrols tend to shuffle a little more with these methods. But as I remember the way it used to be, you got slammed into a patrol of all ages when you joined the troop, and it was usually based upon which patrol needed the numbers, not where your friends were. Or maybe that was just my old troop.

 

Anyway, as long as it's a method that gives the boys the ability to choose, I'm all for it. I think there are a variety of ways to put it in practice. Acco's is certainly a creative approach. I'll have to think on that one.

[acco40]

Beavah, I respectfully disagree. There is nothing "new" about patrol formation. It should not be age based, it should not be mixed, it should be the choice of the Scouts. This was endorsed by LBP himself. What I have found to be the overwhelming desire of the boys is that they like to be in a patrol of their peers. Usually, that means boys of similar ages but not always.

 

I also disagree with your conclusions. If you have mixed age patrols, there is no need for troop guides - thus less youth leadership. If you have a group of 11 to 12 year olds in a patrol, one of them gets blessed with a leadership experience (something all should get for 30 days if you follow the BSA program).

[Eagledad]

Hi all, what a great 106 degrees day in Oklahoma.

 

>>I also disagree with your conclusions. If you have mixed age patrols, there is no need for troop guides - thus less youth leadership. If you have a group of 11 to 12 year olds in a patrol, one of them gets blessed with a leadership experience (something all should get for 30 days if you follow the BSA program).

[SR540Beaver]

EagleinKY,

 

We pretty much do it like you. We do use NSP's. Crossover usually occurs around the end of February/first of March and we keep them in NSP's until around November when they are integrated into the various mixed age patrols. We have two Troop Guides per NSP and utilize other boys to teach different skills. We have a couple of those 17 year olds who have been absent for a year or two that all of a sudden decide they want to earn Eagle. In addition to the TG's, we use them quite a bit to teach skills to the NSP's.

 

We had 20 boys crossover this year and we formed two patrols out of them. I know some folks will say that 10 per patrol is too many. We tend to oversize the patrols to around 10 because on any given campout, someone or two or three won't show up. This gives us good size patrols even when everyone isn't present. It has worked well for us. At the end of this group or new scouts, we will have to do some reorg due to integrating them into patrols. 20 scouts is twice as big as some troops, so we will be adding new age mixed patrols when they integrate.

[Beavah]

I'm not particularly partisan here, I've seen troops work well both ways, and things done poorly usin' each method. I just like the mixed age approach better; the "feel" is better to me, with all boys rather than just designated Troop Guides participatin' in helpin' younger ones in their patrols.

 

What I have found to be the overwhelming desire of the boys is that they like to be in a patrol of their peers. Usually, that means boys of similar ages but not always.

 

Yah. Boys are conservative critters, and tend to stay with what they know, eh? Nowhere else in their school and sports life do they get a chance to mix and play with kids of different ages, especially now that neighborhood "free play" has gone the way of the dodo. But this is just a Green Eggs and Ham issue. Most of 'em wouldn't choose to eat foil meals either unless someone made 'em try it.

 

I agree dat the boys should be involved in the patrol decisions in some way or another, so that best buddies are kept together, most brothers are kept apart and such.

 

 

I also disagree with your conclusions. If you have mixed age patrols, there is no need for troop guides - thus less youth leadership. If you have a group of 11 to 12 year olds in a patrol, one of them gets blessed with a leadership experience (something all should get for 30 days if you follow the BSA program).

 

Yah, I'm with Eagledad here. I've rarely seen the new scout PL thing be anything other than uncomfortable. There aren't many 11-year-olds ready to tell their best buddy he needs to clean the latrine. I think it's even tough for a 2nd year and some 3rd year patrol leaders to hold their own in a PLC meeting with the PLs from older boys patrols. They don't have enough to "give" yet to be able to contribute to troop planning, and they naturally don't want to stand out. Dat means that the troop guides and ASMs do most of it.

 

The other downside to mixed age is patrol competitions. Yah, sure, everyone can point to the one time the 1st or 2nd year boys beat an older patrol, but let's be honest. With same-age patrols, most real patrol competition doesn't work nearly as well.

 

 

 

[FScouter]

After a year or so a New Scout Patrol is not new anymore. They should have advanced in rank, some to 1st Class, and have morphed into a regular patrol. There really is little point in breaking up that patrol and moving them into other patrols.

 

I think the motivation for doing this lies more in building sagging numbers in the other patrols. If other patrols have less than 6 members, they ought to be recruiting their friends to join Scouting rather than waiting for the Scoutmaster to break up the NSP.