Introducing Squirrels – a new section launched by The Scouts for 4 to 5 year olds

The Scouts have recently launched a new section for 4-5 year olds, called Squirrels. Find out how to update your website to reflect the new changes.

01st October 2021

Beginning this term, The Scouts are rolling out a new section called Squirrels for 4 to 5 year olds.

Opening in 200 areas throughout Autumn, Squirrels aims to introduce skills for life to even more young people, and help them recover from the pandemic.

The opening of the new section follows a successful pilot project. Northern Ireland have also been running the Squirrels section for a number of years.

The section which will be launched in areas most affected by the pandemic will promote key skills, support families and provide young people with skills in their early years.

Squirrels will allow young people to:

Make friends
Have fun outdoors
Learn new things
Earn badges through fun activities

Updating your website

Keeping up with the introduction of Squirrels, our websites are now able to display the Squirrels age group on the homepage, and link to your Group, District or County Squirrels section, or to The Scouts.

Updating your website to include the Squirrels branding will help increase membership of young people for the new Section along with boosting recruitment for Adult Volunteers.

Allow your users to easily navigate your website by including Squirrels on your homepage

To include Squirrels on your website, from your WordPress dashboard, follow the below steps:

Go to Site Options > Turn the “Enable Squirrels?” toggle to “Yes” and click Update.
In Pages, select the Homepage.
Click on Age Group Section.
When hovering over the Beavers block, you should see a + sign to add a new row. Select this and a new block should appear at the top.
Add Squirrels to the blank title box and “4 to 5” in the Ages box. You can then also link to your own Squirrels page on your website, or The Scouts page.
Update your page to save these changes.

To find out more about Squirrels, visit The Scouts.