Beaver Scouts, often shortened to Beavers, is the second youngest official section of Scouting operated by The Scout Association in the United Kingdom. The core age range for Beaver Scouts is six to eight years. Sections of Beaver Scouts are known as Colonies and are run locally by Scout Groups. After reaching the age of eight, a Beaver Scout will then move on to Cub Scouts. The section officially launched in 1986 but had existed before this as trial and unofficial sections as far back as 1963.
Beaver Scouts share many of the features of older Scouting sections such as badges for skills learned and challenges and a uniform consisting of a light blue sweatshirt. They take a simplified version of the Scout promise. Beavers Scouts are open to boys and girls, a change introduced in 1991, and are open to those of different faiths, or none.
History
Early ideas: 1960s
Since the creation of the Scouting movement in 1907, there was demand from the younger brothers of Scouts who wanted to join in with their older siblings. This demand would lead to the creation of Wolf Cubs in 1916 for boys 8 years of age and up but there was still pressure from the younger brothers to become involved.
The first pre-Cub scheme was set up in Northern Ireland by the 1st Dromore Group in 1963 and was called The Little Brothers, spreading to Belfast with seven groups two years later. The creation of an under eight provision was sparked by the launch of other younger sections in other youth organisations at the time, including the Anchors section of the Boys' Brigade, which some feared was partly causing a drop in numbers of Cubs experienced at the time. As the scheme expanded throughout the rest of the province, it was given the official name of Beavers in 1966, which had been a name considered by Robert Baden-Powell when creating Wolf Cubs.
That year The Chief Scout's Advance Party Report was published, which brought to a close a period of reflection undertaken since January 1964 and led to significant structural changes within the organisation, with the question of a pre-Cubs section having been looked into. The report came to the conclusion that any lowering of the age for the newly renamed Cub Scouts below 8 years old would result in difficulties in retaining the older Cub Scouts and that allowing boys under 8 should not be allowed, to maintain a uniform approach. Any provision for boys under 8 must therefore be developed as their own section, which was not recommended as being followed at that time. It did however recommend that any developments in this area be monitored by national Cub Scout leadership.
Trials: 1970s
Despite the report's recommendations other under eight provisions were trialled and investigated in a number of different locations internationally and unofficially in the United Kingdom. By 1975 there existed in England an 'Adventurers' section in Dulwich and West Peckham in South London, 'Mini-Cubs' in Lancashire, 'Tweenies' in Southwark and 'Pre-Scout training' in Brighton. There were also a number of sections in Scotland including Acorns (A Cub OR Nearly So) in Coatbridge, Mini-Cubs and Tenderpads in Dundee and over a dozen groups in Glasgow of varying names including Panthers, Beavers, Chimps, Sparks and Mini-Cubs, with an advisory body. All of these organisations differed wildly in programme, uniform, structure and whether they had a law and promise.
By 1975 however, Beavers in Northern Ireland had advanced significantly to include approximately 100 Beaver groups, 2,500 boy members and 200 leaders; this compared to around 4,500 Cub Scouts in 520 packs at the same time. In September 1968, the Beavers Association was set up to oversee development of the section and they published a Beavers Handbook and organised an annual conference for leaders. It was noticed that a number of adults had stepped forward to help run the section who had no previous connection to youth work, which allayed fears over the growth of the new section by some. A common uniform of a grey shirt and emerald green necker was introduced, as was a programme that did not use any of the Cub Scout content at all, instead linked to four pawprint badges and the name Beavers as a backronym: Building, Energy release, Adventure, Variety, Entertaining, Religion and Storytelling. In 1973, a resolution was published requesting Beavers be formally adopted into the structure of Scouting in Northern Ireland, and in early 1975 this was approved.