Changes to the Cub Scout Program now in effect as of June 1, 2024
The Cub Scout program will be updated for the 2024-25 program year. Cub Scout program changes are important for Scout leaders of all levels to know about. The new updates are based on feedback from over 23,000 parents and Cub Scout leaders through various surveys and data. The National Cub Scout committee identified four key improvements.
The four areas of improvement are the Bobcat badge, Cub Scout Adventures, Webelos, and Cub Scout Awards.
Bobcat
Bobcat will become a required Adventure for each rank and is designed to be the first Adventure earned each year. The requirements for the Bobcat Adventure are different for each grade to make them age-appropriate.
Cub Scout Adventures
Cub Scout Adventures have been improved to make it easier to deliver the program to multi-rank dens or as a Pack. A Cub Scout will need to earn six required Adventures and two elective Adventures to complete each rank. Required Adventures reflect the aims and focus areas of the BSA. There will be an increase in the number of elective adventures to choose from.
Webelos and Arrow of Light
Webelos and Arrow of Light will be separated. Webelos becomes the 4th-grade program in Cub Scouting. Arrow of Light becomes a stand-alone badge of rank for 5th graders and will no longer be associated with Webelos. Arrow of Light will be the program that prepares Cub Scouts to join Scouts BSA.
Cub Scout Awards
Cub Scouts Awards will be reimagined as Cub Scout Adventures. Topics like camping, STEM, and range and target sports are reimagined into elective Adventures that can be used towards earning a badge of rank.
What’s not changing?
For one: the Scout Oath and Law. That was nonnegotiable.
The uniforms also are not changing.
But maybe most importantly, the overall goal of the Cub Scout program — character, citizenship, personal fitness and leadership — remain the same.
Cub Scouting’s values remain embedded in the Scout Oath, the Scout Law, the Cub Scout motto, and the Cub Scout sign, handshake and salute, as they always have been.
Summer is here! What rank is my Cub Scout now?
Cub Scouts who just finished kindergarten are now Tiger Cub Scouts and can start work on the updated Tiger program from now all the way through next spring.
Cub Scouts who just finished first grade are now Wolves.
Cub Scouts who just finished second grade are now Bears.
Cub Scouts who just finished third grade are now Webelos.
Cub Scouts who just finished fourth grade are now Arrow of Light.
Children who begin kindergarten this fall can start working on the new Lion requirements once they start school in August or September.
Click here to learn more about the aims and methods of Cub Scouting.