How to sort out patrols?

[Bumblebee]

Last week we had a chat to the girls to see if they were happy in their patrols as we got the feeling that some did not get on that well. We tried to rearrange them, and then this week we spoke to them again and quite alot were not happy with the new arrangement. After lots of discussion we couldn't settle on a way where the majority are happy.

So how do you sort out your patrols? It didn't seem to work letting the girls decide because some of the girls are good friends outside of Guides, but I get the feeling they would like to be in a different patrol at Guides so they have the chance of making new friends and not just being with the same person all the time.

Oooh this is difficlut!!

[twitchy]

How did you sort them last time?

We gived the girls a voting slip with 5 boxes :
One for a person they really want to be with
Two boxes for second/third choice
One for a person they really dont want to be with (most girls put noone but its always interesting to see who is a problem in the group)
One for what they want to do in the next few months.

We then gather all the slips in and arrange the groups accrding to their responses, it can take a while sometimes if there is a particular girl causing problems, but usually 90% are happy and they work well in the mixed group but with at least one friend they chose.
They are also told to give it two weeks and if they have a problem to tell us and we will change it, but this rarely happens

Hope this helps.

[Marie]

We used to do something similar - we got each girl to tell us in private two or three other girls she'd like to be with and they could also say if there was someone they did not want to be with. I would then sort out who was in which patrol based on that information and simply announce the results. We didn't make promises but I always ensured everyone was with at least one of her nominated friends. It wasn't always easy!

For a long time this was our compromise on them choosing their patrols without hurting the feelings of one girl who was unpopular (she was never named by any of the others as a girl they wanted to be with).

Now that we have a smaller unit they fall naturally into two groups (older and younger) with one girl in between so she's PL to the younger ones - and she does a superb job.

[Sarah]

we've had similar problems recently, mostly caused by noone wanting to be in the same patrol as one of the ones who only started this term
we had to rearrange as some of hte ones only 6months older wanted to leave as they had ended up in the same patrol as her, all patrols were sorted and she got to choose where to go being new - must rethink that system before the next intake!

[Bumblebee]

We tried getting the girls to write down who they wanted to be with and rearranged the girls as best we could according to this. All the younger ones ended up in the same patrol and most of the older ones were together, but they felt that they wanted to mix it up a bit more as the older ones felt they should be helping the young ones. Which is great really.

Still not sure how to sort this one out.

[cbbies]

We vote in new pls...(every september).

Then these stand in a line and people stand behind who they want to be with...it mixes them up as the older ones only are allowed to stand for PL...then if we have any issues we subtly move and say it's due to numbers, etc. It normally works well, then every Jan and April, the new ones pick where they want to go!

It works really well for us, normally...but there have been a few occasions it hasn't!

[sofa32]

I would go for the voting slips as suggested firstly by twitchy and then others. Otherwise i would go with you choosing them and splitting up close friendships yuo know of - then presist for a term ish and see if they form new friendships...and have equal number of girls in each patrol; being in a patrol of five when there are two pairs of friends then you it can not feel nice to be odd one out.

[helentinkletoes]

I got sick of peer patrols as all the girls did was much about so I grabbed the bull by the horns and rearranged everything.

I took the oldest girls and assigned them as patrol leader and patrol second. In some cases I picked a slightly younger girl basically because she had the maturity to deal with the responsibility whereas an older girl would have just messed around and we'd of gotten nowhere. I then asked the younger girls to choose 1 friend who they would like to be with and split them around the patrols.

We only had to move 1 girl and there was a noticeable improvement in behavior so it seemed to work! I think the older girls needed to be shown that being a patrol leader wasn't a right, it was a responsibility that had to be earned and basically if a year 8 girl showed she could do the job better than a year 9 who was messing around then the year 8 would get the chance.

[fenris]

We've been fortunate - when a batch of new girls arrive, I get each Patrol to stand in a corner, tell them how many spaces are in each Patrol, then ask them to vote with their feet. There are always more spaces than recruits, so they do all get a choice. When numbers go up and it's time to open a new Patrol, I invite pairs, trios or quartets to volunteer to move and form the new Patrol. We look at any offers we get and decide which to accept - if there are any we turn down we talk to them about whether they want to move Patrol anyway, and try to accommodate this. Most of our Guides choose to stay where they are, so the Patrols are mixed-age.

[sofa32]

Fenris i like the way you say batch as if the girls are shipped in!