Tenderfoot Rank

Requirement 6 is thirty days, and it starts a calendar that runs to First Class

Record your best at four tests (6a), write a plan to improve and keep track of your activity for at least 30 days (6b), then show improvement of any degree (6c).

That is a month, and it cannot be compressed. Worse, it is only the first month:

• Tenderfoot 6c: improve after 30 days of practice.
• Second Class 7a: after completing Tenderfoot 6c, be active 30 minutes a day, five days a week, for four weeks.
• First Class 8a: after completing Second Class 7a, four weeks again. Each one names the one before it. So the fitness thread alone is roughly three months of elapsed time across the three ranks, and every week of it that is not started is a week the First Class date moves back. Requirement 6a is therefore the single most valuable thing to do early on this sheet. It costs one afternoon and it starts the clock.

Six requirements wait on one campout

Requirement 1b is a night on a patrol or troop campout in a tent you helped pitch. Then:

• 2a, assist in preparing one of the meals on the campout
• 2b, safely clean the items used, while on a campout
• 1c (how you demonstrated the Outdoor Code and Leave No Trace on campouts or outings
• 5a) use the buddy system on a troop or patrol outing
• 5d: durable surfaces you saw on your outing None of those can be done at a troop meeting. If the campout is missed, they all wait for the next one, which is usually a month.

The knots come back, and now they have to be for something

Scout requirement 4a asked you to show the square knot, two half-hitches and the taut-line hitch. Tenderfoot 3a, 3b and 3c ask for a practical use of each. Requirement 8 then asks you to teach the square knot to somebody else using the Teaching EDGE method.

Work them at once, earn them in order

Guide to Advancement 4.2.0.1 says the Scout, Tenderfoot, Second Class and

First Class requirements may be worked on simultaneously, but the ranks must be earned in sequence. Requirement 10 is the exception that proves it: the Tenderfoot Scoutmaster conference must come after Scout requirement 7, so the conferences are strictly ordered even when the rest is not.

What this page is

The Tenderfoot rank, with the thirty days and the campout drawn where they fall. It is not a copy of the requirements: each step is a short label with the requirement number beside it, and the official requirements are what actually governs and are republished every year.