• Sections

    4th EFS has both cubs (8-11) and scouts (11-14)

  • Outdoors

    Outdoor activities on and off the water

  • Gold Award

    Our Chief Scout Gold Award programme

  • Parent FAQ

    Answers to commonly asked questions

About Us

Everywhere we go, everybody always asks us who we are ….

The 4th EFS Sea Scouts is hosted at Bancroft’s school in Woodford, Essex and is part of the Epping Forest South District, within the Greater London North East County.
The 4th Epping Forest Group was formed in 1909, one year after the founding of the Boy Scouts movement by Baden-Powell in 1908. It was initially formed as a land scout group by a number of students lucky enough to attend Baden Powel’s second experimental camp for boys.

In 1939 the group was changed to a sea scout group and subsequently gained RN recognition as RN sea scouts group 05 in the late 1940’s. Royal Navy Recognition status (RN Sea scour group number 05) allows us to participate in events at Royal Naval training facilities and means that we get support locally from the London University Royal Navy support unit. There’s more detail in our History page.


Today we cater for around 90 young people between our Cub pack and Scout Troop, including 6-8 young leaders. Like all scout groups, we run a number of Cub and Scout camps and expeditions throughout the year, including the Chief Scout Gold Award expedition in which scouts hike, camp and cook for themselves over a weekend.

If you have some time, even if it is not every week or can help with looking after equipment or administration, and think you might be interested in helping, please have a look at our 4th EFS scout leader page, drop in or drop us an email.

RN Sea scouts

Sea Scouts do all the traditional activities associated with land Scouts, but also experience a wide range of water-based activities. In the Summer Term, scouts spend the term on the water at Fairlop Waters. Under the supervision of the leadership team and the Fairlop Waters RYA coaches they are taught sailing, kayaking, canoeing and rowing. Activities in the winter centre around indoor and outdoor land based activities in the Autumn term and we use the swimming pool in the Spring term to help in preparation for the Summer term on water

Our Sea Scouts also make use of nearby Gilwell Park. This year scouts have experienced a wide range of activities including: dinghy sailing, kayaking, canoeing, kata-canoes, power boating, swimming, diving, laser quest, wide games in the dark, video blogging, cooking, fire-fighting, camping, axe-work, sawing, fire-lighting, navigating geocaching, grass-sledding, handicapped obstacle courses, silhouette theatre, rowing (fixed and moving seat), pioneering, tying knots, field gun racing, first aid, giant internet safety snakes and ladders, giant battleships, pasta building, morse code, semaphore, climbing, shooting, archery, chess, catapult building, football, various community projects and a whole host more.