Award FAQs

You can submit your proposal form from Tuesday 25th March 2025.

We will review your plans and reply to you within 10 working days. You can begin your Award activities as soon as approval has been received. 

Please take time to read and understand the Award criteria before sending your proposal. You can find the criteria and all other key guidance in our Handbook. Once you are ready to submit your proposal, please complete the online Proposal Form. Once submitted, the Award team will review and reply to you with 10 working days.

No, we will not accept proposals retrospectively.

Please submit your plans using the online proposal form. We will review your plans and reply to you within 10 working days. You can begin your Award activities as soon as approval has been received.

No, you may wish to draft your proposal in Word however all proposal forms must be completed online

The reference number will be shown on all of our email communication, making it easy to locate, however if you cannot find it we can locate your group from your email address. If you were not the person who submitted the proposal, please provide their email address.

For now we are offering the Wild Places Guardian Award (previously Discovery level).

We aim to launch the Wild Places Protector in 2026 and the Wild Places Champion after that. These levels will undergo more significant changes, which will be communicated in due course.

You do not need to attend training. We ask that you read the handbook and take time to understand the Award criteria and process. We also suggest that you watch our 'How To' video before submitting your first proposal.

We also offering online workshops introducing the redesigned Award and process. You can find details of these on the training page.

The Award can be completed by anyone who can understand and complete the Award criteria. We find that it is ideally suited for those at later stage of primary education and beyond. The John Muir Award isn’t suitable for nursery or lower primary learning level groups.

Adults are welcome – indeed actively encouraged – to get involved too, alongside young people, students, or in their own groups.

No, we accepted proposals until 23 March 2024 provided that criteria could be met and activity completed by 01 September 2024.

We allowed some flexibility beyond this date, but with the relaunch of the Award - including updated criteria and a new system, we are no longer able to issue certificates for the previous levels.

There will be a Welsh language version of the handbook, record books and certificates. Unfortunately, we are unable to accept forms written in Welsh as there are no Award Officers who speak Welsh at this time. 

We do not stipulate a deadline for completing the Award but ask that you consider a realistic timescale for your group and include this on the Proposal form. If you need more time to complete your activities, please let us know so we can update our records.

For a small number of Award leaders, who complete the same activities with multiple groups throughout the year we offer a rolling Proposal Form.

To request a rolling Proposal Form you must have successfully delivered the Award in the last 2 years. If approved, you will not need to submit a separate Proposal Form for each group. Your rolling Proposal Form will expire after 1 year and you will then be asked to submit a new Proposal Form. If there are multiple leaders within your organisation, delivering the Award, each leader must submit their own rolling Proposal Form.

Once you have successfully completed your first group by submitting a Review Form, you will have the opportunity to request a digital provider certificate. A provider certificate recognises your organisation’s contribution to wild places by delivering the John Muir Award.

From August 2025, we will require all Award Providers to hold group membership of the John Muir Trust.

An Award Provider is the direct organisation whom the Award leader is associated with. Within the organisation, you can deliver the Award to multiple groups. As an example, each school delivering the Award is required to hold a group membership, within this school you can deliver the Award to numerous classes / groups at no additional cost.  Find out more about Providers & Leaders and Group Membership

You could fundraise to cover the costs of the annual membership – find inspiration here.

We also have a social fund which you can apply for if you meet the following criteria.

Your organisation must:

• be a small community/voluntary sector group who predominantly support individuals who experience barriers to accessing wild places.
• be planning to deliver a John Muir Award this year
• have an annual turnover below £100,000

An application process is coming soon. If you haven’t already, sign up to our emails so you can be the first to hear about this.

The John Muir Award video playlist can be found on the John Muir Trust YouTube channel.

The John Muir Trust is a charity dedicated to the protection and restoration of the UK’s wild places, and therefore any Award activity must take place within the UK.

We are happy for you to base your own projects and activity on the Award framework and criteria but could not recognise this with a John Muir Award certificate.

We would ask for your patience with communications.  If you have an urgent question that is not answered above, you can contact us via award@johnmuirtrust.org and we’ll respond as soon as we can.