Completing a Platinum YAA

The young person will complete at least 30 hours of training to build additional skills, knowledge and experience that will help them in their placement. The type of training and the personal targets they select will depend on the goals outlined in their personal development plan.  

Young people can complete this challenge before or at the same time as Challenge 3: Placement(s). No matter what order they choose, they will record their work on this challenge in their portfolio of evidence and will review it using the questions in their Platinum award booklet. 

The young person will complete at least 60 hours in one or more placements. During these placement(s), they will practice the skills they’ve built through their training and will have the chance to create and deliver learning opportunities for others.  

Young people can complete this challenge after or at the same time as Challenge 2: Training. No matter what order they choose, they will record their work on this challenge in their portfolio of evidence and will review it using the questions in their Platinum award booklet.   

The young person will reflect on their Platinum award experience so far and create a detailed progress evaluation. This progress evaluation will help them review everything they’ve done and reflect on what they have accomplished, what they have learned and what they can improve for next time.  

For this challenge, the personal targets are pre-set: 

• I will describe how creating my personal development plan helped me consider my goals and identify a pathway for achieving them. 
• I will describe how my training helped me to fill the gaps in my experience, knowledge and skills. 
• I will describe how my placement(s) helped me to develop my existing skills and build new ones. 
• I will reflect on my overall experiences in the Platinum award so far and describe how it has contributed to my learning journey and how it will help me in the future.  

Young people will record their work on this challenge in their portfolio of evidence and will review it using the questions in their Platinum award booklet. 

The young person will prepare and deliver a presentation about what they have learned and accomplished through their Platinum Youth Achievement Award.   

In the award booklet, there is space to plan this presentation, including logistics like the date, time, location and audience, as well as the media that will be used and the key points the presentation will cover. 

Young people will record their work on this challenge in their portfolio of evidence and will review it using the questions in their Platinum award booklet. 

The young person is asked to evidence their participation in their challenges. This helps them to show what they’ve done, as well as giving a visual record for them to look back on. They may choose to talk about their YAA in a job or college interview, and the portfolio of evidence can support this.

Evidence can be given in any form. There should be evidence that links back to all their targets, evidences the level of responsibility that they took and shows what they did to make up their challenge.

Evidence should be personalised, and come with captions explaining why it’s been included. Any group photos should have the young person highlighted.

Evidence can include:

• photos
• videos
• text
• drawings
• art work
• receipts
• tickets
• emails
• texts
• flyers
• invitations
• stickers
• witness statements
• planning sheets
• newspape clippings
• social media posts
• research
• anything else relevant

A portfolio can be a physical or online document, but it will ultimately need to be submitted online.

Any personal details that are included in evidence must be redacted before submitting to Youth Scotland.

It’s much easier to complete a YAA if evidence is gathered and included in the portfolios shortly after the activity has happened while it’s fresh in the young person’s memory. Otherwise putting the evidence together can build up into a daunting task.

The young person should reflect on their award, including the skills they have developed across all challenges. In the Platinum award booklet, there is a space provided for a supporting statement from a youth worker, teacher or another adult who supported the young person during one or more challenges. 

There is also a space for a peer assessment, which can be completed by any other young person (for example, a friend, sibling, someone else in the award group or someone who has done a similar project). The peer assessor will confirm: 

• All five challenges have been completed 
• Evidence is provided that 30 hours of training were completed 
• Evidence is provided that 60 hours of placement(s) were completed 
• Evidence is provided that the young person created and delivered learning opportunities for others 
• The portfolio is well-organised and presents evidence linking to the challenges and personal targets 
• The young person has completed all review pages in full, demonstrating critical thinking and reflection skills 

The peer assessor will then sign and date the award booklet. 

The Youth Achievement Award needs to be checked twice to see that it meets all the criteria. This should be done first by the person delivering the award (for example, a teacher, youth worker or young leader) and then again by someone who has completed internal verifier training (note that the internal verifier was previously called an agency assessor, and some paperwork may not have this change made).  

On Awards Force, you will find a quality assurance checklist to complete. This must be signed and dated by the worker and the internal verifier (notes can also be added). 

Criteria for each challenge: 

• There is clear evidence to show successful completion of the challenge 
• There is clear evidence of working towards all targets 
• The challenge review has been completed 
• The challenge has been peer assessed 

For the training: 

• Four personal targets have been identified  
• here is clear evidence of participating in the training 
• There is clear evidence that at least 30 hours were spent on the training 

For the placement(s): 

• Four personal targets have been identified  
• There is clear evidence of taking complete responsibility for creating and delivering learning opportunities for others 
• There is clear evidence that at least 60 hours were spent on placements 

For the award: 

• All five challenges have been completed 
• The evaluation has been completed 

This must be signed and dated by the worker and the internal verifier, and any notes can be added. 

Youth Achievement Awards must be submitted to Youth Scotland through our online submission platform, Awards Force. Once you have logged into your Awards Force account, you will register the candidate for each award on the Candidate Registration tab. (Please note: the text you provide will be used for the award certificate, so you should ensure that all names are spelled correctly). 

On the Candidate Registration tab, you will be asked to provide the following details about your group: 

• Local Authority Area  
•  Awards Delivery Hub 
• Awards Delivery Group 

You will then provide the following information about the young person who has completed the award: 

• Name of Candidate 
• Booklet Number 
• Scottish Candidate Number 
• Date of birth 
• Postcode 
• Gender 
• Ethnicity 
• Disability 
• An overview of their evaluation information

If you have questions or are having trouble accessing your Awards Force account, contact awards@youthscotland.org.uk. 

For Platinum awards, we will be sampling 100% of submitted awards.  

In the evidence section of Awards Force, you will be able to upload a scan, photograph  or PDF version of the challenge sheets for each award. This will then be standardised to check that the quality of the awards is being upheld. After standardisation, you will receive feedback from the awards team.  

Standardisation happens in the last week of each calendar month. The candidates will then be registered with SQA and certificates will be sent out directly from them.