Completing a Hi5 Award

Ask the young person what they would like to do for their challenge and add this to the challenge sheet. The challenge will be based on an activity or series of activities, which together will take at least 5 hours complete. Their challenge will be printed on their personalised certificate.  

Break this down into 2-4 steps and add these to the challenge sheet. These are things that the young people will achieve as part of their challenge. 

These are typically described using text but may also be described by adding drawings, photos, etc.  

Note: the award can be scribed for the young person, as long as a note is made where this has taken place

There is a minimum commitment of 5 hours of activity for the Hi5 award. The total time they spend on their challenge will be printed on their certificate.

The time can be completed all at once, or broken down into chunks. The total hours should be a whole number, so if they have completed 6 and a half hours of activity, this should be recorded as 6 hours.

The young person is asked to evidence their participation in their challenge. This helps them to show what they’ve done, as well as giving a visual record for them to look back on.

Evidence can be given in any form, and there only needs to be one page of evidence, although they can include as much as they wish.

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

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

The level of evidence should match the age and stage of the young person.

Youth Scotland has optional evidence templates that can be downloaded here Awards Activity Sheets

The young person needs to reflect on what their Hi5 challenge helped them to do, and whether it helped them a lot, a little or if they feel the same. They do this by ticking the boxes.

They are then invited to reflect and comment on one thing they feel that they did really well.

Someone else then needs to write a special achievement statement for them. This is an opportunity for someone to share a positive statement about the young person’s special achievement in, or unique contribution to, their challenge. This can be written by anyone who saw them complete their challenge – a parent, a teacher, a sibling, a friend, a youth worker or anyone of their choosing

The special achievement statement can be printed on a special achievement certificate, which can be downloaded from here: Awards Achievement Statement Certificate

Lastly the young person needs to tick to tell us if they’ve completed a Hi5 Award before, and if they would like to do another.

The awards need to be checked to see if they meet all the criteria. This can be done by the person delivering the award, for example a teacher, youth worker or young leader. The criteria of the Hi5 Award are:

• the challenge is clearly described
• the challenge sheets have listed at least two things that the young person has done in their challenge
• the challenge sheet has a minimum of 5 hours of activity recorded
• the review section (‘my challenge has helped me to’ and ‘one thing I did really well’) has been completed
• the achievement statement has been completed
• there is evidence to confirm completion of the challenge

To submit the Hi5 Awards to Youth Scotland you must complete a candidate registration form (CRF). This can be downloaded here:Hi5 CRF 2023

This is an excel spreadsheet with multiple tabs. The first tab is a guide to completing the spreadsheet.

The text for the certificates will be lifted directly from the CRF, so please ensure that everything is spelt right.

The candidate list tab needs the following details about the group:

• Local authority area – please select from the dropdown list
• Registered group name – if your group name isn’t here please contact awards@youthscotland.org.uk to find out why and get it added
• Group type – please choose from the drop down
• CashBack – please let us know if your group is funded by Generation CashBack via Youth Scotland
• STEM / Health & Wellbeing – if any of the challenges in the submission iclude these themes please tick this
• Group contact details – this is where the certificates will be sent back to so please ensure it’s correct

It then needs the following information about the young people:

• Challenge sheet number – this can be found on the front page of a paper challenge sheet, or was emailed to you alongside the digital challenge sheet
• Name (first and surname, as they wish them to appear on the certificate)
• Date of birth
• Postcode (home postcode ideally)
• Gender
• Ethnicity
• Disability
• Award group worker (the person who supported them through the award)

This sheet has a drop down to confirm that you have permission to share the young people’s data with Youth Scotland. If this isn’t ticked the CRF will be sent back.

The challenge sheet data tab needs:

• Challenge titles
• Hours spent on their challenges
• If they’ve completed a Hi5 before
• Their evaluation data

The assessment form needs the worker to confirm that they have assessed the awards and they meet all the criteria.

My graphs is a page that shows you the breakdown of young people completing the awards in this submission, which may be helpful for your group

Once this spreadsheet is complete, please send it to awards@youthscotland.org.uk LINK

Youth Scotland will sample 10% of Hi5 submissions. If your submission is sampled you will need to scan or photograph the challenge sheets, and send these to the Awards team. These will be standardised to check that the quality of the awards is being upheld. After standardisation you will receive feedback, and you will either have your certificates sent back to you, or you will be asked to make changes before this can happen.

If your submission is not sampled then certificates will be sent to you within six weeks.

Once a young person has completed an award this should be celebrated! This might be by sharing on social media or holding a celebration event.

If the young person completes a second Hi5 Award the hours from their first will be included on their certificate. Once they reach 10 years old they can push themselves further and complete a Dynamic Youth Award.