Landmark 20,000 Hi5 Awards achieved

Celebrating a milestone moment for the Hi5 Award

We’re thrilled to announce that in just six short years, an incredible 20,000 Hi5 Awards have been earned by young people across the country. 

In September 2017, the Hi5 was created to bring the celebrated Plan-Do-Review approach of Dynamic Youth Awards to young people in the 5+ age group. Since then, it has become a widely-used and powerful tool in closing the attainment gap and recognising the full range of young people’s achievements. 

Designed for flexibility and accessibility, this Award supports young people with a variety of interests and abilities, offering them the opportunity to set their own challenges and providing a clear framework to record and reflect on their accomplishments. 

With the 20,000 Hi5s earned so far, young people have built skills and confidence through a remarkable array of projects and activities, including STEM experiments, cooking lessons, fitness challenges, wellbeing workshops, arts and crafts creations, gardening and nature adventures, community service/volunteering work and much more. 

For Seth, a student from Castle Douglass Primary School, the Hi5 Award was an opportunity to explore clay sculpture and model-building and to help with a rewilding project in his school’s nature garden. Through these challenges, he was able to rediscover his love of learning and, for the first time post-Covid, found himself feeling excited to get to school.

We spoke with Seth’s mum and teachers about the difference that the Hi5 Award had made for Seth and other students at Castle Douglass.

You can read more about Seth’s Hi5 journey here and learn about the full suite of our youth awards here

For editors:  

About Youth Scotland:   

We are the largest national youth work organisation in Scotland, supporting 97,018 young people, 1,999 youth groups and over 10,775 youth workers. Youth Scotland has been around since the early 20th century and has a diverse membership network – from small rural youth groups to large urban projects. The common goal that we all share is better outcomes for young people. 

Our membership network is made up of local youth groups of all sizes, Area Associations and Youth Scotland staff who can provide support and training on a range of youth work topics. We are proud of the varied, universal youth work our network delivers and the innovative solutions our members create in an ever-changing youth work landscape.