Is that on the SCQF...? Part 2

** UPDATE MARCH 2020** You can now access Hi5 Award resources electronically. The Hi5 Award at home offers young people the chance to gain an accredited award for wider achievement through a minimum of 5 hours spent on an activity from home. Click here for Details

Responding to the needs of its pre-high school audience, Youth Scotland recently developed and launched the Hi5 Award for ages 5+. The award provides a means of recording and recognising their learning and wider achievement.

Highly adaptable, the Hi5 Award does not come with a prescribed programme but instead is based on activities that the young people choose to be involved in, making it suitable for all interests and abilities.

The award has been credit rated by the Scottish Qualifications Authority (SQA) on the Scottish Credit and Qualifications Framework (SCQF) at level 2 with 1 to 3 SCQF credit points. This adds value and credibility to the award as it requires a quality assurance process to be in place to ensure that national standards are met.

Youth Scotland, the national charity for community based youth work, originally developed the award to formally recognise the achievements of young people within youth groups and clubs. Following a highly successful pilot and launch, the Hi5 Award is now finding use much more widely. It is being run within primary schools, sports clubs, with child minders, and even at home with parents looking to become involved in recognising their children’s learning and development.

One example in the education sector is Auldhouse Primary School in South Lanarkshire, a small rural school, which used the awards to engage with parents and helped their children to complete their awards out of school. This allowed the young people to share what they had learned with their parents and family in order to achieve their awards.

In the voluntary sector, 4th and 4thA City of Edinburgh Brownie Unit use the awards to formally recognise the activities they offer. Anna Thomas, Brownie Leader, said, “We used the award to help the girls record how they kept their Brownie Promise over the course of a week. The girls absolutely loved getting a certificate for their achievements.”

Youth Scotland was also contacted by a parent from Dundee who shared how completing a Hi5 Award and receiving a certificate had really helped her son. He was struggling in school and by completing his award at home with his family he gained in confidence and self-belief and this in turn impacted positively on his school learning.

These examples illustrate one of the key aims of Youth Scotland of supporting all young people in Scotland to reach their full potential. By offering an SCQF credit rated award that is accessible for all, caters for all interests and abilities and which builds confidence and a sense of self-worth, we hope to play our part in creating a culture of achievement in Scotland - beginning at age 5.

For more information on learning programmes on the SCQF, have a look at the SCQF Database.

About Youth Scotland and the Hi5 Award:
We are Scotland’s network for community based youth work. We provide quality youth work programmes, youth awards, information, resources, training and support to local youth workers and groups.

The Hi5 Award launched a year ago and has enjoyed enormous popularity among a diverse audience. More recently, the award was featured at The Scottish Learning Festival where Youth Scotland launched the new Hi5 STEM Activity Toolkit to support STEM skills and learning.

More information on the Hi5 Award from Youth Scotland


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