Completing a Platinum YAA

The young person must undertake 30 hours of training as part of their Platinum YAA. This should link back to the gaps in their knowledge identified in their PDP.

They need to describe their training in the challenge sheet, and come up with 2-4 targets which they will achieve during their training.

They must record in their challenge sheets when they plan to start and finish their training.

They must evidence and review their training (see below).

The young person must undertake one or more placements totalling at least 60 hours, where they take complete responsibilty for creating and delivering learning opportunities for others.

They need to describe their placements in the challenge sheet, and come up with 2-4 targets which they will achieve during their placements.

They must record in their challenge sheets when they plan to start and finish their placements.

They must evidence and review their placements (see below).

The young person needs to create a detailed evaluation of everything that they’ve learned and achieved during their Platinum YAA.

The targets for the evaluation are:

•  I will reflect on how effective the planning process has been in helping me to understand my current situation and
  identify how I can move forward.
• I will show how the training helped me address the gaps in my experience, knowledge and skills.
• I will show how the placement(s) helped develop my existing skills and new skills acquired through training.
• I will illustrate how I have benefited from the training and placement(s).
• I will illustrate how the Platinum Award has helped me identify and meet my personal goals.

They must record in their challenge sheets when they plan to start and finish this evaluation.

They must evidence and review their evaluation (see below).

The last part of their award is planning and giving a presentation about everything they’ve achieved during their Platinum YAA. This will be shared with an audience of their choice.

Whilst planning their presentation they need to consider the following things and record them on the challenge sheet:

• where and when the presentation will take place (it can be online)
• who will be invited
• six key points that they will cover
• how they’ll present their evidence
• any arrangements they’ll need to make in advance
• any arrangements they’ll need to make on the day
• questions they think they’ll be asked

They must evidence and review their presentation (see below).

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.

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

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.

For all challenges the young person should reflect on whether they met their planned targets and record this in the challenge sheet.

There is space in the challenge sheet to write in the number of hours spent on the challenge. The total hours should be a whole number.

There are some statements that they need to decide if they’ve achieved, and five reflection statements for the young people to complete for each challenge:

• The most difficult thing was…
• I learned…
• I enjoyed…
• I gained…
• Things I would do differently next time…

Each challenge and the whole award is peer assessed. A peer can be any other young person for example a friend, a sibling, someone else in the award group or a young person who they don’t know but has done a similar project.

The peer assessor does not need to have completed an award before, and different peer assessors can assess throughout the award.

At the start of the training and placement the peer assessor needs to approve the challenge, checking that the young person has planned a suitable challenge with good, clear targets, that will take the right amount of time.

At the end of each challenge the peer assessor needs to check that there is clear evidence of the challenge, the targets, the time commitment and the level of responsibility.

The peer assessor must sign and date each time they peer assess.

The young person needs to reflect on their award as a whole, thinking about what they have achieved and the difference they feel this has
made.

There are some statements that they should tick to show what difference the award has made to them, and a box to add in any other way the award has helped them.

They must then sign and date their completed booklet, and a peer assessor will sign off their completed award, checking that they have approved and assessed all challenges and the evaluation.

The award need to be checked twice to see if they meet all the criteria. This can 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. (The internal verifier was previously called agency assessor, and some paperwork hasn’t had this change made.)  This must be ticked off on the quality assurance checklist in the booklet. The criteria of the YAA are.

For each challenge:

• there is clear evidence to show sucessful 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:

• at least two targets have been identified
• the targets have been approved by the peer assessor
• there 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:

• at least two targets have been identified
• the targets have been approved by the peer assessor
• 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.

To submit YAAs to Youth Scotland you must complete a candidate registration form (CRF). This can be downloaded here: YAA Candidate Registration Form

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 CRF tab needs the following details about the group:

• Local authority area – please select from the dropdown list
• Awards delivery hub
• Awards delivery group
• If your hub or group name isn’t here please contact awards@youthscotland.org.uk to find out why and get it added
• Contact email address for addressing any issues with the form

It then needs the following information about the young people:

• Booklet number (this was emailed to you alongside the digital challenge sheet)
• Candidate name
• Award level (Bronze, Silver, Gold, Platinum)
• Date of birth
• Postcode
• Gender
• Ethnicity
• Disability
• Scottish candidate number (this is needed to register the award with SQA)
• Name of award group worker

The internal verifer needs to sign and date this form. 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 evaluation tab needs the candidates evaluation data.

The invoicing tab needs the group contact details for the invoice, and a purchase order number. We cannot process the awards without a purchase order number unless you have prepaid.

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