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Hi-vis hustle

Use the torches and seek out hi-vis items in this head-to-head team game.

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You’ll need

  • Torch or phone
  • Hi-vis items

Before you begin

  • Use the safety checklist to help you plan and risk assess your activity. Additional help to carry out your risk assessment, including examples can be found here. Don’t forget to make sure all young people and adults involved in the activity know how to take part safely.
  • Make sure you’ll have enough adult helpers. You may need some parents and carers to help if you’re short on helpers

Getting ready to run this activity

  • Hide a number of high-vis items around the room, such as jackets and bands, before everyone arrives.
  • Make sure the playing area is safe, as participants will be playing in the dark with torches. For example, you may to face any stacks of chairs with the seats facing towards the wall to prevent them falling.

Explain the game

  1. Gather everyone together in a circle.
  2. Ask everyone if they know what hi-visibility jackets are.
  3. See if anyone knows the importance of high visibility jackets or items.
  4. Can anyone name where they're worn, such as by cyclists, teachers, builders, lollipop people, event security, airport ground crews, rail workers and parking attendants? They all wear it to keep safe and to be seen. It can also let people easily identify someone who can help them at an event or in a space, such as a school playground.
  5. Tell everyone that you're going to play a game of hide and seek with high-vis items. 
  6. Explain that participants must try to find all of the high-vis items hidden around the room.
  7. There'll be two teams trying to find the high-vis items. Whichever team finds the most, wins!

Play the game

  1. Give torches to everyone in the group and ask them to spread out along the side of the meeting space. The torches will help everyone find the high-vis items more easily.
  2. Tell everyone what to do if there's an emergency and they need to find a volunteer. For example, one volunteer could keep a torch and be well-lit throughout the activity.
  3. When everyone's ready, dim (or turn off) the lights in the meeting space until it’s quite dark.
  4. Give everyone a few minutes to find as many items as they can before switching on the main lights.
  5. Each team should count up how many high-vis items they've found and the winner announced.

Reflection

It’s important to stay safe while you’re taking part in lots of activities, especially cycling.

Ask everyone if they think you only wear hi-visibility clothing or items when it’s dark. Explain that it’s useful at any time, especially in the rain, so we should always wear it when cycling. Some people may keep hi-vis jackets in their car for when they break down, too.

What other things might make it easier to be seen in the dark, as well as high-vis? Using torches or headtorches can help us, as well as sticking to well-lit routes.

Safety

All activities must be safely managed. You must complete a thorough risk assessment and take appropriate steps to reduce risk. Use the safety checklist to help you plan and risk assess your activity. Always get approval for the activity, and have suitable supervision and an InTouch process.

Outdoor activities

You must have permission to use the location. Always check the weather forecast, and inform parents and carers of any change in venue.

Dark

Provide some light, so the environment isn’t completely dark. Everyone must be able to see others and move around the area safely.

Contact games and activities

Make sure everyone understands what contact is acceptable, and monitor contact throughout the activity.

Active games

The game area should be free of hazards. Explain the rules of the game clearly and have a clear way to communicate that the game must stop when needed. Take a look at our guidance on running active games safely.

Players in search of the hi-vis items could also be asked to crawl or wear sunglasses to increase the difficulty.

To make the game harder, you could play the game timed.

To make the game harder, you could have a team of guards and a team of robbers. Only the guards get given torches. The robbers need to try to find and collect as many hi-vis items as possible using the guard's light. If the guards shine their torch on a robber, then that player is out. Once all robbers have been caught by the guards, or all the hi-vis is collected, the number of hi-vis items collected is counted and everyone switches roles, so the guards now become the robbers. The team who collected the most items as the robbers, wins. You could also play that the guards who got the most robbers, or got the whole team out in the fastest time, wins.

Make it accessible

All Scout activities should be inclusive and accessible.

Cubs Cyclist Activity Badge