Council for Awards in Care, Health and Education · RQF Level 3
CACHE Level 3 Certificate in Playwork (QCF)
You don’t just earn this. You learn to use it, one-to-one, on your own real work.
- LevelRQF Level 3
- Total credits33
- Guided learning120 hours
- Units in this qualification5
Awarded by Council for Awards in Care, Health and Education · on the Ofqual register
Start here
See how this course maps onto your role
Ten quick questions, one per Future Fluency, asked against this qualification rather than a generic one.
About 5 minutes · No card · Nothing to commit to
What you’ll learn
What each unit actually teaches you to do
These are the units Council for Awards in Care, Health and Education registers against this qualification. It is a catalogue, not a syllabus. Which of them you take depends on the combination the qualification requires, and that is set by the awarding body rather than by us. Every unit here is regulated, and every one you earn is yours to keep.
An introduction to play and playwork in the lives of children and young people including the principles, values and professional contextReal unit · Council for Awards in Care, Health and Education
What you'll be able to do
- Understand the importance of current play theories, and the different memories and experiences of the reflective practitioner when observing children and young people at play.
- Understand how the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, The Disability Discrimination Act and the Race Relations Act support the child or young person’s right to play and the importance of policies relating to health and safety and ...
- ... child protection legislation in supporting these rights.
- Understand how the playwork principles, assumptions and values can inform and help playworkers to relate to and work wi
How playworkers relate to, support and safeguard children and young people in play settingsReal unit · Council for Awards in Care, Health and Education
What you'll be able to do
- Understand the role of the playworker in creating a play environment where all children and young people's rights are supported and where they feel listened to and respected.
- Recognise the impact of adult perceptions and behaviour on children and young people’s behaviour and what lessons can be learnt from this.
- Understand how a playworker can build good relationships with children and young people, helping them to gain independence.
- Understand how to recognise, interpret and then respond to children and young people’s behaviours.
- Understand how a playworker’s behaviour and play needs may
The playworker's legal and managerial roles and responsibilities in providing a quality play settingReal unit · Council for Awards in Care, Health and Education
What you'll be able to do
- Understand the importance of current legislation on playwork practice and the need for developing and reviewing policies, procedures and evaluative frameworks that underpin playwork practice and children's rights.
- Understand the significance of recording and sharing information, and the people this may involve, in line with key legislation.
- Understand why relevant national legislation is important in the implementation of strategies to support inclusion, anti-discriminatory practice and diversity in the play setting.
- Understand the types of organisational and staffing structures and managem
The playworker's role and responsibilities in creating and resourcing inclusive and challenging play environmentsReal unit · Council for Awards in Care, Health and Education
What you'll be able to do
- Understand factors involved in planning and creating inclusive physical play spaces and resourcing loose parts that may spark self-directed play across the age range.
- Understand factors involved in observation for planning and resourcing play spaces that value inclusion and diversity and that both create and support different moods and atmospheres, and inform future practice.
- Understand role and responsibilities of the playworker, including relevant legislation, in maintaining a safe and healthy play environment, and taking into account the risks from possible physical, emotional and behavio
The playworker's role and responsibilities within the local public and professional communityReal unit · Council for Awards in Care, Health and Education
What you'll be able to do
- Understand a range of factors and experiences that affect children and young people's play behaviour.
- Understand transitions in children and young people’s lives.
- Understand why information needs to be collected about children, their families and their neighbourhood.
- Understand the range of sources of professional support and information available meet the needs and interests of all children and young people.
- Understand the importance and benefits of a professional network and working in partnership with individuals in the community and other organisations, and local authority play policie
The honest bit
You’ve started things before
Most courses were built for a room full of people who aren’t you. A cohort moves on whether or not your week allowed it, and by the third week the thing you’re behind on becomes the reason you stop opening it.
There’s no cohort here, and no timetable to fall behind. Before anything starts, Zavmo asks when you’re sharpest and how long you can realistically sit down for, then builds the sessions around those answers. A bad fortnight changes your pace. It doesn’t put you behind.
And you only pay once you start learning. Searching and planning are free, and you can cancel any time — so the cost of finding out is an afternoon, not a year.
Your passport
Every credit is a stamp you keep
Level 3 credits are regulated. They don’t vanish when a subscription ends or a website closes. They travel to any employer, and Zavmo keeps the map of what you’ve earned and what’s next.
Each stamp is a real unit registered against this qualification.
Who’d teach you this
The Evidence Evaluator
Assessor
Helps you show what you can actually do, gathering the evidence that proves it as you learn.
Meet all twelve tutorsWhere this connects
Where these credits take you
A qualification is never a dead end here. See the jobs its credits open, the national occupational standards its units map to, and the future skills they quietly build.
- Carry out playwork in a specialist services environment
- Carry out playwork in prisons
- Contribute to playwork administration
- Contribute to the development and maintenance of relationships with children, young people and others in the playwork setting
- Contribute to the development and review of policies and procedures relating to the rights of children and young people
- Contribute to the implementation of policies and procedures to safeguard children and young people within the playwork setting
- Create playwork settings that support freely chosen self-directed play
- Develop and review policies and procedures relating to the rights of children and young people
Skills it covers
What the job actually needs. These are the standards the units are built against, in the words employers and awarding bodies already use for the work itself.
How you’ll actually learn this
One-to-one, on your own real work
A qualification is usually something done to you: sit the class, sit the exam, hope it sticks. Here it’s the opposite. You learn it one-to-one with a companion, on your own real work, and you keep going until you can use it, not just recall it.
Applied to your own work
- Remember
- Understand
- Apply
- Analyse
- Evaluate
- Create
Built for CACHE Level 3 Certificate in Playwork (QCF)
5 units in this credential, in the order it lists them, awarded by Council for Awards in Care, Health and Education.
- An introduction to play and playwork in the lives of children and young people including the principles, values and professional context
- How playworkers relate to, support and safeguard children and young people in play settings
- The playworker's legal and managerial roles and responsibilities in providing a quality play setting
- The playworker's role and responsibilities in creating and resourcing inclusive and challenging play environments
- The playworker's role and responsibilities within the local public and professional community
One to one, not one to many
No two people run this the same way
A course is written once and handed to everyone. This is assembled around you, and keeps changing as it learns you. Five things it reads, and what each one changes.
- Your actual work Every unit is taught against a live piece of your own work, not a worked example from a textbook.
- What you already know The first conversation finds your starting point, so you skip what you can already do and spend the time on what you cannot.
- The conditions you learn under Not a learning-styles quiz. The evidence does not support those. The dimensions the research does back, read once and used to shape the plan.
- How far you got last time It picks up mid-thought. The tutor knows what you said, what you struggled with, and what it asked you to try.
- Which tutor suits the moment Twelve of them, each for a different kind of thinking. The one who walks you through a first idea is not the one who stress-tests it.
See how you learn, free. Eight questions, no sign-up. A directional taster; the diagnostic inside Zavmo goes deeper and keeps adapting.
Why it sticks
Most courses stop at remembering
There’s a well-known ladder of how deeply you learn something, called Bloom’s Taxonomy. Most courses get you up the first two rungs: you remember some facts, you pass a test, you forget it. Real skill lives at the top. Judging, deciding, creating. And this isn’t a generic ladder: every rung has a named Zavmo tutor who walks you up it.
- 6CreateThe Creative Catalyst
- 5EvaluateThe Evidence Evaluator
- 4AnalyseThe Analyst
- 3ApplyThe Coach
- 2UnderstandThe Connector
- 1RememberThe Builder
Where most courses leave you Where Zavmo takes you
The value
Why the companion is worth £70 a month
You’re not paying for the units. They’re regulated, and the same wherever you earn them. You’re paying for the one thing that decides whether you actually get there: a companion that makes them stick, on your real work.
That is one-to-one on this qualification, every day, on the work you already do, for £70 a month. Your first module is free, so you can see the teaching before you pay for any of it. Billed monthly, cancel any time and billing stops.
Earned on your own work, taught to the top.
Everything you just read, learned one-to-one on the job you already do. Your first module is free, so you can see the teaching before you pay for any of it.
Build my plan, freeNo card. See how this qualification maps onto your role and meet the tutors who’d teach it, free. The learning begins when you subscribe. It’s £70 a month, billed monthly. Cancel any time and billing stops.