NCFE · RQF Level 2
NCFE CACHE Level 2 Diploma in Playwork (NVQ)
You don’t just earn this. You learn to use it, one-to-one, on your own real work.
- LevelRQF Level 2
- Total credits61
- Guided learning437 hours
- Units in this qualification20
Awarded by NCFE · 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 NCFE 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.
Carry Out Playwork in a School SettingReal unit · NCFE
What you'll be able to do
- Establish a play space within the school setting
- Facilitate play in a school setting
- Carry out playwork in a school setting
Contribute to Providing Food and Drink in the Play EnvironmentReal unit · NCFE
What you'll be able to do
- Provide food and drink in a play environment
- Contribute to providing food and drink in the play environment
Contribute to Supporting Disabled Children and Young People in the Play EnvironmentReal unit · NCFE
What you'll be able to do
- Prepare for playwork with disabled children and young people
- Carry out playwork with disabled children and young people
- Understand the principles of playwork with disabled children and young people
- Support play when working with disabled children and young people
Contribute to the Administration of the Play EnvironmentReal unit · NCFE
What you'll be able to do
- Process financial transactions relevant to the play environment
- Handle information relevant to the play environment
- Maintain records relevant to the play environment
- Process payments relevant to the play environment
- Handle information relevant to the play environment
- Maintain records relevant to the play environment
Contribute to the Health, Safety, Security and Welfare of Children and Young People using the Play EnvironmentReal unit · NCFE
What you'll be able to do
- Support the health, safety and security of children and young people
- Respond to emergencies
- Help to safeguard the welfare of children and young people
Developing Own Playwork and Team PracticeReal unit · NCFE
What you'll be able to do
- Develop own playwork practice
- Work as part of a playwork team
- Reflect on playwork practice as part of a team
Facilitate a Specific Play Opportunity at Children or Young People’s RequestReal unit · NCFE
What you'll be able to do
- Plan a specific play opportunity
- Prepare a specific play opportunity
- Implement a specific play opportunity
- Understand the principles of facilitating a specific play opportunity at children or young people’s request
- Plan a specific play opportunity at children and young people’s request
- Prepare a specific plan opportunity at children and young people’s request
- Facilitate a specific play opportunity at children and young people’s request
Health and safety in the Play EnvironmentReal unit · NCFE
What you'll be able to do
- Balance challenge and risk with health and safety requirements in the play environment
- Assist children and young people to manage risk for themselves
- Respond to hazards in the play environment
- Respond to injuries and illnesses in the play environment
- Respond to emergencies other than injuries and illnesses in the play environment
Help to Improve Own Practice and the Work of the Playwork TeamReal unit · NCFE
What you'll be able to do
- Reflect on own playwork practice
- Improve own playwork practice
- Support the work of the playwork team
Playwork PrinciplesReal unit · NCFE
What you'll be able to do
- Understand the nature and value of play
- Understand the role of the playworker in supporting children and young people’s play
Reflective Playwork PracticeReal unit · NCFE
What you'll be able to do
- Work with children and young people to create play spaces
- Ensure a play space is inclusive
- Identify children and young people’s play needs and wants
- Support children and young people’s play
- Apply playwork practice
- Reflect on own playwork practice
Relationships in the Play EnvironmentReal unit · NCFE
What you'll be able to do
- Understand the role of the playworker in building and maintaining relationships with children and young people in the play environment
- Understand the principles of communicating with children and young people
- Understand how to support relationships between children and young people and others in the play environment
- Understand the impact of transitions on children and young people’s relationships with others
Support Relationships in the Play EnvironmentReal unit · NCFE
What you'll be able to do
- Develop and maintain relationships with children and young people
- Support relationships between children and young people and others in the play environment
Support Work with Parents and Carers in the Play EnvironmentReal unit · NCFE
What you'll be able to do
- Contribute to working relationships with parents and carers
- Support the involvement of parents and carers in the play environment
- Understand the principles of working with parents and carers in the play environment
- Contribute to working relationships with parents and carers
- Involve parents and carers in the play environment
Support the Development of Playwork Opportunities in the CommunityReal unit · NCFE
What you'll be able to do
- Communicate with people in the community about own work
- Support positive links and partnerships with other organisations and individuals
- Communicate with people in the community about own work
- Support positive links and partnerships with other organisations and individuals
Support the Travel of Children and Young People Outside the Play EnvironmentReal unit · NCFE
What you'll be able to do
- Support the arrival and departure of children and young people
- Support children and young people during travel
- Understand the principles of supporting the travel of children and young people outside the play environment
- Understand how to escort children and young people outside of the play environment
Supporting Children and Young People’s PlayReal unit · NCFE
What you'll be able to do
- Understand the nature of freely chosen, self-directed play
- Support children and young people’s play
- Reflect on own playwork practice
The Safeguarding and Welfare of Children and Young People in the Play EnvironmentReal unit · NCFE
What you'll be able to do
- Understand the requirements for safeguarding children and young people in a play environment
- Know about the different forms of abuse that can affect children and young people
- Respond to concerns about children and young people’s welfare
- Maintain the welfare of children and young people in the play environment
Work with Children and Young People to Create Play Spaces and Support Freely Chosen Self-Directed PlayReal unit · NCFE
What you'll be able to do
- Work with children and young people to create a variety of play spaces
- Support children and young people’s freely chosen, self-directed play
Working within a play environment with children and young peopleReal unit · NCFE
What you'll be able to do
- Understand the nature of the playworker’s relationship with children and young people
- Know the playworker’s responsibilities for supporting a safe and challenging play environment
- Contribute to an inclusive and stimulating play environment
- Know the playworker’s responsibilities for safeguarding children and young people
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 2 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.
- Contribute to supporting disabled children and young people in the playwork setting
- Contribute to the communication and promotion of work being undertaken in your playwork setting
- Contribute to the development and maintenance of links and partnerships in the playwork setting
- Contribute to the health, safety and wellbeing of children and young people in the playwork setting
- Contribute to the implementation of policies and procedures to safeguard children and young people within the playwork setting
- Contribute to the running of a playwork setting
- Create playwork settings that support freely chosen self-directed play
- Identify safeguarding concerns relating to children and young people in the playwork setting
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 NCFE CACHE Level 2 Diploma in Playwork (NVQ)
20 units in this credential, in the order it lists them, awarded by NCFE.
- Carry Out Playwork in a School Setting
- Contribute to Providing Food and Drink in the Play Environment
- Contribute to Supporting Disabled Children and Young People in the Play Environment
- Contribute to the Administration of the Play Environment
- Contribute to the Health, Safety, Security and Welfare of Children and Young People using the Play Environment
- Developing Own Playwork and Team Practice
and 14 more in the full unit list below.
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.