NCFE · RQF Level 5
NCFE CACHE Level 5 Diploma in Advanced Playwork (Wales)
You don’t just earn this. You learn to use it, one-to-one, on your own real work.
- LevelRQF Level 5
- Total credits75
- Guided learning512 hours
- Units in this qualification23
Awarded by NCFE · on the Ofqual register
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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.
Allocate and monitor the progress and quality of work in own area of responsibilityReal unit · NCFE
What you'll be able to do
- Plan work for colleagues
- Brief colleagues on planned work
- Monitor colleagues’ work
- Support colleagues in their work
- Understand own sector context for allocating and monitoring work in own area of responsibility
- Understand own organisational context for allocating and monitoring work in own area of responsibility
- Understand how to plan work for colleagues
- Understand how to brief colleagues on planned work
- Understand how to monitor work carried out by colleagues
- Understand how to support colleagues in their work
Applying a reflective approach to improve professional developmentReal unit · NCFE
What you'll be able to do
- Understand a range of reflective learning theories and techniques
- Reflect on own learning to inform professional development
Appraise staff performanceReal unit · NCFE
What you'll be able to do
- Understand policies, theories and models which underpin appraisal of performance.
- Support others to understand the purpose of appraisal.
- Facilitate preparation for appraisals.
- Support appraise to participate in appraisal meetings.
- Evaluate own practice during the appraisal process.
Champion equality, diversity and inclusionReal unit · NCFE
What you'll be able to do
- Understand diversity, equality and inclusion in own area of responsibility
- Champion diversity, equality and inclusion
- Understand how to develop systems and processes that promote diversity, equality and inclusion
- Manage the risks presented when balancing individual rights and professional duty of care
Develop and implement procedures to safeguard children and young peopleReal unit · NCFE
What you'll be able to do
- Understand how to maintain procedures to safeguard children and young people
- Maintain procedures to safeguard children and young people
- Understand how to implement procedures to safeguard children and young people
- Implement procedures to safeguard children and young people
Develop, manage and review operational plans for play provisionReal unit · NCFE
What you'll be able to do
- Develop operational plans for play provision
- Manage change in play provision
- Implement organisational values, policies and procedures
- Review operational plans for play provision
Engage in personal development in health, social care or children’s and young people’s settingsReal unit · NCFE
What you'll be able to do
- Understand what is required for competence in own work role
- Reflect on practice
- Evaluate own performance
- Agree a personal development plan
- Use learning opportunities and reflective practice to contribute to personal development
Engage with parents, carers and families in a play environmentReal unit · NCFE
What you'll be able to do
- Develop relationships with parents, carers and families
- Communicate with parents, carers and families
- Support effective parenting as a playworker
- Understand how to develop relationships with parents, carers and families
- Understand how to communicate with parents, carers and families
- Understand how to support effective parenting as a playworker
Establish and develop working relationships to support children and young people’s playReal unit · NCFE
What you'll be able to do
- Build working relationships with colleagues
- Build working relationships with other professionals
- Enable colleagues to reflect on playwork practice
- Share knowledge with colleagues on playwork practice
Manage finance in own area of responsibilityReal unit · NCFE
What you'll be able to do
- Understand the sector context for managing finance
- Understand the organisational context for managing finance
- Establish financial responsibilities
- Understand how to establish budgetary systems
- Establish a master budget for own area
- Understand how to control budgets
- Control finance in own area
- Understand how to improve financial performance in own area
- Improve financial performance in own area
Obtain additional finance for the organisationReal unit · NCFE
What you'll be able to do
- Understand the sectoral context for raising additional finance
- Understand the organisational context for raising additional finance
- Evaluate alternative sources of finance
- Understand the need for additional finance
- Understand how to apply for additional finance
- Apply for additional finance
- Understand how to reach agreements on additional finance
- Reach agreements on additional finance
Provide information to support decision makingReal unit · NCFE
What you'll be able to do
- Understand how to obtain information for decision making
- Obtain information for decision making
- Understand how to record and store information
- Record and store information
- Understand the analytical skills involved in managing information
- Understand how to use information to make decisions
- Analyse information to support decision making
- Understand the communications skills required when managing information
- Understand how to advise and inform others
- Advise and inform others
Provide leadership in own area of responsibilityReal unit · NCFE
What you'll be able to do
- Understand the sector context for leadership
- Understand own personal context for leadership
- Establish the conditions for effective leadership in own area of responsibility
- Understand how to lead other people
- Lead people in own area of responsibility
- Understand how to empower other people through leadership
- Empower other people through effective leadership
Provide learning opportunities for colleaguesReal unit · NCFE
What you'll be able to do
- Encourage learning and development
- Help colleagues identify their learning needs and styles
- Help colleagues to plan and implement learning and development
- Help colleagues to implement learning opportunities
- Help colleagues to review and update learning and development plans
- Understand how to encourage learning and development
- Understand how to help colleagues identify their learning needs and styles
- Understand how to help colleagues to plan learning and development
- Understand how to help colleagues to implement learning and develop
Recruit, select and keep colleaguesReal unit · NCFE
What you'll be able to do
- Identify recruitment and selection needs
- Plan a recruitment and selection process
- Contribute to a recruitment and selection of people for identified vacancies
- Contribute to the retention of colleagues
- Understand own sector context for recruitment, selection and retention
- Understand own organisational context for recruitment, selection and retention
- Understand how to identify recruitment and selection needs
- Understand how to plan recruitment and selection processes
- Understand how to contribute to the recruitment and selection of people for ide
Research, design and facilitate possibilities for children and young people’s self-directed playReal unit · NCFE
What you'll be able to do
- Evaluate play behaviour and play theories
- Design spaces and possibilities for self-directed play
- Interact with children and young people during self-directed play
- Help children and young people to manage risk during play
Support others in accessing the resources they need to provide play environmentsReal unit · NCFE
What you'll be able to do
- Understand how to identify playwork needs and resources
- Identify the playwork needs and resources of other organisations and individuals
- Understand how to help organisations and individuals to share information on needs and resources
- Help organisations and individuals to share information on needs and resources
- Understand how to co-ordinate the provision of playwork resources
- Co-ordinate the provision of playwork resources
Understand how to develop, manage and review operational plans for play provisionReal unit · NCFE
What you'll be able to do
- Understand how to develop operational plans for play provision
- Understand how to manage operational change in playwork provision
- Understand how to implement organisational values, policies and procedures within the operational plan
- Understand how to review operational plans for play provision
Understand how to establish and develop working relationships to support children and young people’s playReal unit · NCFE
What you'll be able to do
- Understand how to establish and develop working relationships with colleagues in a playwork context
- Understand how to establish and develop working relationships with other professionals in a playwork context
- Understand how to facilitate reflective practice and the sharing of knowledge in a playwork context
- Understand legal and good practice requirements in relation to the sharing of information
Understand how to research, design and facilitate possibilities for children and young people’s self-directed playReal unit · NCFE
What you'll be able to do
- Understand how to evaluate play behaviour and play theories
- Understand how to design spaces and possibilities for self-directed play
- Understand how to interact with children and young people during self-directed play
- Understand how to help children and young people to manage risk during play
Understand how to work with colleagues and other key partners to develop an organisational framework for children and young people’s playReal unit · NCFE
What you'll be able to do
- Understand the importance of an organisational framework for children and young people’s play provision
- Understand how to research the social, economic, political, legal and ethical context in which a playwork organisation operates
- Understand how to research aspects of playwork practice relevant to an organisation’s provision
- Understand how to work with colleagues, children, young people and other key partners to develop playwork policy and practice
Understand the principles and theories underpinning playwork provisionReal unit · NCFE
What you'll be able to do
- Understand the role and value of play to children and young people
- Understand the theories that underpin effective playwork provision
- Understand the role of the playwork organisation in supporting children and young people’s play
Work with colleagues and other partners to develop an organisational framework for playReal unit · NCFE
What you'll be able to do
- Research the social, economic, political and ethical context for play provision
- Analyse the value and importance of play provision for children and young people to inform the development of an organisational framework for play
- Consult on research findings with colleagues and key partners
- Develop playwork policy and practice
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 5 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.
- Allocate and monitor the progress and quality of work in your area of responsibility
- Create playwork settings that support freely chosen self-directed play
- Develop an organisational framework for playwork that reflects the needs and protects the rights of children and young people
- Implement contemporary frameworks within the context of playwork
- Make decisions in the playwork setting
- Manage finance for your area of responsibility
- Manage operational plans for play provision
- Organise and support open access play opportunities in public spaces
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 5 Diploma in Advanced Playwork (Wales)
23 units in this credential, in the order it lists them, awarded by NCFE.
- Allocate and monitor the progress and quality of work in own area of responsibility
- Applying a reflective approach to improve professional development
- Appraise staff performance
- Champion equality, diversity and inclusion
- Develop and implement procedures to safeguard children and young people
- Develop, manage and review operational plans for play provision
and 17 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.