Open Awards · RQF Entry Level

Open Awards Entry Level Certificate in Employability and Professional Development (Entry 1) (RQF)

You don’t just earn this. You learn to use it, one-to-one, on your own real work.

  • LevelRQF Entry Level
  • Total credits13
  • Guided learning130 hours
  • Units in this qualification23

Awarded by Open Awards · on the Ofqual register

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What you’ll learn

What each unit actually teaches you to do

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These are the units Open Awards 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.

Applying for Jobs and CoursesReal unit · Open Awards
You'll explore various methods of applying for jobs and courses, understanding the advantages and disadvantages of each. They will identify the necessary information required for applications and develop skills to complete application forms accurately.

What you'll be able to do

  • Know the different methods of applying for jobs and courses
  • Understand the information required when applying for a job or course
  • Complete application forms accurately and effectively
  • Prepare a job or course application, including a CV or personal statement
Causes of StressReal unit · Open Awards
This unit provides learners with knowledge of common causes of stress in daily life and the workplace. You'll identify physical and emotional effects of stress and explore strategies to manage stress and seek support when necessary.

What you'll be able to do

  • Recognise the common causes of stress
  • Identify the potential effects of stress on individuals
  • Understand strategies for managing stress
Dealing with ProblemsReal unit · Open Awards
You'll develop the ability to recognise problems, differentiate them from minor inconveniences, and identify appropriate sources of help. The unit supports participation in problem-solving processes within supervised environments.

What you'll be able to do

  • Recognise problems when they arise in a given situation
  • Identify appropriate individuals to ask for help when a problem arises
  • Participate in the process of solving a problem, under supervision
Developing Communication SkillsReal unit · Open Awards
This unit develops learners' communication skills, including active listening, clear speaking, and responding appropriately. You'll engage in discussions using various communication methods while respecting others' views and ensuring effective interaction.

What you'll be able to do

  • Demonstrate the ability to listen attentively and respond appropriately to other people
  • Demonstrate the ability to speak clearly (or use alternative communication methods) to communicate effectively with other people
  • Demonstrate the ability to engage constructively in discussions with other people
Developing Customer Service SkillsReal unit · Open Awards
This unit provides learners with knowledge of good customer service principles and the importance of making a positive first impression. You'll understand the benefits of effective customer service and how to communicate appropriately with customers.

What you'll be able to do

  • Know what good customer service is, including its key principles and benefits.
  • Understand the importance of a good first impression in customer service, including how to create one.
Developing Skills for the Workplace: Getting Things DoneReal unit · Open Awards
You'll learn to contribute effectively to workplace decision-making and problem-solving processes. They will learn to express opinions respectfully, identify causes of problems, suggest solutions, and work collabouratively with others.

What you'll be able to do

  • Be involved in decision making processes within the workplace.
  • Be involved in problem solving activities within the workplace.
  • Work effectively with others in a workplace setting.
Developing Skills for the Workplace: Health and SafetyReal unit · Open Awards
This unit introduces learners to key health and safety regulations relevant to the workplace. You'll understand the purpose of these regulations in protecting workers and the importance of following health and safety procedures to prevent accidents and injuries.

What you'll be able to do

  • Know the main health and safety regulations relevant to the workplace
  • Understand the importance of following health and safety procedures
  • Identify potential hazards in the workplace
  • Understand how to report accidents and incidents in the workplace
Developing Skills for the Workplace: Looking and Acting the PartReal unit · Open Awards
This unit develops learners' responsibility and professionalism in the workplace. You'll demonstrate punctuality, appropriate dress and hygiene, respectful behaviour, and understand the importance of taking ownership of their actions.

What you'll be able to do

  • Demonstrate the ability to take responsibility for themselves in a manner consistent with workplace expectations
Following InstructionsReal unit · Open Awards
You'll develop the ability to follow both written and verbal instructions accurately. The unit emphasises understanding key information, seeking clarification, and recognising the potential consequences of not following instructions in a work environment.

What you'll be able to do

  • Follow written instructions accurately
  • Follow verbal instructions accurately
  • Know the potential impact of not following instructions correctly in a work environment
  • Know the potential impact of not following instructions in a timely manner in a work environment
Job SearchingReal unit · Open Awards
You'll identify and evaluate their own skills, qualities, and experience in relation to different job roles. They will be able to identify job roles that match their interests and explain why specific jobs are suitable based on their personal attributes.

What you'll be able to do

  • Identify and evaluate own skills, qualities and experience
  • Identify job roles that align with their skills and interests
  • Research different job roles and their requirements
  • Identify sources of information about job opportunities
Participation in Team ActivitiesReal unit · Open Awards
You'll understand the importance of teamwork, recognise team members and their roles, and develop cooperation skills. The unit includes reviewing team performance to enhance effectiveness in educational, workplace, or social settings.

What you'll be able to do

  • Know why teamwork may be necessary in different situations
  • Recognise the individual members of a team
  • Understand the different roles and responsibilities of individuals within a team
  • Co-operate effectively as a member of a team
  • Review the overall performance of a team and its members
Personal PresentationReal unit · Open Awards
You'll understand the significance of personal appearance and its impact on self-confidence and first impressions. The unit covers facial and skin features, care products and techniques, hair care processes, and the safe use of related products and equipment.

What you'll be able to do

  • Recognise the importance of personal appearance and its impact on self-esteem and social interactions.
  • Understand the main features of the face and skin, including different skin types and common skin conditions.
  • Recognise face and skin care products and techniques suitable for different skin types and concerns.
  • Know the processes involved in hair care, including washing, conditioning, and styling.
  • Understand the responsibility of using products and equipment safely and effectively, following manufacturer's instructions and safety guidelines.
Preparation for WorkReal unit · Open Awards
It teaches you to recognise and describe their personal skills and qualities and understand their significance in the workplace. You'll explore different types of work and consider career options aligned with their skills and qualities.

What you'll be able to do

  • Recognise and describe their own personal skills and qualities
  • Understand the importance of personal skills and qualities in the workplace
  • Identify different types of work and work environments
  • Know what kind of work they would like to try based on their skills, qualities and interests
Preparing for Work PlacementReal unit · Open Awards
This unit prepares learners for work placements by providing knowledge of their purpose, types, and the roles of employers and learners. You'll identify personal goals and skills to develop during placements to maximise learning opportunities.

What you'll be able to do

  • Know the purpose and objectives of a work placement
  • Understand the different types of work placements available
  • Identify personal goals and objectives for a work placement
  • Identify the skills they want to develop through the work placement
Setting Work Related TargetsReal unit · Open Awards
It teaches you to understand the purpose and process of setting work-related targets. You'll identify their own targets, understand factors affecting achievement, and recognise how their goals contribute to organisational objectives.

What you'll be able to do

  • Engage in the process of setting work-related targets, including understanding the purpose of targets and how to set them
  • Know their own work-related targets, including what they are, how to achieve them, and how they contribute to the organisation's goals
Taking Part in an InterviewReal unit · Open Awards
You'll learn to present themselves professionally and participate effectively in interviews. The unit covers appropriate body language, clear communication, responding to questions, and asking relevant questions to create a positive impression.

What you'll be able to do

  • Demonstrate the ability to present oneself effectively at an interview
  • Demonstrate the ability to actively take part in an interview
Understanding what Money is Used ForReal unit · Open Awards
You'll gain an awareness of the uses of money, including budgeting, saving, and spending. The unit covers different saving methods and explains how money is allocated for various financial purposes.

What you'll be able to do

  • Have an awareness of the use of money for different purposes, including budgeting, saving, and spending
Using ICT Skills in a Work PlaceReal unit · Open Awards
You'll develop the ability to use ICT tools and software effectively in the workplace. The unit includes identifying personal ICT skill gaps, participating in training, practising skills, and responding to feedback to enhance workplace performance.

What you'll be able to do

  • Use ICT in a work place to complete tasks effectively
  • Identify own ICT skills that need to be developed for a work place, including areas for improvement
  • Develop ICT skills in a work place through training, practice, and feedback
Using Number Skills in a Work PlaceReal unit · Open Awards
You'll recognise the application of number skills in workplace tasks and identify areas for personal development. The unit supports improving numeracy skills to enhance efficiency and accuracy in performing calculations relevant to the workplace.

What you'll be able to do

  • Recognise situations where number skills are required in a workplace environment
  • Identify personal number skills that require development for effective use in a workplace
  • Develop number skills to meet the demands of a workplace environment
Using Reading Skills in a Work PlaceReal unit · Open Awards
It teaches you to recognise when reading skills are required in the workplace and to identify documents commonly encountered. You'll assess their reading abilities and develop comprehension, speed, and accuracy to support workplace tasks.

What you'll be able to do

  • Recognise situations where reading skills are required in a workplace environment
  • Identify personal reading skills that require development for effective use in a workplace
  • Develop reading skills to meet the demands of a workplace environment
Using Writing Skills in a Work PlaceReal unit · Open Awards
This unit focuses on recognising the importance of writing skills in workplace communication. You'll identify areas for improvement in their writing and develop these skills through practice, feedback, and training to ensure clear and effective written communication.

What you'll be able to do

  • Know when writing skills are needed in a work place, including different types of written communication
  • Identify own writing skills that need to be developed for a work place, including grammar, spelling, and punctuation
  • Develop writing skills in a work place through practice, feedback, and training
Using a Computer Keyboard in a Workplace SettingReal unit · Open Awards
You'll develop proficiency in typing using an alphanumeric keyboard with touch typing techniques. The unit emphasises accuracy, correct posture, and hand placement to improve typing speed and minimise errors in a workplace setting.

What you'll be able to do

  • Type accurately using an alphanumeric keyboard in a workplace setting.
Using a Telephone in a Workplace SettingReal unit · Open Awards
This unit develops learners' skills in handling telephone communications professionally within a workplace. You'll practise answering calls promptly, using appropriate greetings, recording messages accurately, and transferring calls effectively.

What you'll be able to do

  • Answer a telephone in a workplace setting in a professional manner
  • Take messages accurately using a telephone in a workplace setting
  • Transfer calls using a telephone in a workplace setting

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

Entry Level 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.

Applying for Jobs and CoursesCauses of StressDealing with ProblemsDeveloping Communication SkillsDeveloping Customer Service SkillsDeveloping Skills for the Workplace: Getting Things DoneDeveloping Skills for the Workplace: Health and SafetyDeveloping Skills for the Workplace: Looking and Acting the Part

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 tutors

Where 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.

Where this can lead

Health and Safety Training Specialist

Your journey in health and safety training can take many exciting directions. We're here to support your growth, whether that's becoming a master instructional designer, a leader of people, or a broad EHS expert. The most important thing is your commitment to keeping our people safe.

See the whole journey →

Showing 6 roles, drawn from 15 job records mapped to this qualification.

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.

Draft and serve notices or other statutory enforceable documents for the purposes of work

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.

One-to-one, on your real workNo lectures, no past-papers. Every unit is practised on the actual tasks your job throws at you, a tutor beside you, not a video in front of you.
Taught to the top, not the testMost courses stop at remembering. Your companion keeps climbing: analysing, judging, creating. That’s the part a machine can’t do for you.
Credits you keep, a map that continuesEvery unit is regulated and yours for good. The day you finish, Zavmo already knows the next role your new credits open.
Applying for Jobs and CoursesEntry Level

Applied to your work in any of these jobs

Learners will explore various methods of applying for jobs and courses, understanding the advantages and disadvantages of each. They will identify the necessary information required for applications and develop skills to complete application forms accurately.

How the thinking builds
  1. Remember
  2. Understand
  3. Apply
  4. Analyse
  5. Evaluate
  6. Create
An illustration of a Zavmo lesson, built from this role’s own route. The unit, its objective and every criterion above are the awarding body’s own words, not an example.
Your PlanIllustration

Built for Open Awards Entry Level Certificate in Employability and Professional Development (Entry 1) (RQF)

23 units in this credential, in the order it lists them, awarded by Open Awards.

  1. Applying for Jobs and Courses
  2. Causes of Stress
  3. Dealing with Problems
  4. Developing Communication Skills
  5. Developing Customer Service Skills
  6. Developing Skills for the Workplace: Getting Things Done

and 17 more in the full unit list below.

These are the real units of this credential, in its own order. Nothing here is marked done, because this plan has not been started by anyone yet. Yours would fill in as you go.

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.

  1. Your actual work Every unit is taught against a live piece of your own work, not a worked example from a textbook.
  2. 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.
  3. 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.
  4. 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.
  5. 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.

  1. 6CreateThe Creative Catalyst
  2. 5EvaluateThe Evidence Evaluator
  3. 4AnalyseThe Analyst
  4. 3ApplyThe Coach
  5. 2UnderstandThe Connector
  6. 1RememberThe Builder

Where most courses leave you Where Zavmo takes you

Why this matters: AI can already remember and understand for you. What it can’t do is take your real problem and judge the right call. So the only learning worth paying for is the learning that takes you to the top. That’s exactly what a tutor doing it with you, on your real work, is for.

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, free

No 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.