UK
How you’d get it

How you’d get this certificate

  1. Zavmo teaches you. You learn the units one-to-one with an AI tutor, on your own work.
  2. You register with an approved centre. That is a college, training provider or employer Defence Awarding Organisation has approved to offer this qualification. Zavmo is not an approved centre, so you register with them, not with us.
  3. The centre assesses, and Defence Awarding Organisation awards. A qualified assessor at the centre judges your evidence, and the certificate comes from Defence Awarding Organisation.

More on studying for a qualification

01What it is

Qualifications for Defence Awarding Organisation courses.

These are the units Defence Awarding Organisation 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. Zavmo teaches towards them on your own work.

Zavmo is not an awarding body, is not an approved centre, and is not affiliated with Defence Awarding Organisation. It does the teaching and the mapping. Defence Awarding Organisation sets this qualification and awards it, and a qualified human assessor makes the assessment decision.

02The units

What each unit actually teaches you to do

Astronomies and Tidal Theory Real unit · Defence Awarding Organisation
You'll develop skills in preparing and executing pilotage and passage plans, including anchoring and mooring considerations. This unit covers gathering navigational information, planning routes, and supporting passage plan execution using precise navigation techniques.

What you'll be able to do

  • Prepare a pilotage plan
  • Demonstrate execution of pilotage
  • Demonstrate how to precisely plan for periods at anchor / mooring
  • Prepare a passage plan
  • Support the execution and conduct of passage plans
  • Demonstrate the ability to navigate using in-depth Astronomical Techniques and Tidal Calculation
Battlespace Management Real unit · Defence Awarding Organisation
It teaches you to interpret and manage the maritime battlespace, focusing on navigation and operations within military and civilian contexts. You'll develop skills in de-conflicting activities and liaising with relevant officers to ensure safe maritime operations.

What you'll be able to do

  • Interpret Maritime Battlespace with regard to unit and Task Group Navigation and operations in the littoral
  • De-conflict Maritime Battlespace for other Military Activity
  • De-conflict Maritime Battlespace requirements from Civilian Activity
  • Liaise with Capital Ship Navigation Officers with respect to ordering tactical manoeuvring and fleet work within allocated Battlespace
  • Plan confined channel and international strait transit
  • Conduct confined channel transit
  • Advise on Navigation aspects of Maritime Battlespace Management
  • Manage the bridge aspects of warfare serials and activities
General Navigation and Specialist Navigation Knowledge Real unit · Defence Awarding Organisation
This unit covers the responsibilities of the Officer of the Watch and Officer of the Day, International Regulations for Prevention of Collisions at Sea, and Royal Navy navigation methodologies. You'll develop skills in managing bridge operations and maintaining situational awareness in navigation contexts.

What you'll be able to do

  • Know the responsibilities of Officer of the Watch (OOW) / Officer of the Day (OOD).
  • Understand International Regulations for Prevention of Collisions at Sea (IRCPS).
  • Understand RN Navigation methodology.
  • Know the relevant aspects of RN Seamanship.
  • Manage bridge / Control room resourcing for Pilotage and Navigation and direct the team / relevant personnel.
  • Understand human brain function.
  • Assure maintenance, upkeep and usage of Navigation and Time equipment and records.
  • Assure maintenance of appropriate Navigation Department Records.
  • Investigate navigation incidents.
  • Compile Incident / Investigation/ Inquiry reports.
  • Understand wider National IMO sanctioned methodology.
  • Advise the Command on Operational and legal aspects of navigation and seamanship.
  • Advise the Command on Navigation Equipment.
  • Instruct and assess on a bridge.
  • Facilitate Bridge Watch keeper training.
  • Facilitate the development of Navigation and Seamanship skills.
  • Apply coaching techniques where appropriate.
Navigation Sensors and Equipment Real unit · Defence Awarding Organisation
You'll gain knowledge and skills to manage and maintain ship's chart outfits and digital navigation equipment. This unit covers monitoring, updating, and advising command on navigation sensor use to ensure accurate situational awareness and navigational safety.

What you'll be able to do

  • Manage, monitor, maintain and upkeep Ship's Chart Outfits
  • Muster ship's chart and publication holdings/Outfits
  • Manage digital Navigation and Situational Awareness Equipment
  • Advise the command on Navigation Equipment
Pilotage and passage planning Real unit · Defence Awarding Organisation
You'll learn to prepare, brief, and execute pilotage and passage plans, considering vessel capabilities and constraints. This unit includes planning for anchoring, mooring, and unberthing while managing risks and communicating plans effectively.

What you'll be able to do

  • Prepare a pilotage plan, including anchorages/moorings/berthing and unberthing, taking account of the implications of the Capabilities of, and constraints affecting, other and own Force units
  • Brief Command on Pilotage plan
  • Execute pilotage
  • Plan for periods at anchor / mooring
  • Prepare passage plan, taking account of the implications of the Capabilities of, and constraints affecting, other and own Force units
  • Brief passage plan and disseminate appropriate information
  • Execute conduct of passage plans
  • Manage tactical and Operational manoeuvring and fleet work to achieve Operational Programme
  • Co-ordinate a Capital Ship / Task Group
  • Navigate using in-depth Astronomical Techniques
  • Understand how to ensure safe transit and operations in or near an ice environment
  • Conduct / control harbour manoeuvring operations
  • Conduct and assure Buoy operations
  • Plan, carry out and assure safe Replenishment at Sea (RAS)
  • Assure the safe manoeuvring of ships in company
  • Oversee and control the safe operation and conduct of Ship's boats / craft operations
  • React to and plan response to and Conduct SAR operations
  • Plan and prepare for towing
  • Understand the principles of and factors affecting ship handling
  • Plan and conduct canal, confined channel and international strait transit
  • Advise on Navigation aspects of Maritime Battlespace Management
Ship Dynamics and Ship Handling Real unit · Defence Awarding Organisation
This unit provides learners with the ability to plan and execute passages considering ship dynamics and handling characteristics. You'll manage tactical manoeuvring, operational fleet work, and safe replenishment at sea within operational programmes.

What you'll be able to do

  • Prepare a passage plan, taking account of the implications of the Capabilities of, and constraints affecting, other and own Force/TG units
  • Execute Conduct of passage
  • Manage tactical and Operational manoeuvring and fleet work to achieve Operational Programme taking account of unit Ship design / dynamics
  • Plan, carry out and assure safe Replenishment at Sea (RAS)
  • Assure the safe manoeuvring of ships in company
  • Understand and control the safe operation and conduct of other Ship's boats / craft operations
  • React to and plan response to and conduct SAR operations
  • Plan and prepare for towing
  • State the principles of and factors affecting ship handling
  • Liaise with Battle staff and Capital Ship Navigation Officers
  • Plan and conduct canal, confined channel and international strait transit
  • Advise on Navigation aspects of Maritime Battlespace Management
By email

Free, by email

Is this the right qualification for you?

One email to help you decide: the facts, what it teaches and where to start free. With a link back here. Nothing else follows unless you confirm your address.

Your employer, or 'self-employed'

Study the units online with a personal AI tutor, for £70 a month. Your first Future Fluency module is free.

03The standards

The national standards these units are built against

What the job actually needs, in the words employers and awarding bodies already use for the work itself.

  • Check and operate navigation, surveillance and communication equipment

    Standard

  • Conduct Pre-flight Planning

    Standard

  • Operate a safe and efficient pilotage service

    Standard

  • Review, process and interpret offshore survey data

    Standard
Still deciding?

One email to help you decide: the facts, what it teaches and where to start free. With a link back here. Nothing else follows unless you confirm your address.

04The credits

The credits, and who awards them

Level 7 credits are regulated, and they are awarded by Defence Awarding Organisation rather than by Zavmo. 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 have covered and what is next.

What you would be collecting

Astronomies and Tidal TheoryBattlespace ManagementGeneral Navigation and Specialist Navigation KnowledgeNavigation Sensors and EquipmentPilotage and passage planningShip Dynamics and Ship Handling

Each one is a real unit registered against this qualification.

How you’d practise it

You don’t watch this. You do it.

You are not assessed on remembering this. You are assessed on applying it, analysing it, evaluating it and producing something. So that is what the practice is: projects, role play and your own live cases, with a tutor in the room.

The Navigator The Navigator · your what-if tutor Illustration
The Navigator Your plan for “Pilotage and passage planning” assumes the same two people are free in March. What have you seen that makes you slightly uneasy about that?
You One of them has been pulled onto the migration twice already. Probably fine.
The Navigator That is the thread worth pulling. Let us build the version where it happens a third time and find the move that works either way.
The same lesson on the real thing: the conversation in the middle, the thinking ladder on the left, and the criteria each answer is evidencing on the right.
  • Bring your own plan Create

    For “Pilotage and passage planning” you bring the plan you are actually working on, not a case study. Zavmo pulls on the assumptions in it until the weak one shows.

  • Lead it Apply

    “Battlespace Management” is practised on the team you actually have. You talk through the call you are about to make, and Zavmo makes you say it the way you would say it to them.

What you leave holding

The standards this credential builds, in the shape the product keeps them

Nothing here is marked learned. There is no learner on a public page, so the map shows what the qualification covers rather than what anybody has done.

See Your Progress Grow Illustration
DAO Level 7 Diploma in Applied Maritime Navigation
  • Check and operate navigation, surveillance and communication equipment
  • Conduct Pre-flight Planning
  • Operate a safe and efficient pilotage service
  • Review, process and interpret offshore survey data
This is your Mind Palace on learn.zavmo.ai. Every skill above comes from this role's own record, not an example borrowed from another job. A node lights up when you evidence it, and what you build stays yours between jobs. That is the part a course cannot do.

How you would learn this

One to one, on the work you already do

A tutor sets the task against your own job and marks the reasoning, at your pace. There is no cohort to fall behind.

A lesson from Astronomies and Tidal Theory, one of this qualification's own units.

Astronomies and Tidal Theory Level 7

Applied to your own work

Learners will develop skills in preparing and executing pilotage and passage plans, including anchoring and mooring considerations. This unit covers gathering navigational information, planning routes, and supporting passage plan execution using precise navigation techniques.

How the thinking builds
  1. 1 Remember
  2. 2 Understand
  3. 3 Apply
  4. 4 Analyse
  5. 5 Evaluate
  6. 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.

It is £70 a month, billed monthly. Your free first module is Future Fluency, and you can cancel any time. Teaching towards this qualification begins when you subscribe.

Your Plan Illustration

Built for DAO Level 7 Diploma in Applied Maritime Navigation

6 units in this credential, in the order it lists them, awarded by Defence Awarding Organisation.

  1. Astronomies and Tidal Theory
  2. Battlespace Management
  3. General Navigation and Specialist Navigation Knowledge
  4. Navigation Sensors and Equipment
  5. Pilotage and passage planning
  6. Ship Dynamics and Ship Handling
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.

Free tools

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Learned on your own work, taught one-to-one.

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The title, level, credits, guided learning hours and unit learning outcomes on this page are taken from the Ofqual Register of Regulated Qualifications. Contains public sector information licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0. Where this data comes from.