Playworker
Playworkers care for and support children in taking responsibility for themselves and their own playing whilst creating a stimulating and adventurous space for children to learn and explore in their own way, following their own intent, ideas and inventions. The focus of all play settings is on child-directed and child-controlled play, with Playworkers planning for and providing an ever-changing environment that allows children to choose what and how they play. Playworkers observe and monitor this play for children’s development, engagement and safety, both physical and emotional.
Playworkers subtly observe play rather than overtly leading activities in order to:
Playworkers use the outcomes of their observations to make better informed decisions about whether their intervention is needed and how to do this without taking away from children’s own faculties, abilities and growing expertise. In doing so, Playworkers develop significant and non-hierarchical relationships with the children they support.
Typical Job Roles:
Engagement Worker / Inclusion/Support Playworker / Play Ranger / Playground Assistant / Playworker
Duration:
The duration of this apprenticeship is typically 12 months.
Playworkers subtly observe play rather than overtly leading activities in order to:
- Understand individual children’s needs and behaviours, as well as their likes and wants in playing.
- Support individual children’s emerging capabilities and competences.
- Understand how to better resource the play environment so that children are provided with opportunities to engage with the elements and their senses to explore, create and change the world around them.
- Reflect on how their adult presence is impacting on the children’s play, in both positive and negative ways, to ensure that children can play and explore without interruption or the necessity to seek approval or permission. Reflections are undertaken individually and as a team in order to improve the quality of play provision and to improve their own practice.
- Undertake dynamic risk-benefit assessments during play sessions to support children’s playful risk-taking. This includes being aware of generally accepted abilities relating to ages and stages, but not being bound by them in order to support individual speed of development. Playworkers support children to naturally stretch their boundaries physically, mentally, socially and emotionally, whilst balancing both the risks and the benefits that this incurs.
Playworkers use the outcomes of their observations to make better informed decisions about whether their intervention is needed and how to do this without taking away from children’s own faculties, abilities and growing expertise. In doing so, Playworkers develop significant and non-hierarchical relationships with the children they support.
Typical Job Roles:
Engagement Worker / Inclusion/Support Playworker / Play Ranger / Playground Assistant / Playworker
Duration:
The duration of this apprenticeship is typically 12 months.
Standard Code |
Apprenticeship Level |
Standard Components |
LARS No. |
Standard ID |
696 |
Intermediate (Level 2) |
Z0001883 |
||
Functional Skills Maths Level 2 |
60342687 |
|||
Functional Skills English Level 2 |
60342900 |
|||
n/a |