Overview
Can you visualise yourself in a classroom, teaching children to read and write? Providing a supportive presence alongside the classroom teacher, helping to plan, prepare, and deliver the day’s lessons? If so, becoming a teaching assistant could be the ideal profession for you, and this Cache Level 2 certificate in supporting teaching and learning is a great way to get started.
An ideal starting point for people with no prior classroom experience, this Level 2 Certificate in Supporting Teaching and Learning will provide you with a solid foundation of knowledge from which to build your career. You’ll study child development in-depth, and learn how to develop supportive relationships with young people and colleagues. You’ll also study health and safety, safeguarding, how schools operate as organisations and discover how to manage challenging behaviour. You’ll study in your own time, at your own pace, as you complete at least 50 hours of work experience in a practical school placement, perfectly preparing you for your new career as a teaching assistant.
If you already have experience working in education, you might be more suited to our Level 3 Certificate in Supporting Teaching and Learning. Most schools require a level 3 qualification, which means you can bypass level 2 if you want to. The Level 2 teaching assistant certificate, however, will provide you with the core knowledge and skills needed to progress towards a supervised support role with children or young people in primary, secondary or special schools.
What you'll learn
In unit one, you’ll examine the structure of education from early years up to post-compulsory education. You’ll gain an understanding of how schools are organised in terms of roles and responsibilities, as well as how schools decide on and deliver their ethos, mission, aims, and values.
As a childcare worker, it’s important that you’re aware of expected patterns of development from birth to 19 years, and that’s what the opening unit will cover. You’ll also take a look at the factors which can influence a young person’s development, and understand the role that important life transitions can play.
In the third unit, you’ll become familiar with some of the policies, legislation, and procedures for the safeguarding of children. You’ll discover what to do when a child is ill or injured, including emergency procedures, and how to appropriately respond to concerns that a child is being mistreated or abused.
Making sure all children are treated fairly and equally is of paramount importance in a learning environment. In this unit, you’ll examine the impact that prejudice and discrimination can have, and the inclusive practices that you should be incorporating into your work.
Building healthy relationships is all about communication. In unit five, you’ll study how to interact with and respond to children and young people, as well as your colleagues. You’ll also take a look at some of the current legislation and policies that govern the sharing of information and data protection.
Here you’ll gain an understanding of health and safety legislation in a learning environment by assessing risk, risk awareness and learning emergency procedures. After completing this unit, you will be able to contribute to health and safety in a learning environment.
This unit focuses on how to set appropriate rules and boundaries, encourage and reward positive behaviour, and how to deal with inappropriate behaviour and bullying.
In this unit you’ll gain an understanding of effective teamwork and the ways in which you can contribute to support the work of the team.
For this unit you will understand the importance of play and leisure. Including your own role in relation to play, leisure and extra-curricular activities.
In this unit you’ll learn how to support the teacher in planning learning activities. Then how to support learners during these activities and the strategies to help monitor children’s development and progress.
This unit focuses on the importance of displays in the classroom. Exploring the steps to take when planning a display and the information that would be needed.
Extra info
Awarding Body
CACHE stands for the Council for Awards in Care, Health and Education, and are the leading specialist Awarding Organisation for the Care and Education Sector.
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Course Outcome
At the end of this course, successful learners will receive the following qualification: NCFE CACHE Level 2 Certificate in Supporting Teaching & Learning. This means that it is independently accredited at a level of learning equivalent to Level 1 on the National Qualifications Framework (NQF) for England, Wales and Northern Ireland.
NCFE CACHE has been developing courses in the childcare, education and healthcare sectors since 1945 and is one of the most reputable awarding bodies for qualifications in the UK and overseas. Practitioners working in these areas are much more employable having gained NCFE CACHE certification and many employers specifically ask for their qualifications when taking on members of staff.
How is this course assessed or examined?
This is a regulated qualification that is internally assessed and your portfolio of evidence is quality assured. Staff involved in the assessment and internal quality assurance of this qualification are able to demonstrate that they have the relevant occupational knowledge and competence, at the same level or higher as the units being evaluated.
Entry requirements
As part of this course, you’ll need to complete a placement in a school working with pupils in key-stage one and upwards – not in nursery or reception. There is a minimum study age of 16.
