CACHE Foundation Award in Caring for Children
(CACHE, the Council for Awards in Child Care and Education is a leading provider of nationally recognised awards in early years care and education)
What will I learn?
- The care needs of children.
- How to develop the basic skills needed when caring for children.
- Child development, feeding and looking after children.
- How the subject relates to relevant to life experiences.
- Understand how children play and develop your skills in creative craft activities.
- Key skills which will be useful in your personal and working life.
What are the entry requirements?
An interest in young children and the desire to learn on a vocational route.
How will I be assessed?

The units are assessed through student friendly and interesting tasks that include projects, assignments, observations and case studies and all of your work will be put into a portfolio which is assessed by the teachers and then externally moderated by CACHE. There is also a short multiple choice test paper that covers all of the units. The overall grade will be either: Pass, Merit or Distinction.
Year 10 and 11
There are 7 Units which include:
Personal Development in which you will look at your role in the community and some of the issues that affect people including homelessness, poverty and drug abuse as well as culture, life style, discrimination and religion. This unit will help you prepare for work including writing CVs, preparing for interviews and writing letters of application. You will also learn to work as a team.
Human Growth and Development will allow you to explore how children grow and develop from babies through to old age. You will find out how children learn to think and communicate. How they develop physically and you will look at the social and emotional needs of a child.
Food and Nutrition looks at what is meant by a healthy, balanced diet and how it can affect the growth and development of a child. Students will learn how to present food for children.
Health and Safety Practices in Home and Group Settings will allow you to understand the importance of safety for children and give you the knowledge of safe and hygienic procedures. You will learn to practice basic first aid and emergency skills.
Care of children will allow you understand the basic needs of children and how to care for children of different ages.
Play activities will introduce you to the importance of play in helping young children to grow and develop. You will learn about different types of play and how you can support and encourage children’s play activities.
Orientation to work will begin to prepare you for work with children. It will enable you to develop skills you need to work under supervision and as part of a team and will help you decide if you want to continue on to further training and education.
Future opportunities:
This course is an introduction to the Early Years sector for those of you who want to work with children, or who may be interested in child development and caring for children. It is a Level 1 qualification that allows you to progress to appropriate qualifications at Level 2 such as the Certificate in Childcare and Education or the NVQ in Early Years Care and Education at Level 2.
Further Information
For further information please see Mrs Robertson, Mrs Gilroy or Miss Smith. Please note that places on this course are limited and your suitability for the course will be taken into account.