Build Your Future with Our Tailored BTEC

Our build-your-own BTEC Cert 3 course is exclusive to Specsavers, allowing trainees to tailor their course to their intended career destination. It’s no wonder graduates sing its praises and optical colleagues snap up spaces as soon as they become available. To give you an impression of what it’s like to complete this qualification (which we typically refer to as ‘Cert 3’) with Specsavers, we’ve drafted in some help. The course provides the knowledge and skills for dispensing and optical assistants to perform a range of in-store tasks. It is an ideal foundation for developing a career, not just in dispensing but in contact lens practice too – but don’t take our word for it, let’s hear it from the team… 

BTEC Student

– Thomas Evans, Optical Assistant at Specsavers Maesteg 

I decided to enroll on the course to push myself to achieve a better understanding of my role within Specsavers and deliver a higher quality of service for our patients. Before starting my Cert 3, I had been working closely with my team, using their advice to guide me on my learning journey.  

This is the first educational qualification I had attempted since leaving school, and so I was nervous – but knew with my colleagues’ support, and Specsavers’ learning resources, I was in good hands. There was a lot to take in, and I must admit it was a little daunting when I first started the course – although I soon got into the routine of studying, asking questions, and attempting the assessments.  

When I’ve completed the course, I’m hoping to offer a much broader range of services than I have before, becoming more of an asset to the team in the process. As I write this, I am close to completing the course, and – spoiler alert – I have already signed up for a place on the Cert 4 course! 

BTEC Support 

– Adam Ayres, Dispensing Optician and Cert 3 Supervisor at Specsavers Merthyr Tydfil 

Becoming a Cert 3 Supervisor was really straightforward for me, having already secured my GOC registration. As a dispensing optician, I’d the material needed to become a Cert 3 Supervisor, and there were plenty of resources on our online learning platforms to help me if I ever got stuck. 

As a Cert 3 Supervisor, my role is simple – helping our students to complete their course. That can mean anything from ensuring their work is completed under exam conditions, to helping them understand the feedback from their exam results.  

I find it so rewarding to watch my colleagues learn more and more, applying their new knowledge right in front of me on the shop floor. I’d recommend Cert 3 to anyone, it makes such a difference to your job day-to-day, and will work wonders for your future employability within optics. 

BTEC Veteran 

– Marcus Weaver, Dispensing Optician and Director at Specsavers Hessle 

We’ve helped numerous colleagues enrol and complete our BTEC accredited Cert 3 course. Once new starters have completed their induction and probationary period, we encourage them to continue and progress to Cert 3. From the students’ point of view, they gain confidence and improve their knowledge and ability to take on more rewarding work. With Cert 3 under their belts, they can also open the door to further learning and career enhancing opportunities down the line.

What’s particularly great about the Specsavers Cert 3 programme is the ability to ‘earn and learn’ – creating a much more attractive start to the route to potential qualification and GOC registration as an optician than the typical cost of full-time education. Once qualified as a dispensing optician, students have further potential to continue and qualify as a contact lens optician, take a conversion course to optometry or progress into management through the ILM2/3 programmes. We encourage our optical assistants to pursue opportunities for learning and development wherever they crop up – safe in the knowledge that by qualifying with Specsavers, support will also be available when you need it.

Whether it’s the ability to simply broaden your day-to-day skills that appeals, or the option to work your way up the career ladder towards recognised qualifications and still bring in a salary – or simply to access the support and resources you’ll only have access to through Specsavers – there’s a lot to like in our Cert 3 programme.