During this unprecedented time students, apprentices and their employers are at the forefront of minds at Strode College in Street.

For this reason, college teaching staff are adapting and evolving teaching practices daily and seeking new, exciting and meaningful ways to communicate with them.

The Childcare and Education Sector is classed by the government as being among the key worker roles during this time of challenge and capturing best practice becomes ever more important.

Kelly Cave, the Strode College Work-Based Sector Lead for Childcare and Education and Claire Donald, Strode's Assessor for Childcare and Education, Employer Engagement, have already implemented new teaching methods which include the use of social media, Zoom for delivering lessons, wellbeing checks through video calling, remote collection of evidence through voice notes and voice recordings.

They have started their very own collection of rainbow pictures and have even been using their own children as examples to extend learning and development for the apprentices.

Apprentices are asked to watch a video and look at the pictures and identify what learning was taking place, how this "in the moment" play could be extended further, what developmental aspects were being enhanced and what could be done next.

Kelly said: "We are extremely proud of our apprentices, students and their employers for providing support to enable our fellow key workers to continue their vital role at this challenging time.

"The well-being of our apprentices and students remains at the forefront of our work and we are carrying out additional well-being checks to ensure this.

"It is also important never to miss an opportunity to share learning and together we are working on new and innovative ways to share this learning."

Throughout all of this Strode College also continuing to recruit apprentices.