Ms Natalia Leane:

I did not do an official apprenticeship but did it through the Springboard programme, which is a very similar idea. I did a full-time course in first year but then moved on to Springboard in second year. I then ended up doing three days a week in college where I was working the other three days and had one day off. That worked better for me than being in college full time because even though we got to do stuff physically in college, I knew it was a set learning structure. When I got to learn my skills in college and then to go out to do the job as part of the other half of the course, I could see how the skills were being transferred from college to work andvice versa. Things I learned at work I could then use, for example, in my exams. That system worked much better than when I was full time in college in first year.