Course Overview

This course fulfils the requirements of the Software Developer apprenticeship standard set by the Institute for Apprenticeships.

The content aims to go beyond the minimal requirements of the standard, and to provide apprentices with a breadth and depth of knowledge of software engineering concepts and skills that enables them to work in a range of software development roles and to contribute productively to their employment as soon as possible.

The goal of enabling apprentices to contribute productively as soon as possible is the reason why the first part of the course is a 5-week full-time “bootcamp”. The bootcamp is made up of a series of exercises that introduce a broad range of concepts and get the apprentices to apply those new concepts in practical exercises.

In our experience, once apprentices have completed the bootcamp, they have a toolkit and the confidence to start taking on new challenges and contributing significant value for their employer.

From this point the course moves to undertaking a series of 14 modules, where each module is allocated 4 weeks. During this time the apprentice performs the work that their employment generally requires them but also over the course of a module’s 4 weeks, the apprentice does a deep-dive into that module’s topic. The deep-dive includes self-led reading of the module content, a group workshop to undertake practical exercises on the module’s topic, and a separate group review and discussion.

Therefore, following the breadth of experience gained rapidly during bootcamp, the apprentices focus on gaining depth of knowledge and experience, and regularly relating the course back to their employment.

Taking these two approaches in the course content means that the learners are setup to be successful and adaptable software developers.