Siobhan Sweet, a pastry tutor at The City of Liverpool College, is producing online cookery lessons for her students during lockdown – and they have now gone worldwide. Tony McDonough reports

When Liverpool-based catering tutor Siobhan Sweet started to deliver online cookery lessons for her college students who are under lockdown, she had not idea she would a global phenomenon.

Siobhan Sweet, a pastry tutor at The City of Liverpool College, wanted to make sure her students didn’t miss out on their vocational training while at home during the coronavirus lockdown.

However, she has seen not just her own students taking part and tuning in to these videos, but people from all over the world, including some of the worst affected countries  by COVID-19 such as the US, Italy and Spain.

Siobhan, who was previously pastry chef at a Michelin-starred restaurant for nine years, has received hundreds of messages from her audience, including parents, thanking her and creating an incredible sense of community spirit.

She said: “It has been amazing to see how many people are enjoying the lessons. We’ve had some really positive feedback not just from our own students who have really benefitted from us making the training virtual, but from people who we’ve never even met.

“Whether they are a student or not, I’m delighted that we’re able to provide people with something to distract them from the difficult time that we are all facing.”

Over the past few weeks, The City of Liverpool College has led the way to transition its lessons online, seeing its staff take to the internet to deliver classes to students, ensuring social distancing doesn’t impact their learning.

The team has taken on a number of initiatives, including hosting its Access to Higher Education lessons through Microsoft Teams – a platform which is proving to be very successful in enabling staff to deliver their lessons.

Elaine Bowker, principal and chief executive at The City of Liverpool College, said: “For us, this period has brought out a lot of creativity across the college in the way we deliver to our students.

“We’re fortunate that we were already leading the way in terms of our technological capabilities, having invested in our digital skills, equipment and competencies as part of our Digital Academy and our incredible teaching staff are of such a high standard, with many like Siobhan having been industry professionals.”