Completing Your Apprenticeship

Gateway

Once you’ve completed your on-programme training you will go through gateway. This is where we agree with you and your line manager that you have acquired the knowledge, skills and behaviours set out in the Apprenticeship standard and are ready to undertake end-point assessment.

Apprentices can only enter gateway after completing the 12 months on programme and on completion of 20% off-the-job, 100% KSBs, completed Maths & English (if required) and readiness for assessment as agreed by coach, learner progress adviser, apprentice and line manager.

End Point Assessment (EPA)

EPA is the process at the end of your program for you to demonstrate to a third-party assessor that you have acquired knowledge, skills and behaviours (KSB’s) throughout your training set out in the Apprenticeship standard.

The EPA will be carried out by an End Point Assessment Organisation (EPAO). The EPAO is an impartial organisation which takes responsibility for the final assessment of the apprentice against the requirements of their apprenticeship.

Your assessment

During EPA, you will complete the following

A one-hour multiple-choice test with 30 questions split evenly between scenario and knowledge-based questions.

The criteria are as follows:

  • Current affairs, the PR industry, the media and marketing
  • Finance processes related to PR campaigns
  • The principles of operational management
  • Public Relations & Communications objectives 

Your work-based project will be real life and live project that will take place over a 6 – 8 week period that will need to cover all elements of the criteria.

In addition to a report, presentation and Q&A on a work-based project.

The report will be around 2,500 words and will cover the project context, your responsibilities, actions are taken (planning and execution) and an evaluation of the outcomes.

Example projects include:

  • leading on the social media associated with a campaign,
  • planning and execution of an event,
  • creating stories/narratives to successfully engage media,
  • developing public relations (PR) tactics and strategies for repositioning a client in the minds of the public.

You will deliver a 10-minute presentation to an independent end-point assessor on your project. This is followed by 25 minutes of questioning.

Resources for End Point Assessment

There are templates and further docs available in OneFile under Resources/PR and Comms/EPA docs.

Top Tips …

Think

How will you take what you have learnt forward with you into your future work?

Challenge Yourself

You will need to deliver a presentation as part of the project showcase. Look for opportunities to practice your presentations skills as part of your job role or in your apprenticeship seminars.

Be Proactive

Try to consider what sort of project you would like to get involved with as early as possible to give yourself time to complete it. Your coach will support you through this and will be able to answer questions about what you could select.

Keep Abreast of PR news

Keep up to date with current affairs & PR industry news. Here are some useful sources:

Manage Your Time

Use an hour of your off the job time each week to update your OneFile journal weekly to log your OTJ training and activities.

This will save you from undertaking a big job at the end when you need to reach your 20% target to move into Gateway.