PR & Communications Assistant Apprenticeship Level 4

Duration: 15 months

Whether you are promoting or protecting them, brand and reputation are at the heart of PR and communications roles. Ideal for both agency-side and client-side junior professionals the apprenticeship focuses on the ways brands, organisations and individuals communicate about themselves, their products or their services with their publics.

Apprentices gain the knowledge, skills and behaviours they need to produce and distribute content, support campaigns, build internal and external stakeholder relationships and evaluate success. The programme trains apprentices to be proactive, communicative, enthusiastic, punctual, committed and creative.

JGA has a strong record with new apprenticeship training with the vast majority of apprentices have who reach assessment achieving merit and distinction.

We are delighted that our blue-chip clients range across public, private and third sectors and are both corporate and agency. The House of Commons, HS2, CMA CGM Group, Axa, Peabody, London Borough of Camden, NHS, West Midlands Ambulance Services and Full Fat all trust JGA to deliver the apprenticeship nationally.

Course Content

  • The meaning of Public Relations and why it’s an important channel
  • Corporate Affairs and the media landscape
  • Identifying good and damaging PR stories and explaining why they are considered good or bad
  • The role of the PR and Communications function
  • How brand and reputation are intrinsically linked
  • Why reputation management is important and how much control an organisation actually has over its reputation
  • Internal communications, employee engagement and change management
  • Identifying and evaluating stakeholders
  • Crisis planning and management
  • How to develop effective communication plans
  • The external environment and its impact on organisation goals.
  • Using situation analysis tools
  • How PR and Communications objectives support the organisation’s vision, mission and values
  • Forms of communication including body language, written word, verbal and visual
  • Communication as a two-way process including active listening and the barriers to communication
  • How to create detailed, audience-specific messaging as part of the creative process of delivering any campaign or project
  • Channels and tools used in traditional and digital PR
  • How social media supports business objectives
  • Using social media in a business environment
  • Social media best practice
  • How company websites and video support PR and communications
  • The key phases of managing a PR project
  • How to plan and monitor a program of activities to achieve SMART objectives
  • How to research, brief and select an agency or supplier
  • The principles of finance processes related to budgeting for PR
  • What to measure and why in PR and Communications
  • Performance metrics and key performance indicators
  • Measuring PR and communications activity including press coverage and social media monitoring
  • Know what a Balanced Scorecard is and how it can be adapted to measure events
  • Understand how powerful the effective use of language can be
  • Effective proofreading techniques
  • Techniques for writing clear and compelling content for different audiences
  • How to write a press release that grabs the attention of journalists
  • How to create compelling content for different media
  • Recap modules one to eight
  • How to build and deliver a PR and Communications campaign

Anyone successfully completing the apprenticeship will be eligible to apply for membership of the Public Relations & Communications Association (PRCA).

Delivery Model

The course is delivered through once monthly full day seminars and coaching from an experienced public relations professional, as well as virtual classroom and pre-recorded lessons. All teaching is presently delivered remotely and there is an active programme of starts.

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Our Clients

Clients with cohorts of PR & Communications apprentices include:

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