BUILDING PRACTICAL SKILLS
This course is hard work. It’s geared to getting you a job in PR, whether with an agency or in-house. That means we cover the skills needed for both areas of the business.  But this is very different from a college or university course.  This is not a classroom course. The emphasis is on practical skills rather than theoretical ones, which is why there are constant practical exercises and projects, often in the evenings or at weekends. That means that you take on real PR assignments, interview real people, rather than the tutor pretending to be a politician or an industry leader.  We ‘adopt’ a business or a charity, and under the guidance of your course tutor, you will create and run all aspects of PR for that organisation.  We will train you in writing skills and make you think like a journalist. If you understand the sort of news stories and features that newspapers, magazines and radio want, you’ll find it far easier to create and write for them. The essence is on practical work, so the tutor doesn’t lecture you. Typically you will discuss the principles of, say, press conferences; then attend a genuine press conference. We look at the way that journalists operate, and see how well the PR is handled; then we write a press release from it, and a story for a newspaper or magazine. That's typical of the sort of thing you do every day.  You interview real people and write real stories, attend exhibitions, plan market research, work on risk management scenarios, put together PR campaigns.  It means that when you start to work for an agency, you don't just know the theory; you have an understanding of what the problems are in practice.

EQUIPPED FOR TODAY’S PROFESSION
To equip you with these practical skills, we "adopt" a small charity or business in desperate need of promotional help. This project will be a core part of the course, and you will get the chance to put into practice most of the things you learn during the course on behalf of our chosen client.  We only use working PR practitioners as tutors. This means you learn PR today, rather than as it was in 1980. The industry has undergone huge changes. It's become far more professional. It’s vital that you know these things if you’re looking for a job in this area.

All too often on training courses, the tutor is retired, has worked in a backwater PR agency all their life (or in one case, was even a teacher who had never actually worked in PR at all).  The PR exec who is most valuable to today's agencies is an all-rounder (the trendy term is multi-skilling).  Many in PR are very good at dealing with people, and this is a crucial part of this course. But sadly, all too many in the industry (often at a senior level) have poor writing skills, and simply don't understand what journalists want.