With the standardisation of CWO eligibility from the age of 17 across the RAFAC (although I remain hopeful it may eventually align to the school year, so that a cohort becomes eligible at the same time), I find myself wondering how best to adjust my cadet career trajectory planning, both to ensure I don’t hold people back unnecessarily, but also so I don’t block the pipeline should someone intend to stay until 20 and I’m fortunate to have a number of suitable cadets.
How is the hive mind planning to adapt?
Promotions starting at a younger age? Promotions starting at roughly the same experience level, but accelerating from rank to rank?
I feel the change to allow cadets to join at 12 has already set us up well for this to work. I have already seen multiple 16/17 year old FSs who are fantastic, and have essentially been stuck waiting to turn 18 as they were already CWO material.
I think this change will just allow those types to attain CWO when they already deserve it, rather than having to wait arbitrarily.
I’ve always been a fan of promoting to Cpl as early as possible (in the absence of a L/Cpl rank…) I think it helps to reward attitude and enthusiasm, and it allows other young cadets to identify the qualities that you value, and (hopefully) to emulate them in their cadet life.
That said - and there’s a balancing act here - I have always tried to ensure that Cadet NCO ranks are ‘real’: that a cadet Cpl has the attitude, training and experience to run a section in the wild, that a CWO can be trusted to ‘run’ a deployed Sqn of 50 cadets: who’s staying where, gash bins, getting tents/accommodation sorted, supervising a cooking area, making sure everyone is sorting their gear and equipment out…
And because there are some right pearl clutching damp eyes about - a 15yo would be expected to do the Cadet Cpl role on DofE Bronze, and the 17/18yo expected to do the CWO role on DofE Gold. Same people, same roles, MTP instead of red gote-tex. No difference.
I remain hopeful we may adopt the most junior RAF ranks to help us better recognise this early progression prior to being a JNCO (similar to classification badges, but broader and more well-rounded in what they signify).
From an ACF perspective, I find the idea of tying promotion to age laughable! Either they are suitable for promotion or not. I’ve known some 14 year olds who would make a good corporal, and some 17 year olds who shouldn’t be given rank at all.
I think on the whole we’re agreed for that. The “tying promotion to age” bit is just the rough time when the capable cadets are probably ready to advance to the next rank, whilst keeping a healthy NCO pyramid.
Obviously not all cadets get promoted, during my time I have seen enough blank staff cadet rankslides to prove that point. (That’s 18/19 year olds with no rank, for clarity - meaning they can often be led by a 14 year old Corporal).
But no one is suggesting to promote a 14 year old to Flight Sergeant either, regardless of competence, as there needs to be a level of progression. If they tick all the ranks and the activities off too early on, there is little more we can do for them for the remainder of their cadet career. I think that rough age map is where we would like our NCO-capable cadets to roughly be at rough ages.
I was thinking about this the other day something along the lines of “promotion” to AC 2 (using air specialist 2 rank slides) at completion on junior cadet training and to AC1 (using air specialist 1 rank slides) on completion of first class both of these would be subject to no disciplinary issues prior to promotion with no establishment cap on those two ranks.