Surprised no one has put this on here yet, but as part of the Bader announcements page there is a review of the ACO by AOC 22 Gp, and a detailed action plan for the 2020 vision.
There’s also a separate area for the Cmdt to explain the TCoS review and how it is shaping up.
Thoughts, those who have read it?
[quote=“pEp” post=15815]Surprised no one has put this on here yet, but as part of the Bader announcements page there is a review of the ACO by AOC 22 Gp, and a detailed action plan for the 2020 vision.
There’s also a separate area for the Cmdt to explain the TCoS review and how it is shaping up.
Thoughts, those who have read it?[/quote]
I don’t have much to add, but it seems quite good except the bit claiming that “Ultilearn is now fully embedded at unit level”.
Just because Ultifail is fully embeded, does not by any means indicate the level of success with which it is used or confidence at unit level in it…
I though both this and the DYER note are an example of good, inspired leadership of volunteers. Personally I felt it was honest appraisals of the situation that we had been missing for many years. But then that’s me.
Frankly most of these points seem to appear every few years and this very fact that this happens indicates that they aren’t able to resolve them, mostly because those tasked with the decision making are too far removed and have no idea about the volunteer experience. Speaking to several senior CFAV and former senior CFAV who have contact/work with various parts of HQAC and ACO SLT on a number of things, despair at the lack of understanding and desire to listen and an overarching sense with some of I was in the RAF what do you know.
I dearly wish they could come up with something coherent, but I fully expect in 3-4 years the same old points coming up again.
Those things requiring resource from the RAF financial and or physical, are exceptionally difficult to achieve given what’s happening to the RAF and armed forces in general.
There is no point in doing a staff recruitment, until they’ve got T&C properly sorted out and in place so that we at the coalface notice a positive effect and give a good impression to new staff. Doing it beforehand or while it’s WIP, is pointless. When any recruitment campaign does happen it needs to be national and targeted locally, ie not phone a national number who will direct you to a sqn. If the campaign sells a story the ‘package’ for people coming off the street to volunteer has to be attractive, fully accessable with lots of opportunity. I’ve been asked about courses and so on by staff and saying there is nothing or only one chance, isn’t good. Relying on e learning is a non-starter as they don’t allow for all important discussion/knowledge sharing and if you have a ropey connection at the sqn, even more frustrating. I started an e learning course for a statistical methods. I had attened courses and found them interesting, but this was dull and tedious and due to being at work wasn’t able to do more than an hour at a time and couldn’t ask any questions etc. I gave up and went on a proper course.
This from the AOC 22 Gp gives a flavour of the situaton, yet I doubt there is a real will to resolve things. The T&C review and admin burden have to be linked as the quote shows there is a correlation.
Ever thought about resigning GHE2?
You should, it comes across that you despise this organisation. It can’t be healthy for you or your family operating that mindset all the time.
A comment that always seems crop up as in some of the reports in this announcement, effectively says we treat the CFAV shoddily, but they remain upbeat in their day to day contact and delivery to cadets. If I didn’t think that this organisation often in the face of ridiculous bureaucracy still offers some of the best opportunities to teenagers, a focus for many and for some turn some of their lives around, I’d have gone a long time ago. It’s similar to why teachers teach and doctors/nurses still do what they do, despite criticism, overbearing bureaucracy and poor direction.
If you are telling me that you feel comfortable with the way we are managed when as I say many of the points in the action plan relating to volunteer staff and cadets are old hat and been reviewed, studied or whatever you might like to call it several times and obviously haven’t been resolved, smashing. We are shareholders in the organisation and yet we have no say in the way things are done. if you were the shareholder of a business and every couple of years the Board said we are going to look at the same things, an AGM would not be a pleasant experience for them. We’re not ever going to get a vote as such, but like so many senior civil servants our senior management seem above criticism or reproach.
I do feel we have a senior management that is too static and seemingly immune from being changed, other than CAC some whom have tried to effect positive changes and fallen foul of the ‘old guard’. We have RCs and senior HQAC management who have been in post for years and IMO not exactly covered themselves in glory. If they were still in the RAF that they clearly have a love of, they’d have been moved on years ago. I think for many of them their love of the RAF and the lifestyle is more of a draw to stay on and retain their RAF rank within the ACO than what the ACO intrinsically is or represents. I wonder if ALL senior staff appointments, with the exclusion of CAC were all civilian jobs, no uniform or privileges or rank, how many senior officers would do it? People volunteer as CFAV because they know exactly what the ACO represents. Lord knows none of us do it for the money or kudos.
A concerning factor is the timescale as it allows for things to ‘get lost’ due to other things, it states that some things haven’t happened due to this. I know from work anything more than a 2 year process for this sort of thing is all but doomed, purely because the way people change; you get a change of direction and or project creep. When we get a new chairman, director or HoD, they come in with their own ideas, they have to, to ensure they’re regarded as dynamic to the rest of the business and as such any initiatives the old ones had, go out of the window. Great for them professionally, but a pain for the workforce. Looking just at the ABRT, RC(N) has effectively moved on so I doubt that will actually deliver. If a couple of other leads leave before 2018/2020 we’re back to square one.
Despite our previous disagreements, I have to agree wholeheartedly with GHE2 on this one. If these initiatives that have been spouted from on high at HQAC had come to fruition, I feel that we’d all be seeing\would have seen a huge improvement in the lot of the volunteer as well as admin processes over the years.
But I for one, simply haven’t.
I wonder if any top level reporting has shown a drop in the number of exams taken/passed since Ultilearn was introduced?
someone on these boards mentioned not so long ago that the numbers of exams taken on their Squadron dropped by 80% since Ultilearn…
[quote=“glass half empty 2” post=15840]
If they were still in the RAF that they clearly have a love of, they’d have been moved on years ago. I think for many of them their love of the RAF and the lifestyle is more of a draw to stay on and retain their RAF rank within the ACO than what the ACO intrinsically is or represents. I wonder if ALL senior staff appointments, with the exclusion of CAC were all civilian jobs, no uniform or privileges or rank, how many senior officers would do it? [/quote]
I don’t think you’re necessarily wrong, but I disagree with your first point. I’ve seen the exact same thing with Auggie units where much of the permanent staff is made up of ex-regular FTRS who are there because they can’t let go and don’t give a damn about the unit. Sometimes they hang on for years.
I was lucky enough to start out in a unit where the training staff were lead by FTRS SNCOs who had been regulars and auggies and were doing the job because they loved it and wanted their unit to be well trained and highly spoken of.
I guess my point is: yes, this is a problem, but it’s also the nature of the beast. You either live with it and work around it or you vote with your feet (as I eventually did when they sacked our enthusiastic, experienced SNCOs and replaced them with miserable, sarcastic has-beens… ten days until discharge, sadface)
As to Ultilearn, the main problem now seems to be that everyone would rather complain about it than make it work. It’s here to stay and it does do the job and eventually it’s going to be a hell of a lot better than the old pen and paper, wait six month to find out if you’ve passed, can only do the exams twice a year, system was.
with reference to my last post
see Silverback’s post (note it is the WING not Squadron that noticed the 80% drop)
If it was being used solely for exams it would probably work well, but the glitterati at HQAC in a misguided attempt to be all modern, decided that all learning materials would also be put on there, rather than leave it on Sharepoint, where it would a lot more accessible. Plus they reinvented the classification subjects and didn’t give us something like the old ACPs. This is where a lot of the problems started. If you ignore the considerable technical aspects around logging on, on a parade night. I can’t ever remember these problems with books, pen and paper.
If you took the option of giving cadets access to the materials for classifications, do you think they would be garner the neccesary knowledge to pass?
Cadets can’t access sharepoint. We have a few cadets who like to use the training materials to revise and they claim it helped them ace the exam after accessing the materials online.
I did note with disappointment that later in the year there will be a review to see if we keep cadets post 18.
Cadets only can’t access SharePoint because staff don’t give them access. Any member of the ACO can have access to SharePoint, only require the Protecting Information is accessing SMS.
Most of the old ACPs were available in the realms of google on the old system, and hence accessible for the cadet that wanted to revise.
Sharepoint should be the primary document library for the ACO. If they want to mirror certain things on Ultillearn so that cadets can access them then that’s fine, but everything (aside from anything that’s kept off for security) should be on Sharepoint first and foremost.
Is there a way to allow documents on Sharepoint to be publicly accessible?
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Quite right.
Ultilearn is designed for e-self-Learning, which as I’ve mentioned before, isn’t the way we deliver training. It’s not a document repository.
As instructors we should be able to quickly and easily download the relevant training materials without hassle.
To retrieve everything from Ultilearn requires logging in with that stupid password, registering for the course, running the ‘course’, individually opening and saving the materials, and then doing it all again for the next subject.
What an inefficient use of time and resources!
Doubling up on Ultilearn as well as sharepoint shouldn’t be an issue. The relevant information managers clearly aren’t bothered about duplication since it seems that most Wings are already duplicating many documents on their own sharepoint sites instead of linking.
The whole information management procedure in the ACO seems to be up the spout, so one more set of duplicates shouldn’t make any difference.
To look at another angle though, the materials on Ultilearn are somewhat incomplete without the accompany verbal explanation given by an instructor. Surely successful revision would be far better achieved by providing handouts to cadets. These could be either provided by HQAC (as with the first class log book) or created by the individual.
I’m always slightly stumped as to how any cadet can fail the exams given that they are open book… Even if they didn’t attend the lessons and did no revision at all they should be able to pass. :?
Question,
Why is that not how we deliver training?
I have been delivering such training on my squadron for the last 4 months. On classification nights, cadet get out the laptops, work in pairs doing the same subject, take their own notes and challenge each other.
When THEY are ready to take an exam, I register them for the exam and they take it.
This has lead the more able cadets passing two or three subjects in the time it takes others to pass 1, and allows the staff to work directly with the least academically able cadets.
This sort of independent learning is much better for the cadets, it puts the emphasis on THEM to get the most out of THEIR air cadet experience by working to the best of their ability.
In school, group lessons are generally setted, with similar abilities in each set, this is not really possible on a squadron so why should less able cadet struggle while more able cadets are held back from making progress?
[quote=“juliet mike” post=15880]Question,
Why is that not how we deliver training?
I have been delivering such training on my squadron for the last 4 months. On classification nights, cadet get out the laptops, work in pairs doing the same subject, take their own notes and challenge each other.
When THEY are ready to take an exam, I register them for the exam and they take it.
This has lead the more able cadets passing two or three subjects in the time it takes others to pass 1, and allows the staff to work directly with the least academically able cadets.
This sort of independent learning is much better for the cadets, it puts the emphasis on THEM to get the most out of THEIR air cadet experience by working to the best of their ability.
In school, group lessons are generally setted, with similar abilities in each set, this is not really possible on a squadron so why should less able cadet struggle while more able cadets are held back from making progress?[/quote]
Whilst I can see some of the benefits of that approach, I worry that most of our cadets wouldn’t progress at all.
We encourage all of them to work through the classifications at home if they want to. As long as they pass the exams, we don’t mind how they learn the content. However, the vast majority don’t do this, and they are the ones who benefit most from the practical teaching methods that we try to use on squadron.
For some of our cadets, any hint of school or academic progress causes them to switch off. (I do my best to help change their attitude but it’s a long-term aim.)
Also, on a more practical level, we don’t have enough computers or laptops to use this approach.