We currently expect far too much from cadets approaching 18…
“You’re 17 now… You want to stay on in the Corps for a few more years? Right then… You need to achieve ‘x, y, and, z’ before you turn 18. You must attend an AVIP course, you must have some special ‘value add’, and you must do all this whilst also managing your A-Levels, employment, and social life.”
All the while some random 20 year old with no experience walks in off the street…
“Great. Join us as a CI and then we’ll put you through all these courses…”
We bring the random straight into the fold whilst the 18 year old who’s been a cadet for 4 or 5 years already has more to offer in the way of experience and skill… But that’s not enough for us…
We should be letting them “be cadets” until they are 18 without all these extra hoops to jump through (with the exception of DBS - which is only sensible to avoid an unnecessary break and is hardly onerous).
On their 18th birthday if they are considered suitable by their OC (who will have already made a judgement and submitted their recommendation), they can advance into a proper staff “training role” and then start to achieve all those criteria.
That would give parity with the expectations placed on other new staff and would be more akin to our SCC and RMC colleagues.
At 17 many of them will be considering higher education. I firmly believe that also placing the burden on them to decide whether they still want to remain in the ATC in a year’s time and beyond is unfair.
By the time they get to 18 they should have a better idea of their future plans and how that will/won’t fit around remaining in the Corps.
I’ve had a few work hard to tick all these damned boxes and then turn 18 - only to discover that they are offered the place at Uni they wanted but didn’t think they’d get, and they’re off. All that extra pressure placed on them by the ATC - for nothing.
I’m sure you can tell that this is a topic which still riles me.
I also find it ridiculous that staff generally were not canvassed for our opinions on the matter.
I’d have been only too happy to put my point forward backed by personal experience of working closely on joint events with the SCC for the past decade - but I wasn’t asked.
My OC was - but he’d only been commissioned for 6 months, was never a cadet, and had no experience on which to form a practical opinion.
In all my years I’ve only knocked back one cadet as they weren’t really up to it in terms of their ‘learning ability’, but they went onto the Civ Com for a few years, until they moved out of the area. These was a young man for who the ATC was about the only stable thing in his life and keeping in the CWC gave that contact and stability.
Barring only a few instances every single cadet is a potential member of staff, not just because they tick some BS boxes and bin them off because they don’t.
@incubus I don’t think the ATCs current system can work properly as it is, as it’s too geared to an (as @wdimagineer2b says) admin heavy and additional course process. I’m not sure that HQAC really understand the real ATC and how it worked and works. How many staff in the ATC today came through the old system who may have not been ‘suitable’ (under the current system) to stay past 18 and are now doing all manner of things and differing levels of responsibility, within the ATC. These young people still exist today, but we’ll never know how far or what they could be doing in the future as the organisation is only too keen to lose them. Nose / face and baby / bathwater? It’s a fallacy to expect them to come back at some point in the future.
It is a concern that it seems existing staff are only too willing to see cadets get kicked out, when these might be the future of the ATC’s staff. Better to increase the pool of potentials, rather than create a restricted pool.
Sadly I don’t think it’s just HQAC.
I know of an OC Wing or two who have very defined ideas as to what they consider acceptable to warrant a cadet staying beyond 18 and to what they consider to be “not good enough”.
Surely they haven’t looked at the ATC model and thought that looks good let’s do something similar? Stupid is as stupid does.
I don’t know what senior cadet activities the ACF have, but the ATC has nothing special for 18+ where they go and don’t have to be cadets first, second … etc and adult way down the line and only if the ATC says so
They have realised that they are lacking something that the ATC can potentially provide and have decided to re-think their earlier decision.
Because they are starting from a somewhat fresher position it will probably work for them - they won’t be fighting against obstructive, short-sighted relics as they get it to work.