… i dont want to sound like a bore…
But isnt ‘badge collecting’… just a cadet making the most of their cadet experience???
Or am i missing something?
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I remember joining my first unit in Bristol and meeting the CWO. He had an utterly blank brassard. (Staff Lanyard had taken the only badge he had.)
The brassard told me a lot about him there and then, and that first impression was never proved wrong, his mind was just as blank.
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With the new culture of teens, they brag more about being worst than everyone else than better, so when someone actually tries and does better they don’t like it.
Because at my sqn at least I hear a lot of cadet seem to brag about being soooo depressed and crying so much, and they they relate so much to depressed and anxiety posts on Instagram. Or how they were so slow at the 1500 meter test at school.
No idea what part of the UK you are from, but, we have notbing like that here. Not that ive seen.
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It was in schools as well, as all the teachers had to go on about how trying is good, despite all the kids thinking that not trying and putting the least effort into school was cool. So maybe this changed or something.
Let’s keep on topic.
Not uncommon when I first started in the 90s, the only badges on the brassard back then were classifications up to Senior (no MAC in those days with the yellow lanyard awarded on completion of Staff Parts 1&2 and Senior badge removed), ATC/RAF Marksman badges or Cadet 100/50, Musician badges, ACLC badge, Radio Badge (old school format which required a lot of work to achieve) and the Nijmegen ribbon. If you weren’t a shooty type, played an instrument or were into radios then your brassard was quite sparse.
MB
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With the demise of the logbook, the main way that the cadet will be able to show what they have done is by comparing brassards.
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This was 2011
although you make a valid point it is not comparing apples with apples.
The courses we deliver are for the benefit of Cadets
The courses/qualifications on offer for the Staff…are at the end of the day to benefit Cadets in the expectations those trained staff will go out and do something with it.
Even with First Aid it means they can attend such given it is a minimum required.
We might expect something from the Staff and rightly so, but we don’t expect it from the Cadets…all the Cadet it expected to do is take part in the experience, and where available/required pass the end of course test. there is little/no expectation that a Cadet will do anything with that new found experience/skill/knowledge than further themselves onto the next level
Badge collecting (Cadets)/Course attending (Staff) is not the right motivation at all…but as others have said, by badge collecting the Cadet is making the most of the opportunities on offer…a Staff member is simply ticking boxes
Similar - when I joined as a cadet I saw a Sgt with all the badges (back then there was only DofE, Gliding/Flying, ACLC, 1 Shooting, Band, Comms) I wanted to be like that when I left - and I was (plus Millennium Volunteer) and hopefully inspired younger cadets to do the same. I feel I got pretty much everything out of the corps - and 18 years later I am still giving back.
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The key is given every Cadet as many opportunities as possible, if they choose like you to take them up thats great if not then again absolutely fine.
CFAV in this organisation are here to encourage the Cadets to go for as much as they want/can do so that they walk away from the organisation with a varied experience.
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Just adding a sudden thought that occurred to me.
There’s no real issue with a badge collecting cadet but one thing that creates the mindset is staff focusing on delivering activities that result in a badge.
This does make it easier for staff to plan the training & prioritise those badge generating activities.
The down side is if not managed properly it can create a purely transactional cadet experience which takes away from the spirit of the organisation.
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That is a really good point! I think that a good balance might be to provide as many Blue Badges as you can, to give all cadets a taster in all subjects, then going upwards to Bronze and above should then be by their decision, based on their interests and what they discovered they are interested in.
From another point of view, however, each award comes with points for the Sqn, so if a Sqn is chasing the ‘best in the wing’ accolade, they need as many of the core awards as they can get!
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That’s a natural side effect of having a progressive training syllabus, when the organisation wants to assess its delivery of the Cadet Experience by badging then naturally units are going to plan their year around delivering badges.
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At unit level we tend to intersperse badges and classifications.
I’d prefer First Class to have core subjects and perhaps a choice of additional ones which Cadets can choose. Say 6 and they have to do 3, as they do for senior and master, but it could be any 3 of shooting, first aid, Comms, space, etc.
Bin off the Blue badges but keep the certificates.
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I would bin off the classifications beyond First Class, anyway most of it is pointless and or out of date.
Keep a slimmed down First Class with a few core subjects (ATC and RAF) then as you suggest have other modules that are on the PTS which make up the balance of the training.
As it stands there are 8 blue badges I can think of, radio/cypher, first aid, shooting, leadership, DofE, Music, road marching, flying/gliding. (Have I missed any) So you have to pass RAF, ATC and -attain 4 blue badges to be a first class cadet for example.
Leading, Senior and Master if you want to retain them, bin off the current subjects, instead you have to get so many “points” to progress to the next classification with each badge being worth a set number of points. (Gold Leadership is worth more than Bronze radio etc).
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I think that is all - save for the ‘badge-less badged courses’, space and at some point apparently Fieldcraft.
Remember though, the rest of the classifications are what gives cadets the BTEC.
I think this would be too complicated. I would keep the lessons but certainly slim it down to two topics at senior & master & reduce the topic range. Air nav, air handling, air power & maybe pilot nav? Can’t remember the rest of the topics.
At leading principle of flight, air 2 & map reading are all useful knowledge for the wider cadet career particular those who go onto flying scholarships etc.
It would probably mean that that classification training no longer results in a BTEC in aviation studies but I’m not sure how many are actually claimed.
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