After a pretty disasterous sports night, staff and Ncos have noticed a lack of respect towatlrds staff and cadets and would like to know a few ideas on how to improve it.
How many cadets and nco do you have?
Is it all the cadets being disrepectful or just a few?
Have you spoke to these people?
I would suggest rebriefing the code of conduct (ideally from the CO) then they are clear on how to behave and the consequences…then manage from there
Remeber respect is earnt not expectes…maybe review the nco team how they can improve their relationships with the cadets.?
here is the nub of the issue.
sports night = out of uniform = people forget.
i have been on 7 units and its the same on each, to a greater or lesser degree, but discipline drops on sports nights.
it is often at a neutral venue (town park/local playing fields) where Cadets attend and have a kickabout with their mates - they default into that mindset and forget it is a Cadet event.
best advice, speak to the NCOs, highlight the difficulties of sports night but they need to be setting the example and not having a private kickabout with the spare ball…
What consequences?
As a CO I can get out my pram, but at the end of the day I can do nothing to them that is of any real consequence. No CO can’t just kick them out. There are some COs who think they are more than they are and don’t realise how daft they sound.
As @steve679 says sports nights have a tendency to become a bit loose as the levels change as the youngest cadet can be much better than the much older cadets and there is no rank on the ‘sports field’. If you can accept this it’s not a problem. Some problems come about when NCOs think they are bees kness and get stroppy at which point they can become a laughing stock, which dents teen egos and we can’t have that can we.
More of highlighting ongoing continuos behaviour can lead to dismissal… after all the councelling etc…
The matrix is quite clear on severity and repetition after discipline. It’s a pretty tight on what you can do in certain circumstances. As an OC you can be quite fenced into the corner wanting to boot someone without being able to without fear of reprisal.
Lead to dismissal from what? A youth group, what does that matter? They can join another and another and another.
We are not statutory and in the grand scheme we do not matter in the lives of teenagers who join, as seen by the number who leave when exams kick in. If you cannot get a handle on that perspective, you will drive yourself mad continuing to believe that we as an organisation are something more than we are. The only thing that matters is school, which is statutory, youth groups etc are temporary and there for those who want to do them, there is no compulsion. Hence we are competing with sports teams, drama/dance groups and all other groups/activities as well as the traditional groups.
We speak of discipline as if we are the be all and end all, but we aren’t. Sportsmen and women, musicians, performers, etc don’t reach the pinnacles they do, even at youth level without the discipline of countless hours of practice and training, developing and honing skills, from ages much younger than we start to take cadets and in order to be selected to play/perform they have to prove themselves worthy by doing the training and practice. We pale to a 20 watt bulb in comparison; cadets turn up keep a uniform tidy a few yes sir/mam no sir/mam, do a bit on occasional weekends and everyone’s happy. Even shining shoes something that seems to excite people doesn’t take the sort of time that any of the things mentioned above take, yet there are people in the ATC that are so shallow, they get excited by it.
The cadets I admire most are those who play sport, involved in things like martial arts and boxing, play and perform with instruments (outside the ATC), perform in some way etc, all outside the ATC and still find the time to turn up and do ATC. They might not turn up every night and do everything, which is fine. Similarly staff who are involved in other things outside the ATC.
I would just use it as a line in the sand…if may be just that its sports night and the cadets were excited…my opinion on this original post is that ghe NCO expect the cadets to respect them…they would need to work on their relationship with the cadets and create a mutual respect for one another