A lot of staff at our Sqn are expressing concerns that the cadets are sat at home basically cheating with open books and google getting through the academic grades. Will we all have a sqn full of Master Air Cadets by September?
Yours, worried of Chelsea
The exams are supposed to be open book anyway. Most squadrons will come back with loads of Master Cadets. It’s not a huge deal is it?
Don’t authorise them for the exams then?
Not sure how they can be “cheating” at an open book exam.
We aren’t just letting ours do what they want, they are only being authorised to take lessons that have been taught to them.
This. Manage the maximum they can achieve…they can see every subject but have to be set up for the exam to actually qualify.
Open book exams are here to stay just need to get on with it… if they cheat that’s their choice and if they ever need to actually use their knowledge itll come round and bite them in the backside
If universities can cope with open book exams when theirs are normally closed, I see no issue with our normally open book exams staying open book. To not authorise their exams is silly, why would you want to stop them from progressing and opening more doors for them? After all, that’s what we’re here for, right?
I’ve said it time and time again, whether you teach it or not they’ll probably retain very little. Most cadets simply aren’t interested, especially when the person teaching it barely knows the subject and/or is reading verbatim off a powerpoint.
Because you might want to structure your training programme after you go back? In normal circumstances you wouldn’t let Cadets do the whole training syllabus in 1 year so why would you this year? (You might have exceptions like late joiners).
We are allowing ours to progress one level during the lockdown and we won’t be running syllabus training this winter. That way all of our Cadets will be at the same place next year that they would’ve been without lockdown.
Yes, good point. I misinterpreted it as “don’t let anyone do any exams”.
Can’t tell if “Silly Bus” was a typo or tongue in cheek joke???
Erm… just do remedial studies when back on Sqn.
Or call it KNOWLEDGE CONFIRMATION?
We’ve had messages from wing telling us all off for allowing cadets to progress too quickly, and giving “guidance” on how a cadets time served should relate to their classification…
Something about due to the issue of the BTEC minimum hours of instruction required, etc etc.
We’ve taught the leading lessons, and have got the few cadets that want to push on up to leading standard. There’s been little enthusiasm for pushing on in senior/master, so we haven’t bothered.
But it certainly wouldn’t be open season on classification without proof of understanding/attendance to at least some lessons…
Our OC Wg has said cadets in our wing are only permitted to progress by one classification level during the hibernation.
I think that’s a good call.
In theory they should do one classification a year so it keeps that in line.
My only hope is that when F2F resumes Sqns dont just put the cadets in classification classes it will kill off an even bigger chunk of cadets if they do that
This. A thousand times this. It needs printing off, laminating and nailing to the wall of every Sqn.
When we stand up we really need to focus on the practical side, team building and teamwork. The months of lockdown will have done little for social and communication skills, and that is somewhere our organisation should be able to help.
It depends on what rules are in place as and when we go back and which part of the UK you are in.
I spoke to the son of one of the neighbours he was at school (he’s in Y10) on Monday and said they had dots to stand on in their class group’s allocated part of playground, they were in just one room max 8 to a room and teachers moved between them, strict entrance, exit and one way systems, hand washing and or sanitising before they went into classes and going to the toilet. The laptops they used had to be sanitised at the end of the day, the classrooms were as he described it, fumigated and he said they had to wear clothes that could be washed and didn’t wear blazers and ties. He also said there was a maximum of a ¼ of the year expected in which would have been about 100 and there was from what he saw at lunchtime no more than 30.
If we are faced with anything like this, we won’t be doing a lot, mainly as huts are so small and numbers relatively large. Quite how you do distanced team stuff, when it involves working in close contact will be interesting. Then there is the irrational fear and paranoia of people by people that has been stoked and continually fuelled throughout this, that, regardless of any other rules, will dictate what people do and how they do things for some considerable time.
On top of this the huts need to be deep cleaned by RFCA, I imagine marked out and water checked for legionella, as any tanks will have been idle since the middle of March and it’s been a warm spring and summer so far.
This is all lovely but not at all relevant to the OP’s question.
Whilst we don’t want to rush through these I do have some sympathy.
I have provided resources for all my cadets to study up to Master. When we go back in I have no intention of running classroom learning for at least 12 months, with the exception of new joiners. We will be doing leadership, radio, team building, sports, air rifle, visits etc etc etc, not classification.
I had the same thoughts. Classification training should be the last thing we want to do with them!