Cadets getting through the academic silly bus whilst on Lockdown

Adult Staff The Staff Mess
11

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…

12

Our OC Wg has said cadets in our wing are only permitted to progress by one classification level during the hibernation.

13

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

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14

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.

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15

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.

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10 posts were split to a new topic: Preparing to Return to F2F Activity

25

This is all lovely but not at all relevant to the OP’s question.

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27

Whilst we don’t want to rush through these I do have some sympathy.

  1. HQAC approved the open book setup so if they can answer the questions with the book/Google then why not?
  2. How much do you actually need to use the knowledge from the tests (especially the later ones) in other cadet activities?
  3. When we get back we are going to want to focus on the non-academic aspect of the training programme, so if we don’t allow the cadets to get ahead on the classification side of things now they are going to fall behind on return.
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28

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.

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29

I had the same thoughts. Classification training should be the last thing we want to do with them!

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30

I think we should postpone recruitment also until Jan 21…look after the ones that come back, let org stabilise and reset Sqn practices for better success long term

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31

I had a similar feeling, although i was only thinking of 1 or two months. (assuming a September restart)

32

I was think maybe after October half term.

33

We usually do a Sept and Feb intake, so thinking of Feb 21 for new recruits. Better to focus on current cadets for a few months, especially if we’re limited on the number of people allowed in the building

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34

If we return in September it’ll take a while to get our heads straight, so imagine earliest recruitment will be early 2021 now for us.

We’ll try to avoid classification too, however as cadets have little engagement with it over vp, and being based in a school with limited facilities, it’ll mean I need to get inventive with the training programme.

35

We’ll do as little as possible, but there will inevitably be some academic content - notably those bits that accompany things like leadership courses.

36

Our contingent is planning to do recruitment in January (assuming a September return to school). Normally we recruit in October.

37

Assuming a September restart we are looking at an October intake probably the week after half term. We had an intake due to start in March lots of whom are still contacting us, we can’t put them off another 5 months.

38

Recruiting… might not be possible or wise anyway.

Building numbers allowed and extra social distancing required.
Might have to wait until spring.

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39

We may have to wait longer, depending on what happens in schools. If they are still doing part-time into next year (2021), are we really in a position to meet like nothing happened?
I’m expecting another bout of restrictions / measures when we enter the next flu period, which could extend to next March, so that’s effectively Easter.