…and the fact that they do it in school - and it is not therefore what makes them join the ATC
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Indeed. STEM is hard to do well.
And I’m not seeing much in the way of actual resources being put behind the other elements either.
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If you try to deliver “STEM”, then I agree, but delivering fun sessions on a specific STEM topic isn’t so hard to do if you have staff competent in that topic
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Who would have thought that we would be a training organisation with a leadership lacking in understanding and exposure to our target demographic…
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Not wrong and nothing that hasn’t been said - so much of what we already do fits into the category.
However, even in those areas we have knowledge and expertise gaps (a la postcode lottery) and those who could without that existing knowledge are not catered for with idiot’s guide resources.
Which brings me to another issue we have: brain drain. The organisation has lost A LOT of experience over the last few years across all areas of training, a sizeable proportion of which left due to leadership and management decisions and styles both nationally and locally. During our greatest time of need, there seems to have been some great agenda in some areas to “clean house”, alongside the natural wastage and morale-related losses.
So it makes sense that we are producing more and more self-study material - it’s easier than recruiting and training CFAV. Self-study, however, is a p poor MO for a training organisation. E Learning is used by big businesses for the purposes of economy of scale, consistency, and box-ticking; they don’t care about the quality as long as they can point to the green tick and not get sued.
I’m a supporter of self-study at higher levels:
But our prime directive should be directly delivering training and experiences, not providing online resource hosting. At that point, RAFAC might as well stand for Royal Air Force Adolescent College, be an online subscription, do away with sites and accommodation, and if you want the outdoor stuff go and join one of the groups still living in the real world.
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Just in case this questions gets lost in the debate…
If you Google “ACP 33 Volume 4”, you will get the old training manual, from which our syllabus is derived from.
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Wish we could do modelling and air recce
Nothing to stop you if you have the knowledge, resources and available slots in your training programme.
Problem is that only a few cadets are interested in modelling and air recce, and we don’t have enough room to run it as an activity along side other things during a parade night. We tried to do air recce once or twice, but the majority of the cadets who said they would be interested turned out to not be interested, so we haven’t run it since.
I still chuckle that my first night ever in the ATC, we were doing ‘modelling’, which when mentioned I thought meant we’d be getting our photos taken for some sort of magazine or something… being a self conscious 13 year old I dreaded the thought until they got the paints out 
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When I was looking through my dad’s old diaries, he had an entry for his first parade night at his locale sqn. This was 1980s Aberystwyth sqn, and he came away with a free 1:72 airfix harrier kit! He also had multiple glider flights in the Viking later on, alongside AEF in chipmunks. I’m starting to think it was better back then…
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Everything was better with Chipmunks.
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Which one was your favourite? Alvin? Simon? Theodore?
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I’m starting to think that as well, the more I am remembering and writing about the topic of classification training and where it fits within the big scheme of things.
Forty years ago, what we did in the ATC did fit well in between one’s education at school and a future career. However, one can argue that such things were better defined then in the ‘leave school at 16 with a job for life: only go to university if you are going to do something with the degree’ era which didn’t survive the 1980s.
After all, the RAF was three times as large then, so there were three times the amount of career options available to young people in that service at any standard of educational qualification. You could become a commissioned officer and a pilot with 5 GCE ‘O’ Levels, for instance. The RAF is just the one example I know anything about, of course.
The classification programme was the only theoretical training we did then, and I remember not doing much else on our Tuesday and Friday parade nights, apart from foot or arms drill with DP Lee-Enfield rifles now and again. A few times a year we’d have a night exercise, and RAF Careers would visit twice a year to show films and dish out trade leaflets. And that was our training year.
The practical training shown on Air Cadet recruiting material then and now was pretty much the same as it always has been; i.e. done on weekends and annual camps. Powered flying was about the same as now - a couple of times a year at most - but there was a lot more gliding available, and glider pilot badges for solo flying were a seen a lot more than now. In our region, made up of two whole countries, there’s only one gliding centre to cover it, so that core air cadet activity has gone ‘near extinct.’ 
Gliding is, of course, a practical continuation of what is learnt on the classification programme.
The classification programme, then and now, should be able to be taught by anyone who can instruct and has either done the programme as a cadet, or has an interest in its subject matter as a CFAV. It should be the foundation knowledge for any further ‘specialist training’ an ATC squadron has the resources to offer: I don’t believe classification training should be scrapped above Leading or taught as an alternative to other technical subjects. It’s not that hard to learn or teach, after all.
STEM-type subjects might be getting above our pay grade to either teach or find the time and resources to provide, especially if people on our forum are saying their squadron can’t do it, mainly because of lack of ‘qualified staff.’ We as CFAV attend our squadron twice a week for around 2-4 hours of actual instruction at most, in between other things we have to do whilst we are there.
We’re a part time volunteer organisation of aviation geeks for aviation geeks, not an alternative, free of charge sixth-form polytechnic college, making up successive UK governments’ under-investment in technical training for young people. A part-time job in such a facility teaching aeronautical studies appeals to me, and probably a lot of us, but they’d have to pay the going rate at least for it all. 
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I found that a good way to squeeze Aircraft Recognition into the skills base was to incorporate it into an exercise - we’d run it as a scenario/skills stand as an observation post watching an airfield with points awarded for the degree of correctness.
F-15 gets one point, F-15E rather than A or C gets two points etc…
That way it lost the ‘plane spotter’ tag, and flew the Gucci SF task flag…
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How long did it take to explain to the guards at Lakenheath that you really were a CFAV teaching cadets air recce?
In nursing in the 80s, without O Levels you could start SRN training passing the GNC DC Test which I did. That all fell apart when Major surrendered to the educational lobby and the unions for all degree and supernumerary training rather than the apprentice type of training. That apprentice type of training meant you were part of the workforce, paid a wage and started a pension, but more importantly you learnt very early if the job was for you.
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The outside learning with it being online is a good idea in some ways as it allows some cadets just to crack on if they have spare time. As a squadron although it wouldn’t be the most appealing “camp” we have be toying with the idea of using the building during school holidays (mainly summer) to target Leading/Senior/Master exams with intensive study weeks for each. For restrictions reasons on breaks needed between the exams we couldn’t do 3 weeks to master. However if you had say a group of 10 Leading cadets that attended and committed to 1 week out of their school holidays doing similar to school term time like 08:30-15:30 (breaks and a lunch) it would give you in effect 6 hours worth of study per day which over a 5 day week gives you 30 hours for the lectures and exams. Most squadrons with other activities unless you are doing double lectures nights that won’t be far off 1/2 the year of learning in one week.
Firstly although not the greatest comment but benefit from the parents side is a week of “childcare” less to worry about however during a 6/7 weeks break that can be a worry for some and apart from a packed lunch this would be at no extra cost. Secondly providing the cadets pass it would free them up for the rest of the year from exams. This probably would work well if your squadron had a band as often they are keen to be part of that but also need to be an all rounder so to speak and exams/lectures can be missed due to a parade coming up etc.
Being blunt, I can think of soooo many better ways to fill a week of the summer holidays with cadet activities, even run from the Sqn, than doing classification exams. Making the most of the good weather, when cadets can easily get outside, is really important.
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