I guess it is where you are based for making the most of the “good weather” our July & August was one of the wettest on record for that time of the year. Ideally suited to indoor activities, even got a storm warning “Storm Antoni” ! Although traditionally it would be great to get cadets out to camps and outdoors not always feasible due to resourcing and costs plus good luck trying to justify sending cadets out in an Amber weather warning storm on a hike
But you wouldn’t plan a week’s indoor activities just in case there’s another Amber weather warning at some point during the week.
I completely get the issues with resources, costs, staff qualifications etc. however, there are free/cheap and far more interesting ways to spend a week than quasi-school studies for classification exams. That is true of classifications at any time of year though, to be fair.
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There are endless indoor activities we could expand too, such as Cyber, Space and STEM, alongside Blue Leadership & 1st Aid if right staff available. Our Squadron’s schedule had a band performance commitment (either leading a parade or band competitions) 7 times this year, for those cadets the one other option is to have a dedicated band parade night which would free them up for lectures this would mean they were committing to 3 parade evenings a week plus weekends. With our band it is approx 15 strong, they have been in general (not all as some have done in their spare time) fairly stagnant on classification progression. As once you have finished with Remembrance we usually get about 5 parade weeks before the building closes for Christmas and New Year.
More recently we have had to get cadets to practice instruments in their own time and cut the band to 1/2 a parade night which gives about 90 mins a week for lectures. Which is at least something.
The band and other activities sound brilliant. I’m sure cadets enjoy them more and get more from them than the classification syllabus, especially since the end of the BTEC. Scrapping classification studies (certainly above Leading) would free up more time for all those great activities.
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Definitely agree, the Senior and Master subjects need train the trainer/SME’s to properly understand the material if anyone has any questions. “Advanced Aviation studies” could be a combined package like it is now for Senior & Master but only for the ones that wish to pursue that route.
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I agree. Senior and Master should be made into bronze and silver PTS badges respectively, with QAIC as the gold badge.
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I like that idea
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I personally feel that we should ditch PTS & the bronze silver gold as I don’t think it really adds anything & just makes things to linear & causes bottlenecks.
There should be no barrier to someone jumping straight into silver with blue or bronze.
Classification wise I like the names of first class, leading, senior as the terms actual mean something rather than something intangible & conceptual
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Other than the obvious link to old ranks of AC1, LAC, and SAC, what do they actually mean? Leading cadet doesn’t include any leadership (that’s a separate PTS badge) and senior cadets aren’t necessarily very senior (I was one before I got promoted to cdt cpl).
Out of interest does anyone have a (rough) breakdown of first class and leading training by the number of lessons it usually takes?
About to appoint a new training officer and would be good to tap the collective wisdom here rather than just say ‘this is what I did, copy it and change the dates’
Depends on how interactive you want to make it.
Our unit runs 4 parade nights for each First Class subject i.e. 4x IET, 4x Radio Comms etc
Leading is 5 parade nights with an examination either on the 5th or 6th parade evening for each subject.
Essentially fills a fair chunk of the winter programme with FT, Shooting and visits thrown in to get through the darker months.
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Thanks
I’ve usually worked on a similar basis but we’re now running multiple classification groups, I can see keeping it all in sync becoming a challenge!
Having CFAV to instruct at each level and the space in our hall yo deliver it is the biggest challenge but we have managed to muddle through with Staff Cadets assisting us.
You can get it down to three groups with a bit of sleight of hand.
With senior & master you have nine topics A,B C D E F G H I
Year 1 - topics ABC - 1st 3 topics of snr.
Year 2 - Topics DEF - 3 topics for Y2 snr. 3 for Mster
Year 3 - back to topics ABC again for Y2 Snr gro to complete master
Ignore the topics G, H & I
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Due to the post Covid ‘bulge’ and the disruption we had in standing back up (anyone remember bubbles) we are looking to have 2 groups doing Leading and 2 doing First Class, as we don’t have a big enough room to teach them all as one!
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