Except it’s not on Cadet Portal unless someone from your unit logs in to SMS and shares the event, for which the Weekly Brief was the call to action.
If you don’t read the Weekly Brief how would you like to have been notified that this course is happening and the Cadet Bidding process is open and there is also a calling notice for staff?
Even that isn’t true. Someone has commented that you can’t actually share it as units have not yet been added to the application.
The response:
There is a plan to get max visibility for cadets. Sarah will elaborate idc.
So I think it’s more of a wait-out.
My unit is added and we’ve shared it… 35 cadets are already bidding and the Units list is extremely long.
To be fair SMS seems to be down atm so can’t check!
That may be so - but the staff are still in the dark about content & any associated details = once added to SMS, cadets will be asking this = staff can’t answer. How can an OC endorse an application if they don’t know the course content / structure in order to assess their cadet’s capabilities? To a degree, that’s the same for the staff calling notice - what is the course all about in greater detail?
Oh, interesting.
Maybe that comment was from earlier and just showed teething issues?
I’m not sure what there is that cadets will ask that we don’t know…
Q: What will I gain from this course?
A: Gold Leadership Badge + the opportunity to gain an ILM Level 3 Award in Leadership and Management.
Q: Where is the course, and how will I get there?
A: The course is at RAF Wittering and for national courses you normally travel via Train or if there a number of cadets taking part from the Wing there may be a centralised transport option.
Q: Am I eligible for this course?
A: Do you tick these 4 boxes?
Do you support your cadet being considered for a Gold Leadership Course or are they a nightmare at the Sqn and don’t deserve the opportunity, or is it the case that you have other cadet applicants that would be your personal priority.
Yes, because it’s a brand new course, so new content & structure … How will they gain the specified qualifications?
As we don’t know the course content / structure, it’s very much in the dark. All cadets would hopefully be “supported” but if there are (unknown) elements in the course, these might point an OC to supporting one cadet instead of another, based on known strengths / weaknesses. Just because a cadet has ticked the boxes, doesn’t mean that it might be right for them. A cadet might have struggled to gain Silver Leadership, would they be successful at Gold level??
Silver Leadership will probably be the main defining factor anyway.
I’m still a little surprised that squadrons put these advanced courses out on Cadet Portal. It would save the organisers a lot of effort if squadrons just approached their eligible cadets directly. That would also resolve the “OC’s recommendation” issue. We see this a lot with things like NCO courses and MOI.
It would be good if events could be tailored so that only eligible cadets could see them - I think this happens with flying or maybe they can’t sign up but still see it. Would make sifting a lot easier
I have junior cadets applying for JNCO courses etc or AFA when under age - takes a lot of time having to sift all the activities to weed out the obvious wrong applicants
Also cadets just see courses - most don’t read details in info window and they def don’t open Warning/Admin orders/attachments
Events Sign-up criteria is in the development backlog, but has been delayed by the decommissioning of Units and the need to port the events management tool over to Volunteer Portal, and all the other “little” jobs that the Digital Team gets lumbered with.
To be fair, some of that is avoidable. Something where the OC has to recommend applicants or we’re likely to get limited places so need to provide an order of priority to our bids, like JNCO courses, I would manage it myself rather than leaving it open to any cadets to bid.
I do agree that it would be a useful feature though, and to have a feature where cadets can just see an activity exists, but not be able to bid. Then you could include something like, “speak to squadron staff if interested”.
I repeatedly have to reject applicants on SMS from Wing courses because they don’t meet the age requirement or prerequisites. Even though those are stated on SMS and in the Warning Order / Calling Notice.