Our promotion criteria has a set minimum benchmark for experience in terms of classification, length of service (18 months or year 11) & a certain number of bronze & blue badges.
I do have my expectation of the role of a Cpl laid out but it’s in terms of role, goals, relationships criteria so about six sentences long rather than essential/desirable criteria which is a bit too job like & can be a bit overwhelming for a 14 year old.
We have guidelines for each rank which is a list of things they should aim for, e.g. minimum attendance, classification, progress in the PTS etc. but we emphasise that it isn’t exhaustive and you could meet them all and still not be suitable for promotion, or the opposite.
It’s the soft skills and qualities that are the tricky part to clearly lay out, especially because it’s not realistic for everyone to demonstrate them all because people are so different.
We do still expect the basics though, like good uniform and discipline. Although, drill we tend to treat like any other subject we cover in that it’s not for everyone. As long as you have at least a basic understanding and good standard, then that’s probably good enough.
Setting clear and distinct guidelines doesn’t help across all squadrons. You also have to look at the squadron, what you have in front of you.
One year you could have a whole team who meet the criteria, but it doesn’t take much for that to collapse; university, day job, etc.
That’s why ours are guidelines rather than strict requirements.
You can also add the option to pass most aspects of any local promotion criteria / guidelines but identify the need to mature over some qualities / peer interactions, etc, so give a set timeframe to improve in such areas.
I’d say that’s very valid.
I also acknowledge the point on DofE. It’s a really useful way to focus cadets and get them to engage with it (something that will really help them, and for which they can already count a lot of the things they do with us), but it can be difficult to get them on expeds, so for that reason alone it could never be essential.
So I’ve been off Squadron a while and don’t have the exact document I created to hand but this is the general criteria I had for the papersift when promoting Corporals.
Minimum 18 months experience as a Cadet.
Leading Cadet Classification
Good Attendance (70% of eligible sessions, Authorised Absence, Duty Absence and Sickness doesn’t count as absent).
Bronze DofE
We then points scored badges Blue = 1, Bronze = 2 etc. I can’t remember what the minimum score was, you would need to look at how productive your Cadets are at the PTS.
We included a personal statement about why they want to be an NCO on the form, which could score upto 5 points (and counts towards the PTS score).
The Chairman of the board (The OC) could vary any 1 element of the mandatory stuff at their discretion. (So if you had an older high flyer they could be promoted sooner if they had everything else, likewise if you don’t want to do DofE that’s fine it can be waived).
Isnt it in the front of ACP48
Is that upto date? I only ever treated stuff like that (as well as the NCO establishments) as advisory.
Of course not but its a good guidance.
I think it should be stripped back tbh to Leading Cadet, 18 months service and bronze leadership.
Bronze leadership is actually a very good shout.
Also NCO courses need to be pre promotion. Why do we provice training after promotion. The real worlds not like that
That only works if it’s available though.
They’re also very good for identifying training gaps.
I always nudge desirous cadets towards a course as the feedback I get is gold.
In an ideal world it should be, but capacity is an issue, and it’s not mandatory. Holding someone back because they can’t get on a course would be unfair. Squadrons should also be running a lot of the basics that an NCO needs day to day themselves anyway.
Dont disagree tbh, i would also challenge upwards why theres not enough courses being run to meet demand
I was told to disregard this as it was obsolete by my OCTest team back in 1996.
Still hasn’t been updated.
One of the things I thought about for a long time was exactly this point: “what if they can’t do X?”
What I didn’t want to convey was that you can progress without taking on certain challenges, otherwise apathy could set in and then I can’t really object to them not trying something new.
So I thought it better to set some achievable but challenging essentials / desirables and give a really clear explanation as to what those things provide and why they’re important.
That then allows me to flex with deference to that declared reasoning. In theory.
So if someone doesn’t do DofE but has met those outcomes another way, I could feel happy justifying their selection later.
Its one of those things that in a never ending rewrite!
I set it as blue leadership as mandatory for Corporal (I forgot that above) as it was accessible to all and within my control to deliver.