Proposal to change joining age to Year 8

All Sqn OCs today got an email from HQAC asking them to complete a survey on the proposal that from Sept 2014 the minimum age for joining will be school year 8 (or equivalent), rather than 13.

Thoughts?

I voted against it for the following reasons:

Quit mixing units: I need an age equivalence to be able to make a judgement!

My schooling was messed up: I progressed to primary 7, did 1st year at the academy for about 4 months then moved schools and ended up in in 2nd year. I finished 5th year before changing schools again and ending up at the start of 5th year…

Disadvantage?

Some cadets will benefit more than others as they will have longer in-service as the new joining target will include all sorts of ages. Fair?

Would it be possible to get a vote inserted to this thread to garner on line opinion free of any emotive comments?

My personal feeling is that because we have so many age restricted activities, the youngers entrants would be at a disadvantage there, but be allowed almost a complete year extra if their birthday is at the start of the accademic year over someone whos birthday is at the end of that year. Agreeing with POP on that one.

Also would someone that is barely 12 have the mental fortitude and maturity to cope. In my view, some might, many may not.

I would do, but I either lack the knowledge or ability to create a poll…or both!

Can’t see a problem personally.
Rules can be changed to allow activities to be undertaken
We would get possibly more recruits
Is it a real problem if younger cadets get to serve longer? When I was a Cadet I got to stay until I was 21 or 22 if I wanted. Don’t remember there being many complaints when that ruling changed.
Let’s not make a big deal of this. Strengthening our organisation is really important. It’s almost as if some of you want to complain about it just for the sake of complaining.

You can change the rules on activities, but it becomes a minefield when trying to apply age limits to activities. For example, the objective of getting friends to join together is dashed when they all want to apply for a camp or train on a weapon. How do you suddenly say, “sorry laddy, i know you’ve all done your training thus far but you cannot play with this weapon because there’s 6 months age difference between you and they all get to play and you don’t”.

This can only be a good thing.

It levels the playng field to a certain degree between us, the ACF, SCC and CCF (who I believe start in Yr8). If we were to lose older cadets as they didn’t like the ‘childishness’, so much the better, as they probably aren’t right as leaders in youth organisations. As we expect our older cadets to be.

Good to see the maturity aspect as a negative cropping up as ever when this has been mentioned. :ohmy: Some people need to get over themselves. I bet that the naysayers wouldn’t say they weren’t mature enough to join when they were 12. But as with every intake you lose those who dont like the discip side of the organisation, what I would regard as the least mature, will always leave. I’ve had 15 and 16 year olds join who weren’t able to handle being told how and when.

The fact that the organisation will have to change in terms of activities and associate rules can only be a good thing IMO.

I think it’s sensible to align recruitment across all cadet forces (CCF as well): at the moment some CCFs run unofficial pre-13 activities which is a grey area for liability.

Quick school year to age calculation:

In year n pupils start aged n+4 and end aged n+5.

(Or as I usually remember it - in year n pupils become n+5)

In discussions it’s always easiest to use national curriculum years, because otherwise it gets horribly complicated as some above have commented (our years start at Shell (Y9), then Remove, Vth, 6.1, 6.2… Good historical reasons for the names, and a tradition worth keeping, but confusing.)

Well it seems quite obvious they will have to change these too for this to work.
Stop being so negative. Stop trying to find something wrong with an idea just for the sake of it.
If, for some reason the activity ages can’t change, then so be it. Little Cadet Johnny will just have to take disappointment and look forward to the next opportunity or leave. Simple as that.
This inclusivity garbage is what’s wrong with all youth organisations. Once they grow up it’s not everyone included. They have to live with it.
The best ones, the ones that really want to stay, will.
GHE2 is absolutely right. We’ll get to keep the ones who are prepared to knuckle down and accept the way things are.

Your post is spot on, and your own argument demonstrates the whole reason why there is no need to change.

If you can’t join with your mates and don’t want to wait, then tough! The best ones, the ones that really want to join - will hang on until they are 13. I never had issues with cadets joining the ACF, and we shared a building. In fact i offered the option to them if they seemed desperate to wear a uniform. There was the odd occasion where they did take up the offer, and funny enough shortly after their 13th birthday they were knocking on our door.

The organisation has survived for a long time now using 13 as the marker. Changing it to scrape a few extra bodies in won’t alter the headcount one bit. School years are purely academic (no pun intended) and mean nothing in real terms. The age of the person is the building blocks behind what they do in life.How many friends join as a group? 30-40%? Why are we trying to pander to those in society who can’t do anything without them holding hands with their mates? We are here to develop young people, not turn it into a mates club. They will soon meet new friends once through the door, friends whom they may stay in contact with for the rest of their life. Society as a whole in the UK has trended towards isolation in young persons, so why do we suddenly think we have an issue which needs solving?

Plt Off Prune - Is your picture accurate as I hear an animated version of it every time I read your posts? Is this just me?

What age is it being changed to? Year 8 doesn’t exist in my region.

Anyway, I believe the ACO commissioned a survey to investigate this and the results showed that children were much more likely to have formed solid peer groups by the age of 13 and were therefore less likely to join the ACO as they already had friends to spend their time with. However at 12 they were much more ‘flexible’ as they were in a transition between primary school and secondary school therefore it was likely they would be more open to new experiences, such as the ACO. This is anecdotal as I’ll never have the time to source evidence but it makes sense to me, especially since I know many cadets who are embarrassed of their friends seeing them in uniform as they are massively influenced by friends once in high school.

Also at my squadron I have had to turn away a number of 12 year olds. They are generally just as mature and little as the 13 year olds. I see no reason why we shouldn’t allow them apart from the general aversion to change.

I go with the “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” option. I had to wait, & didn’t do me any harm! :wink:

If anything, those who aspire to the ACO might be better motivated, specifically if they had to wait. Personally, I appreciated the fact that I had to do so, but could then take part in most of the activities.

Depending on sqn location & availability of slots for “nice” activities, there can already be a level of frustration amongst cadets concerning non-selection. This would only get worse with the “have to wait” syndrome should the age level be lowered - or perhaps cause friction with the extra competition if the age limits for various activities was to be reduced.

One other point to consider - would all the staff members want to cope with what could be a lower level of maturity?

There are two points for discussion here that I would like to mention. The first being that only Sqn Cdrs were given the option give feedback… should not all staff have been given the option? Many staff in Sqns have likely served longer than some of the OCs have and have a broader experience of the Corps. The poll could have been taken at Sqn level and then the OCs feedback to HQAC Also it would have given a more accurate indication of whether or not it was the right move to consider as the number canvassed would have been larger… just my opinion!

Secondly lowering the age could easily be managed at Sqn level as it is the staff at this level that deliver the training, the First Class Cadet Syllabus could easily be delivered at this level and at a manageable pace. Youth First Aid and Heartstart would also be beneficial to cadets from this age as would basic Drill, this should be a stage where you should concentrate on quality of training not quantity. The early that we can be given access to develop young people the more we can achieve with them, the year 8 / 12 year old group makes sense as the ACF and SCC have already realised. This is a natural time in the potential cadets development where changes are afforded to them and their peer groups are reforming due to the move to Secondary/Senior schooling. By the time most young people have reached 13 they have already formed their opinions and set up their social groups, so what better time to access them than when their minds are open?

Other restrictions will always come into play, such as the amount of vacancies in Sqns, staff:cadet ratios, types of expertise in Sqns etc, etc, if we wanted to we could all find reasons why not do something! The ACO should not be seen as an elitist organisation it should be accessible to all with the maximum opportunities available to all who decide to join. I honestly feel that some of the cadets in the Sqn I work with would have had more opportunities if they just were given that extra year of service.

[quote=“Plt Off Prune” post=15456]If you can’t join with your mates and don’t want to wait, then tough!

The organisation has survived for a long time now using 13 as the marker. Changing it to scrape a few extra bodies in won’t alter the headcount one bit. School years are purely academic (no pun intended) and mean nothing in real terms. The age of the person is the building blocks behind what they do in life.How many friends join as a group? 30-40%? Why are we trying to pander to those in society who can’t do anything without them holding hands with their mates? We are here to develop young people, not turn it into a mates club. They will soon meet new friends once through the door, friends whom they may stay in contact with for the rest of their life. Society as a whole in the UK has trended towards isolation in young persons, so why do we suddenly think we have an issue which needs solving?[/quote]
When I joined it was 13 and 3 months and you couldn’t enrol until you were 13 and 9 months and there were probably more who joined later as a result.
I think you are missing a point in that throughout education and many activities they have age groups that are aligned with school year. We in the Corps have to play by these age groupings especially sports. Many of the age groups we work to set by the Corps are purely arbitrary.

If this becomes “law” then youngsters will be able to start with their peers and potentially experience things together. There is another aspect of childhood and indeed adulthood … you need to be able to provide something when people want to or are able do it and this may present in the form of a small window of opportunity to the providers.

You are right that modern society promotes isolation and many friendships are maintained through a purely facile online existence. So how much better to promote and potentially strengthen these in the real world. However, as we all know sometimes groups of mates who join together, leave together. But it does make recruitment a lot easier to target. I’ve done too many recruitment events and had groups of friends who are interested but as some of them can and some can’t join at the next intake, invariably you see none of them and you know that because you have put the caveat there, that you won’t see them.

I just wonder what the views on here would have been if this had been about girls joining? At the time it was first mooted I know a lot of staff were very, very anti, and remained so, but these ‘fears’ were unfounded. However I still can’t get my head around (even though I’ve got 2 daughters) the fickle nature of girls and especially teenage ones.

Just my 2 penneths, but I would be surprised if this is not an attempt to off-set the numbers game if we decide to end cadet service at 18…

i.e. gain a few thousand at age 12 (Year 8 are aged 12 as of 1 September) - lose a few thousand aged 18 & 19…

What is the proportion of 13 year olds against the proportion of 18/19 years olds? There must be many more, since the vast majority of cadets surely leave before age 18.

This seems like a sensible - and easy - way to potentially marginally increase our numbers, bring us in line with the SCC & ACF, and off-set the loss of 18/19 year olds…

Any thoughts on that “big picture” view?

Cheers
BTI

I would tend to agree with you cynicism!

Plus 1, this seems a numbers game move and little more than that.

It’ll be interesting to see what these kids will be doing for their two early years if OC 2FTS gets his way with the new gliding strategy. Especially with us being told Cadets join us to fly…

The ACF are dropping their upper age to 18 years old. I think ill agree with the previous posters - this isn’t an attempt at addressing a current issue, it’s firefighting an impending one.

The ‘problem’ of what Yr8s will do if they haven’t achieved the magical 13, is down to people who get paid to do the ATC for a living. As ever we are at the mercy of those who despite getting paid, don’t have to deal with cadets (and staff for that matter) and or the fall out of their decisions on a ‘daily’ basis. If they put barriers in place for any Yr8s that were to join, then the idea will die on its backside and will leave us as a less credible organisation in the eyes of our potential audience.

You can’t have them join at say 12 and then say you can’t do anything until you’re 13 and 1 month or older.