If you have 1 instructor per unit on a Wing then a Wing FCO has to run maybe 3-4 courses throughout a year to qualify and upskill instructors. Not everyone would be available on the same weekend anyway and not every unit would want instructors up past Blue level at the same time either.
Do you think that’s beyond a Wing FCO who should be holding a full time WSO position?
RFCO there to support where there may be knowledge lacking and make sure the Wing FCO is up to speed.
I don’t have firm figures but my educated best guess is we currently only have FCIs in about 1/3 of units (though there are some that do have more than one).
Realistically Blue delivered on unit, Bronze at sector so you have enough staff to deploy, silver and gold at Wing supported level would be how I would look to plan this when I was a Wg or Region FCO.
This I think could be a really interesting subject to discuss on its own and something we are trying to break away from. Not break away from the PTS but stop it being seen as a once and done but more a your done the Qualification now let’s get you using it and putting into practice.
Let’s take the skills you learnt from the qualifications and learn how to use it in situations outside of that lesson on the programme. Then having refresher training on the squadron - so it’s using those skills of the PTS but it’s not geared towards earning it.
Yes particularly with the current volunteer state.
My point clumsily made is that the WFCO then becomes the single point of failure in a very weak chain. They should be a coordinator of training & arbiter of the syllabus not its high priest.
The WFCO should be focused on approval of SMS apps, coordinating current instructors & building that network of knowledge across the organisation. Mutual development should be through a pseudo peer support style of methodology overseen by the WFCO.
Otherwise you do not get buy in from the general volunteers & it becomes a cottage industry whose delivery is dependent on specific individuals which then collapses when that person moves on.
Currently Wing staff teams have about less than a third number of personnel they once did with the majority wearing two different hats. Locally we’ve got about 1FCI per five units & the spread is penny packets so it’s not deliverable on mass. We also no longer have Sectors due to lack of volunteers willing to do the role. Nothing is organised at “sector” level anymore apart from sqns organising something & then inviting others.
Currently our Wg FCO (who does the role as a secondary to their Sqn role) is running two fieldcraft “taster” weekends a year. There is no capacity to run anything more than that.
It wasn’t me who put “… under the command of an experienced Section Commander …” into the bronze syllabus (of an organisation with very few, if any, experienced section commanders).
Strikes me as a management failing and isn’t representative of other areas of the organisation.
There will almost certainly be a requirement to change the way things work and people in the FCO roles will have to change to support their team.
Wing Fieldcraft Officer should never just be a compliance role, at that level in the org they should be supporting delivery in much the same was as Wing Shooting Officers should.
There was a recommendation that Blue shouldn’t be delivered on parade nights but I’ll wait until I see the policy before judging.
Either way for us it is likely to be Blue at sector unless/until we can get an FCI on each unit, and given all the other quals units need, I’m not holding my breath.
(The solution would be to let cadets teach Blue, as they now can in some other areas).
No issue with that but they can’t do everything, you need a team, you need resilience & you need business continuity. Otherwise it just becomes all dependent on a single volunteer & then everything needs rebuilding when people moves on.
This is common across the organisation and we see it across a number of subject matter areas & responsibilities.
Whilst that may be a factor historically, post covid this is more the norm.
There’s a lot of hard work gone into the syllabus & it’s for the right reasons (& despite my scepticism & cynicism it. Really is appreciated) but if you don’t have a sustainability plan (two cycles of five years) then we won’t get this syllabus embedded into daily business. We need this to succeed because otherwise we will be back to square one & then people won’t invest in improving OTHER training topics, stifling innovation.
This is what’s needed to help make things sustainable.
This suggestion is probably best considered at the 12 month review once the syllabus is launched but why not allow cadets who have gained silver & have MOI to teach Blue, same as Radio. It allows staff to focus on the complex & let the cadets get into it (which they then carry over to CFAVs role)
In radio they can teach one level down. And I think they can now do the Blue wings synthetic training (which was only staff cadets and CFAV when it launched).
We struggle with retention of older cadets and this is something that could help. ACF lower level fieldcraft is entirely taught by cadets from what I see!
The course that permits them is called SCIC (Senior Cadet Instructor Cadre). It’s a week long course & the 16year old cadet comes away with MOI, & trainee & authorised to action as section IC for platoon attacks etc.
It then lets them teach fieldcraft & I think refreshers up to 2star level. It’s a pity we can’t try & blag a couple of places for some of our 16year old to build up the knowledge.
The MOI course is rubbish which is the major issue here, the focus on teaching a practical subject like fieldcraft needs to move away from MOI as a standard.
Cadets who do the FCI course can teach the syllabus to a point.