Re-Launch of the PTS

Just make the brassard velcro and you can add and replace badges with ease #YoureWelcome

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That’s pretty much the route the ACF has gone down. Although it goes completely against ACP 1358, I have also seen CCF(RAF) cadets using the PCS right blanking plate as a brassard (with classification, marksmanship, etc, badges and the school identifier) and, to be completely honest, it didn’t look bad.

I’m not sure if this is on topic or off topic…

How does squadrons go about delivering the PTS (excluding classifications) when there is no one on squadron train to deliver any specific area?

… And of course there are no training courses available…

It seems like such a good thing if they had the infrastructure in place.

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This is going to vary massively depending on your location, and what exactly you want to deliver. Frankly, it could be multiple threads for each of the different areas.

At a fundamental level, you need a suitably qualified and/or competent staff member and any relevant equipment.

For space, that might be very simple. For something like shooting, there are obviously many more hurdles. If there are no training courses available to get staff qualed up, then the simple answer is you can’t deliver it. You need to speak to the WTO to get TTT courses made available, or look at other Wings.

This is one thing that has been brought up to HQ as part of the redevelopment of the PTS, the need to invest in our staff and provide supporting resources and training courses in order to deliver the classifications and PTS.

Ultimately everything at Blue level should be deliverable on Sqn by CDT NCO’s or Staff as shown on this slide from the Wing OC’s conference the other day.

Again… That is all well and good and something that I fundamentally agree with…

But it’s ok saying they need to do more trading at a wing level to educate the delivering staff, you could be talking years and years here.

Interested to know if RAFAC are moving to more agile staff learning such as asynchronous learning, or online synchronous. Surely would be much easier to get them all together online then at a random location in the wing or region (obviously this does not include practical PTS stuff!)

This is something that has really confused me and I don’t know if this is just because I’ve missed something but what is the issue with putting the space badge where the parachuting badge was, there is an opening on everyone’s brassard and a chance to fill it. I appreciate if I have missed something. Also if they really wanted to combine the radio and cyber badges what they could do (this is just a quick idea I just came up with and i know it is flawed) is go with what they are already doing for the badges for Radio and cyber but combine them so what I mean by this is say if you are Silver Cyber and blue radio, for example, the 4 electricity symbols that point towards the letter would be silver whilst the letter at the centre would be blue, it might start to look scruffy though and 16 different badges would need to be made to accommodate this (as a different badge for each combination of Blue, Bronze, Silver or Gold.)

Another, I saw a few people talking about it on this thread was staff being able to teach the syllabus for bronze and blue, however, I know from my own experience that most of the staff are left on my sqn because there aren’t many don’t have the time to spend their time and weekends away from work to be able to go on the courses that are required to deliver these. For example, the new Fieldcraft syllabus that came out months ago still hasn’t been properly implemented across the core and almost seems like it was announced got cadets excited and then left everyone else in the dark about it. This isn’t just an issue with staff it’s with the more senior cadets as well because when they get to year 11 they practically leave as they find they have lives outside of cadets and not only that they need time off for exams which means a lot of the time its near impossible to get cadets to a point where they can deliver these training on sqn to cadets. And if they do stay sometimes these events are held at a location that is highly impractical upwards of 50-minute drives from some cadets to get to. (I find this a lot when most of the events are held down at the southwest sector of my wing and I’m in the north sector). And if these cadets cant beg their parents to drive them or if they can’t afford the cost of £60+ in fuel for the trips there and back both days how on earth are some people (cadets and staff) meant to get the correct qualifications to teach the new PTS if they cant do it because of the reasons I’ve mentioned on top of others.

Sorry that its quite long its a bit of a rant

The space badges that have been made are square, so I believe the justification was that they won’t fit in the space left by parachuting (though I haven’t seen any in person yet to make a comparison). Why they weren’t just made circular I don’t know, but not much can be done about it now they have been procured.

This proposed layout (ie. space in place of cyber & radio, which then merge) is not new, first I heard of it was at NASC 2023, where I believe it was ‘soft launched’, but may have been proposed before that? If I remember correctly there were a couple of posters up at Syerston showing the new layout. The main change in this latest rendition seems to be the classification badge colours.

We have enough badges as it is! :joy:

NASC 2023, where I believe it was ‘soft launched’, but may have been proposed before that

Yeah, it does make you think how much HQAC actually listens to the general cadets and the lower-ranking CFAV members who deal with cadets night on night. Because I think if you were to ask any cadet across the organisation the overwhelming majority would say to keep the cyber and radio badges as they are and they should’ve taken the parachuting badge template & sizing and just put the image for the space badge. I know we’ve probably all seen the image but it all just looks so much neater also the changes to the music badges that I’ve heard about are absolute b***ocks

image

Unfortunately, the instructor requirements aren’t the same for each subject so your best bet is to look at the ACTO/ACP for the subjects you want to deliver and plan from there.

Some subjects have no formal requirements at blue level, leadership and pre-DofE, for example. Others, such as first aid and cyber/radio (current syllabus) require you to have done up to the next relevant level and be signed off by your wing SME to deliver it (usually through them observing you deliver part of a course).

They’re probably the easiest to get going. Shooting and fieldcraft are more complicated.

The full IBN has been sent out to everyone now. This is no longer draft!

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As far as a transition period goes, I read the bit on the Training Hub

Cadets are not required to change their badges immediately.
The current badging system will remain in place until ACP 1358 is updated to reflect the new guidelines.

As existing cadets should change layout once 1358 is updated (whenever that may be) but new cadets should follow the new layout rather than change later.

Or just don’t have brassards available then it doesn’t matter?

Or have brassards available but they have been made too small to fit current issue badges. Then you get stuck just trying to sew on the ATC badge :wink:

Hasn’t that been resolved now? thought that small brassards were supposed to be sent back via wing for replacement?
Edit - Yeah : Logs Update 04-23 and Logs Update 02-24

Sending them back doesn’t solve the problem :joy:

Still find them around a fair bit!

Anybody got any insight on how The Syllabus combination for Comms&Cyber is going to work.

Is it going to be a case of current cadets just wear their highest badge or do we have to go back to the lowest common badge?

Only asking to see if i have to go from Silver comms to nothing lol

Highest in whichever stream. I don’t know how long the transition period will be.

I can keep dodging cyber?

awesome