I was speaking (at least trying to) with a group of about 10 new cadets this week. New cadets are usually shy and need a bit of coaxing to get them to come out of their shells, but this bunch were really hard work. I couldn’t get a single response from any of them - just blank looks all around. Has anyone else come across this? I asked them what they were most looking forward to doing in cadets. Absolutely nothing. Silence. I was a very shy cadet myself, but even I would have responded with some enthusiasm. I’m wondering if it has something to do with two years of covid, face masks and lockdown. I’m worried that they will be even harder work in a classroom environment, when I’m looking for confirmation that they understand the lessons. How would you get them to open up?
I’d recommend talking to them individually, as if you talk to them as a group they’ll think that someone else will speak up and answer, and because they all think that noone will. So if you speak to them on their own they will respond because they have to AND because they feel like they are not being judged, and then eventually they’ll speak up in a group.
I would probably try some icebreaker exercises. Your wing might have a “bag of character” which are bags full of equipment and a book on a bunch of exercises you can do with them.
Sometimes stuff as simple as getting in a circle with everyone, using a ball and throwing it whilst saying your name until everyone has sort of got an idea of each others names at which point you can tell them to say the name of the person they’re passing to.
Have the older cadets mingle with them at break to get them talking and welcome them into the sqn.
If you’ve already tried this, I’m sure they’ll come out of their shells soon enough.
I usually like to start by asking a few of them what the name of the cdt next to them is if they dont know i get them to introduce themselves (i expect them not to) then i go, right, at random points throughout the evening ill be asking you what the name of the cdt next to you is so get to know them! (The fear of being called upon without knowing stirs them to socialise haha)
Then a little push as they blankly stare at me to ask the person next to them. This usually gets them all talking and throughout the night i randomly ask them whos next to them and get them to introduce themselves if they dont. Seems to work 99% of the time ive tried it so far
Fairly standard for new Cadets - enjoy the peace while it lasts, it won’t be long 
I like to do an icebreaker to try and get the cadets to open up to eachother. Maybe get them in a circle and get the cadets throwing a ball to eachother. When they catch a ball, they have to give their name, what school they go to and something interesting about them. Then, they can throw the ball around a second time and see if anyone remembers what was said. If that doesn’t work, maybe a leaderless command task would work well? 
There are icebreaker activities (including the ball one) in the Blue Leadership package which is on Sharepoint somewhere. That’s a good start. Also I agree 1:1 chats.
It can happen to the best of us - I’ve just discovered one of my cadets who’s been in the RAF section since January has logged about a dozen glider flights at local clubs, but didn’t mention it to me as he is very quiet and shy and it just never came up. His mother told me!
A nice icebreaker I’ve done before is come up with a list of questions. Could be things like:
Has a pet, favourite food, has ears pierced, favourite colour, been in an aircraft this year. The idea is everyone gets the same list but has to go round and ask individuals what their favourite colour is or where they’ve been on holiday. They write it down and try to get as many people as possible to answer. You can then go over the answers as a group so everyone gets to know something about the rest.
Thanks for the suggestions. Will try them after the hols.
The other one I’ve seen done recently (by a Cambridge don!) is to pair the students/cadets up, and ask each one of them to introduce the other person with ‘This is Tanya and one interesting thing about her is…’ This means they can speak in pairs not to the whole group and someone else gets the ‘embarrassing’ job of introducing them.