It does make it a nonsense that “we” look to harvest former forces personnel and other professionals as instructors, only to say no mate, unless you go on a course and listen to a bloke or woman whose only experience is doing cadet things. None of this made clear in the adult recruitment literature.
It is then ironic that we have management dumped on us, who know the square root of sweet fanny adams about the Air Cadets and create havoc. So by the same token that an ex RA SAAI we had join (and leave PDQ) couldn’t teach cadets weapons unless he went on an Air Cadet run weapons instructor course, should not our senior management spend 12-18 months at the sharp end of the Air Cadets (ie on a squadron perhaps as the TO or adj) before assuming command roles? Let them navigate the cess pool of SharePoint, the futility of SMS permissions to do things and the mind numbing and senseless make it up as we go along paperwork real or electronic required to do things.
What makes them qualified to “lead” us, anymore than any one of us leading the Air Cadets? They may have had a fleeting experience with Air Cadets during annual camps, but could we go to the RAF and say we want to run a stations for example, just because we’ve spent a few weeks on them. I think that wouldn’t go down too well.
Might not now, but this is what he was told was der rules at the time, the OC at the time was in complete disbelief.
The bigger nonsense … if he’d done the course the SATT OC wanted him on the SATT. But he’d done a smart turn. Wasn’t sure he wanted anything to do with rank amateurs, I think that’s what he said.
it doesn’t get away from the fact that the Air Cadets looks to recruit from ex-service personnel and other “professionals” qualified to do things, only to require them to fulfil something less than their professional qualification. Yet my other point stands, might not be liked due to its side on approach, but there you go.
That is, in part, because we don’t teach to the same level.
I know an ex service guy who’d love to come and teach bayonet drills and hand-to-hand combat with fighting knives… But we don’t do that.
We don’t just let anyone who ever served teach anything they fancy. People need to learn our syllabus and limitations and then they know what they can and can’t teach, and indeed not everyone who is an ex soldier/sailor/marine/airman is suitable to instruct. Not everyone is a natural trainer… You’ve only got to look at some of the people we’ve got already to see that.
Certainly we like to have people with service experience because they will (or should) have a good knowledge of their subject - but they need to discover that we are a different organization with a different purpose.
If someone has an issue with that and chooses to walk away - fine. Generally it says more about them than it does about the organisation.
We used to do NBC drills with suits with a few blokes from the local TA, when I was a cadet. Wasn’t on the syllabus then or now I doubt.
I’ve got a few people who have expressed an interest in speaking on and demonstrating things to the cadets, that are not on our syllabus, but if it’s going to make it a bit more interesting can’t be a bad thing.
How many people are “natural trainers”? Sod the Air Cadets we are just an after school activity relying on people willing to volunteer. I’ve been on courses costing many 100s of pounds through work and the people are not really trainers, but they are engaging (some easy on the eye), have some subject knowledge and get the information across, which is all you need. We get people off the street who know nothing and they manage it, so all this “trainer” stuff is just some of the rubbish “we” peddle and try and kid ourselves we are masters of and some sneer at people who don’t fit whatever their stylised/idealised perception of this “ideal” is.
The fact people walk away says it all about an organisation that has got too far up its own exhaust pipe, that it is unaccommodating and makes people feel unwanted. Way to go in a volunteer organisation, struggling to get staff.
We have lost sight though of whether someone is suitable and competent to teach the subject.
Looking at one case, and purely an example I have dreamt up; a staff member does a FAAW course. Struggles through, needs lots of extra help, and just passes the assessment. They walk out the building after the course a fully certified, bona fide, proud first aider at work. Are they confident of their own abilities? Do they feel comfortable (as you can be) to even administer first aid? So should they ever be teaching Cadets first aid? Seems many will yes as they have the certificate. How many would be willing to challenge them?
Likewise, that highly qualified individual might not be able to tailor their delivery to a level appropriate for Cadets. If they cant do that, then they are just as unsuitable.
I have to agree with this. Even though I do find the whole first aid thing frustrating, I am open to do an AFA course because some of the content is not what I do on a daily basis as a nurse, so a refresher wouldn’t hurt.
Although I think there has to be some scope for deviation with regards to who is qualified to do what. For example there could be a shorter AFA course for healthcare professionals.
The AFA couldn’t get much shorter. I thought my FAAW requals were bad enough, but it seems that with AFA it’s done in little more than a day and a couple of hours assessing and that includes those who’ve never done any First Aid.
If you were a cadet, I would put big money down that you benefited from and were instructed by the very sort of people you now feel able to deride. Which seems to be a trend on here among those I assume to be younger staff, who now feel they know better.
I would say that the same people with an AFA doing it because they have to and no interest at all in FA are far more problematic. The majority of people who do FAAW at least seem to want to do it and aren’t press-ganged as per Air Cadet volunteers. I’ve got two members of staff who only did to shut up people moaning at them, including me, as I was getting it in the neck that they hadn’t done it. They have no interest in doing FA or instructing it, so what a waste of time and effort on all parts.
What do we want people willing and able to volunteer and give it a go, or some mythical entity.
You mis my point slightly… I’m not saying we can’t deliver other things within our scope of interest; I’m saying that where there is a defined syllabus which has been designed for cadets - such as Fieldcraft we need to stick to it and not just let any old Tom, Dick or Harry start teaching everything they learned as a Para/Marine/whoever they were with.
Not many! Which is exactly why there are courses to train people to instruct.
This isn’t some Air Cadet exclusive bull… The military don’t just say “Great… You’re a gunner - go and teach these guys the same stuff you learned about skill at arms and fieldcraft…”; They provide courses to prepare and qualify people as instructors.
This idea, held by some people in the RAFAC, that just because Joe Bloggs is ex service means that we should just give them free reign to crack on is utter nonsense, and where people choose to walk away rather than do what’s required to satisfy the instruction requirements it very much says something about them!
It’s not always because the organisation is too far up its own backside - sometimes it’s because these people believe that that they should be able to waltz in and play Billie Big Testicles, telling the cadets and CFAV what’s what without any check on their abilities.
Indeed, there are times a plenty when the organization doesn’t get it right.
I know a guy who is a first aid “train the trainer”. He contracts for St John Ambulance and had a valid and current qualification/ St John’s trainer registration number, &c but he was told in no uncertain terms that he must attend an AFA course… Because it was an “ATC specific course”. He was told that the current FAAW qualification which he also holds wasn’t good enough either.
Frankly, having done the AFA course all I can say is “cadet specific” my backside!
I was actually going to give an example of how in a certain activity field that we can do in the Cadets, I hold the highest possible international qualification, which I also do for my civilian job. However, I would not be willing to use this for the related Cadet activity, nothing to do with preservation of my qualifications, but because I know that what I do for work is totally different to what Cadets do, and that someone else who would be regarded as having lesser qualifications is actually more suited to teaching that than me. However I stand by the point that there are people out there who regardless of a qualification should not be teaching it, regardless of the volunteering element of it.
So because we teach cadets how to fly for classifications and on a simulator does that make them at risk of going and stealing a plane and flying it?
I can see where you are coming from but decoupling first aid from classifications I don’t see as logical. Knowledge is knowledge. It’s down to the individuals to use it responsibly on both trainer and learner sides.
I’m saying there’s less risk teaching outside of the syllabus for classification topics than there is for the 1st Aid syllabus.
That risk is mitigated by limiting the accepted training standards to ensure knowledge of and ability to teach our 1st Aid syllabus.
What I’ve also said elsewhere, is that I think there’s a middle ground to be met with something like 1st Aid, where you either hold FAW, AFA, or greater plus an abridged “fam” course. Our tie-in With SJA leaves us hamstrung, too.
I dunno, I think with some of the flight sims squadrons have or say they have cadets could almost be very much with some practical real aircraft input, be at a point where they could get into an aircraft and fly it.
I think with FA, unless it’s family people regardless of training are not going to do much beyond their training and because people are nervous of getting this wrong will only instruct to the book.
I have to admit FA is the one thing I like instructing least but feel compelled to because of the Air Cadets rules.