There is an enormous amount of training required for those with no previous military experience to get up to standard: leadership skills, technical skills and military knowledge. With the current system, it takes years to cover the courses required, and those are abbreviated. Ideally, there should be some system in place to allow a Reservist extra time off work over and above the recommended 1 week special and 1 week unpaid leave, to get the courses required completed without having to use up all annual leave, thereby compromising rest and family time.
The quality of training is very mixed. Some is absolutely excellent. Some is simply not tuned to individuals’ diverse learning styles. Other courses are not offered in modules to be made available at weekends when we train. Many of the routine mandatory training eg SERE, Equality and Diversity could be home study courses on line. Much more training could be “on the job” - making it interesting, exciting and useful.
All training dates are set up in plenty of time, the WO and other SNCO’s keep in touch through email or telephone on a regular basis. Very organised structure.
There is a total lack of engineering training available at the weekends. I’m aware that most bases are now run on a 9-5 basis but there has been no provision made for training reserves outside core hours at all
Although training is generally well delivered, there is too much of a ‘one size fits all’ approach on my unit. Whilst it is difficult to cater for all levels of experience, there is little (if any) useful training for experienced personnel.
I think the RAF should adopt the RNR model when it comes to intelligence branch trades. Personnel join a local unit and after basic recruit training, they do their core military training, fitness etc at that local unit, but trade related training is primarily delivered at DISC. This model makes perfect sense as reservists can join any local unit, but can benefit from meaningful trade training in a realistic training environment, using real systems. Other trades would also benefit from this approach.
The training is based on regular RAF training courses. The basic trade courses are aimed at teenagers with little or no life experience; they could be improved if the reservist’s skills and experience were taken into account. This would be more difficult to implement and manage than a “one size fits all” course but would allow more focused, and hopefully shorter, training courses. Basic training needs to be standard but trade training doesn’t need to be. Weekend courses would be beneficial. Also early confirmation of a course place would assist in leave arrangements.
I feel that I would like to be given more responsibility for and during our Sqn training weekends. Having returned from ROIT with certain expectations of an Officers role and responsibilities I feel that these expectations are not fulfilled as they should or could during training weekends. I do however appreciate that there are a number of Officers within our Sqn and that fulfilling everyone’s expectations over the limited training weekend is infinitely difficult.
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