Inside Track

CVQO telling your stories...

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100 CVQO Young Leaders Course arranged!

We’ve reached a real milestone from a standing start in January this year of 100 CVQO Young Leaders Courses booked. The photos above are taken from a recent workshop arranged through 2391 (Parkstone) RAF Air Cadets at MOD Boscombe Down. 

There were 30 cadets present from Parkstone and various other local units from Dorset and Wiltshire Wing and the event was a great success:

Training Officer, Keith Child said:

Please thank all your staff for an excellent weekend, the cadets really enjoyed themselves and learnt a lot and we have had positive feedback from other Squadron’s staff.

In fact, they are already booking another course for next spring. 

Have you booked your Unit’s course yet? 

Wondering what activities take place during the weekend? We made this video for you. 

For more information on the course and booking forms, please follow the link below: 

CVQO Young Leaders Course, funded by LIBOR

You can also see all the social media that has been generated by the course on our Flipboard magazine.

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Exciting news! 

We’re arranging a reunion for all the CVQO Westminster Award winners from 2012 to 2018! We’d like to catch up and are proposing a meet in London early next year. 

If you were a winner during those years and have not received an invite email from us then please could you contact us on [email protected] - could be we don’t have your current email address. 

Similarly if you know someone this should apply to could you please check they got their invite?

More updates on this story to follow... 

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More news from CVQO’s visit to Gibraltar

The group photo shows some of the Gibraltar ACF cadets following our presentation and below an amazingly detailed model of the island made in 1865 (and frequently updated since!)

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This weekend - Apprenticeship and Work Ready Workshop

The next session of our very successful Apprenticeship and Work Ready workshops has been fully booked for this weekend! Over twenty Army and RAF Air Cadets will be taking part in Blackheath, South London, courtesy of SE London ACF HQ. 

Our delivery partner for this event will be London South Bank University and also contributing will be representatives from the NHS, HMRC, the Taylor Bennett Foundation and the Royal Household. 

All the cadets will be able to complete Workbook 1 of the CVQO led BTEC in Teamwork and Personal Development and also gain a Level 1 Food Hygiene Certificate. 

There is another workshop scheduled for early next year in Wales. 

If you would be interested in arranging a workshop for your cadets, then please email us on [email protected]

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Young Leaders of the Future

Ex CVQO Regional Ambassador Rebecca Varney is still busy passing on her knowledge and experience to young Army Cadets on a recent CVQO Young Leaders Course. Rebecca was selected by popular vote as Regional Ambassador during the Duke of Westminster Award competition in 2014.

Last weekend, cadets from 195 Staines PWRR Detachment attended one of our ILM Level 2 Young Leaders Courses. Here is a first hand account from Cdt Alex Kakoulli, one of the participants:

The CVQO ILM course for Young Leaders was very educational. We learnt how to take charge of a situation and team whilst also working on ourselves. For example, learning to discipline and reward ourselves, both things that we were taught would help us to reach our personal targets and aspirations.

During the course we wrote about what our targets are and how we can achieve them. We did this by assessing ourselves and being assessed by our peers. We also learnt through practical lessons or command tasks which were fun whilst they educated us how to work as a team, which is a very valuable skill.

After doing these command tasks we were given more tasks to think about and then the next morning we had to take, lead and brief our team on the task and try to accomplish the objective.

After taking lead we were given feedback by both our CVQO instructor and our peers on how we performed as a leader, this feedback helped us perform better. The feedback showed us how to improve without being negative which was very useful and constructive.

This course has improved my leadership skills altogether, but it has also improved me personally by showing me how to set myself targets and how to stay on track, so I can achieve those targets.

I highly recommend this course to all others as it is very helpful and useful, and I believe it is helping me achieve my target which is to get promoted at my army cadet unit. This will also benefit me in the future if I ever need to complete a task in a team as I know how to take charge and lead the team forward toward success. 

It was fantastic to hear how much these cadets enjoyed their course, and also to see how past CVQO learners like Rebecca are still involved with cadets and in helping to deliver CVQO courses. ​

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CVQO Westminster Award 2018 photos available

Last Thursday our annual CVQO Westminster Award lunch took place at the House of Lords in London. It was a brilliant event celebrating the achievements of a group of special young people.

As a reminder, the winners were:

Alex Anderson, 1367 (Caerleon) Sqn – Westminster Award winner

Georgia Allison, 1414 (Crowborough) Sqn – Lingfield Medal winner

Jasmine Roper - Yorkshire North and West ACF Scarborough Detachment – ILM Award

Sam Ray – Weymouth Sea Cadets – BTEC Award

We thought you might like to have sight of some of the media collected from the event:

If you’d like to catch-up on any of the news from the day, you can read all about it on our website here (simply click the box entitled ‘CVQO Westminster Award 2018 – House of Lords’)

If you’d like to see the official photography from the day, click here

If you’d like to watch the film that was shown at the lunch, click here

If you haven’t seen the photography from selection yet, click here

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Spotlight on previous CVQO Learners

There’s nothing we like better at CVQO than to catch up with past students and find out how they are getting on, so we were very interested to see the article this week in the Eastern Eye. 

Ten years ago brothers Brijinder and Harmeet Singh Nijjar, then teenagers, visited the Army Aviation Centre in Hampshire as army cadets. 

Little did they know that ten years later they would be standing in that very same spot, one as a qualified Army pilot and the other on the verge of doing the same.

Now, Captain and Lieutenant Singh Nijjar are hoping to act as role models for young people who may not realise the opportunities available to them. 

Both Brijinder and Harmeet are past CVQO students, both studied for a CVQO-led BTEC in Public Services at distinction star level, and Harmeet also gained an ILM Certificate in Team Leading while members of Middlesex and North West London Sector Army Cadet Force. 

Please follow the link below for the full story and a short video.

Story link:

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Controversial article from the TES today 

Are we in danger of over emphasising soft skills for students at the expense of exam results? 

Read more on this topic on the TES website

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Thought provoking article on the need to revisit the curriculum to prepare students for the challenges they will face.

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Stonyhurst CCF cadets demonstrate their leadership skills!

CVQO Regional Manager East, Mitch McGuire said:  

It was great to work with Stonyhurst CCF last weekend on their Easter camp. There were ten Army section cadets who took part in the first Young Leaders Award ILM qualification to be carried out with Stonyhurst.  

The training venue was interesting, being a training area farmhouse at Warcop Training Centre off the A66.  

All ten cadets took the qualification seriously and said they found real benefit contrasting the carrying out of tasks without leaders and then planning their own leader assessment.  

They found all the command task/problem solving activities really interesting. 

We thought that they were a delightful group to teach and wish them well when they are presented with their certificates.

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Working to achieve! 

All credit to Cadet Lance Corporal Shelley Clements who is using her cadet music experience to achieve a BTEC in Music through CVQO. 

She says: 

“It’s great that you can attain qualifications and certificates in the Cadet Force as they look good on your CV and give many people the opportunity to learn new skills they would not have had the chance to do otherwise.” 

Read more on the East Midlands RFCA website.

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CVQO Spotlight on Wales - Teamwork and Communications weekend

CVQO is heading to Kingswood Colomendy Activity Centre in North Wales with cadets from Merseyside ACF, Cheshire ACF, Ruthin ATC and Mold ATC (both from No. 2 Welsh Wing) for an exciting weekend developing teamwork and communication skills.

The cadets have an amazing programme to look forward to that will help enhance these skills through physical activities such as high ropes and caving. They will also have the chance to put those skills to good use by completing a CVQO-led BTEC Level 2 qualification in Teamwork and Personal Development in the Community.

Andy Webster, CVQO’s West Area Manager, said: 

“We’re really excited about this weekend, particularly the opportunity to help cadets develop their teamwork and communication skills through a combination of outdoor activities that can later be translated into a formal qualification.

“The CVQO-led BTEC Level 2 is a great qualification for 16-18 year old cadets looking to gain recognition for the work they’ve done. It helps people who have limited understanding of cadets understand the teamwork and leadership skills young people develop there – and of course it’s brilliant to add weight to job or university applications!”

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Where are they now?  Luke Finnegan - 2009 Duke of Westminster Award Finalist

There’s nothing that we like better at CVQO than to follow the successes of our learners sometimes years after taking their CVQO-led qualifications.

A case in point is Luke Finnegan who was a Duke of Westminster Award finalist and special prize winner in 2009.

Luke was just 18 and came from Netherly, nr Liverpool. He was a member of Huyton with Roby Sea Cadet Corps and won the Learning & Skills Council Prize for a cadet with exceptional commitment to community activities.

All the finalists went to South Africa where they taught and helped disadvantaged children at a charity in Natal.

Luke was recently in touch with us with his latest news and so we have updated his story...

If you are one of our ex-learners and would like to update us on your latest news then we would be delighted if you get in touch on [email protected].  To follow this year’s Westminster Award then look out for the hashtag #cvqowa2018 on the usual social media sites and of course on our website on the Westminster Award section. 

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Today is Safer Internet Day! Create, connect and share respect this #SID2018 – RT to show your support thndr.me/3hQMnX http://thndr.me/3hQMnX

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2018 - The Year of Linkedin? 

The last few years has seen a substantial rise in the visibility and use of Linkedin which now has over 500 million users. The statistics in this infographic are quite persuasive. Will you be taking a fresh look at this platform?

See the infographic full size at Number Sleuth.

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Cadets as a force for social mobility

There’s an interesting article in the July edition of Ares & Athena, the magazine for the Centre for Historical Analysis and Conflict Research.

In issue 9 they are examining the British Army’s contribution to UK society and prosperity. This piece is unusual in that it also considers the contribution of the cadet service as well as the regular army.

They draw attention to the benefits of being a cadet not just to the individual, but to their school and society in general, particularly in the case of disruptive or disadvantaged students.

The advantages are not limited to the cadets, but also apply to their adult instructors who are given the opportunity to gain valuable experience and internationally recognised qualifications through CVQO.

At the end of this section they conclude:

The GMACF case study provides robust evidence that the ACF can be a tremendous force for social mobility. This contribution of the British Army to the UK’s society and prosperity should not be under-estimated.

The article is available on this link.

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Measuring the impact of increased expenditure on cadets 

With the government announcing increased expenditure to set up another 31 cadet units in state schools, it seems timely to try to assess the social impact of the cadet forces, on the young people who attend, the volunteers that run the units and society in general. 

With this in mind, the MOD, the Combined Cadet Force Association and CVQO commissioned the Institute for Social Innovation and Impact at the University of Northampton to undertake a four year study on this subject. 

The first interim report has now been issued, and it makes for some interesting reading. The key findings are: 

“The Cadet Forces deliver impact that is directly relevant to the Prime Minister’s vision of a ‘shared society’ and clearly contributes to increasing social mobility and decreasing social disadvantage.” 

Of direct relevance to CVQO it was found that: 

“There is a very strong belief that CVQO courses have great value for CFAVs (Cadet Force Adult Volunteers). The training offered is particularly useful for those CFAVs with few or no qualifications. The qualifications and awards that CFAVs have gained are estimated as providing the current cohort with potential lifetime earnings increases of £15.58 million.” 

We are very gratified to hear this, in particular as our 2017 Graduation Ceremony will take place on Friday of next week, when over sixty more graduates will gain their CVQO led qualifications. 

The report makes for some fascinating reading, you can download the online versions from the University of Northampton website.