Field promotions for Barnes Wallis students at RAF Waddington

Today the Level 1 Blue Skies students from Barnes Wallis Academy visited the RAF Regiment at RAF Waddington. The main aim of the session was to establish clear communication structure whilst completing team tasks.

The RAF Regiment were extremely welcoming to the students and provided camouflage jackets and clothing for the students to wear during their session. They explained why they have clear ranking structures in the military and how this provides a perfect communication platform between the leader and the team so everyone knows what is going on and there is no confusion. This is also why everyone acknowledges everything in the field so the leader can check everyone in the team has understood.

After this introduction, the group was divided into three small teams and it was time to put these lessons into practice for three teamwork stances. After some very quick field promotions (military rank slides were handed out to wear!), each team had a Corporal in charge of them. Then there was a Sergeant who looked after the Corporals and a Flt Lt in charge of the whole group.

The students loved the various stances. There was a basher building stance, aerial erecting stance and ration pack stance. The students even got to look at and try on some of the equipment the RAF Regiment use. One student said “I really want to thank the RAF Regiment today, they were all really nice. We learnt so much about communication. We really now can see why clear communication is so important and I really think we showed that during our challenges.”

After lunch it was straight over to the climbing wall. This was aimed at bringing the team together for some cohesion time. It was really great at this point as all the instructors and staff could stand back and actually see and hear all the students supporting and encouraging each other during the activity, all the way through. They helped each other out whenever it was necessary and they completely trusted each other to support their climbing lines. They truly are a team that look after each other!