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Les Varendes High will be next school to get a combined cadet force

LES VARENDES High School will be the next local secondary school to branch into the combined cadet force.

Commander Russ Haines, the Combined Cadet Force commanding officer. 				(Picture by Sophie Rabey, 34759157)
Commander Russ Haines, the Combined Cadet Force commanding officer. (Picture by Sophie Rabey, 34759157) / Guernsey Press

The school is currently in the process of making an application to provide an RAF section to its students.

Les Tanner is the school cadet expansion officer at Wessex Reserve Forces and Cadets Association, with the role to support new schools in the programme and help to develop their application.

‘Elizabeth College is going to be pivotal in the start up because they’re going to help train the staff and some of the senior cadets.

‘Once we’ve started it up, we will filter it into the rest of the school,’ he said.

‘It starts off quite small, about 30 or 35 cadets and maybe two members of staff.

‘Most crucially it is the school staff instructors that we need, because they are the people that lynchpin the whole thing together when the teachers are busy doing their jobs.’

Unlike community cadets, CCF does not have a large base of people responsible for a section on a county level.

Everything is done by the school staff instructor, contingent commander and contingent staff.

‘The key part of running a successful CCF is having support from the headteacher,’ said CEO of CCF Royal Navy and Royal Marine Russ Haines.

‘They are setting the conditions for success and buy into what CCF delivers.’

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