Teaching leadership and strategy, CCF (Combined Cadet Force) offers the best education for teenagers explains Major Dan Reed from Cranleigh School in Surrey

In the past, Combined Cadet Force (CCF) groups in schools (including the popular army cadets, Royal Aire Force and Royal Navy) have been perceived as afternoons of relentless drills and shouting. Nothing could be further from the truth. Modern CCF programmes contain a broad range of activities ? from treks and adventure activities to escape rooms and mentoring ? and offer the best possible experience for teenagers to gain resilience, independence and leadership skills.
The Benefits of Combined Cadet Force in Schools

Confidence building
Cranleigh now has 175 recruits with a mix of boys and girls and is becoming more popular each year with ten members of staff involved as well as outside volunteers. We have taken out a lot of the drill activities and added more outdoor experiences like navigation training, which also improves team work and discipline. Much of the training for the ever-popular Duke of Edinburgh?s Award is also managed by our Combined Cadet Force team. CCF is all about teenagers gaining confidence and getting to understand more about themselves. So we do a lot to push our recruits out of their comfort zone with adventurous training, rock climbing, mountain biking ? and even parachuting, which is the ultimate test of mettle.
The last group of Sixth Formers to try it said it had a life-changing...