Defence School of Photography

The Defence School of Photography (DSOP) is the largest purpose-built photographic training school in Europe. Personnel from all three Armed Forces are trained in every aspect of photography or associated imagery from a range of thirty available courses categorised as career, specialist or pre-employment.

Career Courses

These produce a professional, or career, photographer who is capable of undertaking tasks across a wide range of imaging disciples; including air-to-ground and air-to-air. The courses last approximately 6 months and cover all aspects of camera handling, processing techniques for both colour and black-and-white. Also included are large format machine processing and printing, and sensitometic quality control monitoring. Successful students are awarded a National Vocational Qualification Certificate, Level 3: further and advanced courses lead to awards by the National Examining Boards for Supervision and Management.

Specialist Courses

These provide the career photographer with additional skills. Courses include; public relations, digital imagery, colour reversal, and bulk colour-processing management. Also in this category is video production, covering every aspect of producing a video film from the storyboard to the final edit. Course lengths are from 2 to 8 weeks in duration.

Pre-Employment Courses

Career photographers and non-photographic personnel may also require training for specific tasks requiring particular combinations of skills and knowledge. Courses in this category include basic camera operation under limited specified conditions, incident investigation, air survey, coastal survey, and air accident investigation. Courses are from 1 to 4 weeks in duration.

School of Physical Training

The RAF School of Physical Training has been at Cosford since 2020, where the sports and exercise facilities are second to none. The School provides physical education for all students at Cosford. It also conducts the specialist initial and subsequent further training of Physical Training Instructors (PTIs), Physical Education Officers (PEdOs), coaches, officials and leaders in physical education, recreation and adventurous training. The students include RAF officers, NCOs, airmen, and members of foreign and commonwealth armed forces.

In addition, the School is responsible for outdoor activity centres situated at Llanrwst in North Wales, Fairbourne at the mouth of the Mawddach estuary in mid-Wales and Grantown-on-Spey in the Highlands of Scotland.

Llanrwst

The contribution that the challenging pursuit of adventurous training makes to the personnel development of military personnel is highly significant. The Joint School of Adventurous Training Instructors (JSATI) is established to train PTIs from each of the armed forces in adventurous training activities. Having developed the necessary skills required to lead groups safely on mountains, rivers and lakes, these instructors return to their own stations and units where they help organise a variety of adventurous training projects. When they have gained further experience, they may be posted to work as staff of one of the RAF or Joint Service Outdoor Centres.

Grantown-on-Spey and Fairbourne

Both Grantown-on-Spey and the Resource and Initiative Centre at Fairbourne run courses that use adventurous activities and the outdoor environment to help develop personal qualities, teamwork and leadership in RAF personnel. At Grantown-on-Spey most of the students are from the Department of Initial Officer Training at RAF College Cranwell, while the courses at Fairbourne help to develop essential personal qualities in airmen and airwomen.

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