Danny
When the civil cadet scheme started it was a 3 year course that commenced at Hurn with ATCA ( assistant ) famil' follow by a PPL course at places like Carlisle and Oxford. Then on to the Aerodrome Course followed by postings around the country to an airfield where the cadet had to pass an endorsement or validation.
Back at Hurn the course then split into 2 with one half training on Approach/Approach Radar and the other on Area/Area radar. Postings to field units followed and once again an endorsement had to be passed.
Back to Hurn again and the reverse happened ( Approach and Area training ). In those days CAA or its predecessors was divided in to 3 regions, Scottish, Northern and Southern and the cadets spent one period of training in each region. Of course there were plenty of units to train at, in Area alone there was Ulster, Highland, Scottish,Border, Northern etc etc - virtually all gone now apart from Swanwick ( London ) and Scottish.
On graduation from the 3 year course a cadet had received a thorough grounding in all disciplines apart from PAR.
Following the '73/74 fuel crisis recruitment ceased for a while and when it restarted cadets did a much shorter course, the flying was cut back to 15 hours, just enough to go solo, and the courses became either Area streamed or Approach streamed. As mentioned earlier my son who joined in '96, only had a short time at an airfield for famil', did just go solo and has spent about 19 years now in London Terminal Control.
I believe no flying experience is given now, another case of the 'bean counters' deciding what the bottom line is! Despite all this I think UK civil ATC is second to none, certainly most pilots seem to breathe a sigh of relief when back in UK airspace! Or so I'm told.