Are you ready to meet the pupil from hell?

 The national pass rate for the part 3 test of instructional ability to become and approved driving instructor is historically very low. One of the main reasons for this is that candidates are just not prepared for what actually happens during the examination.

Although teaching real pupils will give you valuable experience and confidence, it does not always prepare you for what will happen in the examination. Some of the main differences between teaching a real pupil and the ‘role play’ pupil played by the examiner can be summed up as follows:

• A real pupil will always try to get things right during a lesson so will often not highlight weaknesses in your instruction. The examiner is not trying to get things right as he/she needs to assess your ability to correct driving errors.
• With a real pupil a lesson usually lasts one hour and it may take several lessons before real progress on a chosen subject can be measured. In the instructional ability test each phase or lesson only lasts 30 minutes, but you should aim to see a noticeable improvement during that short amount of time.

The examiner tests examination candidates by role playing a pupil who continually makes mistakes. One way to describe the sort of ‘role play’ pupil you can expect to meet in the examination is to take all the worst bits of all the pupils you may have taught and to put them together to produce ‘the pupil from hell!’ If you can control this pupil, then you have nothing to fear. So what is the secret of success?

Well first of all you need ‘The Knowledge’. Some of this would have been gained by passing the part 1 test of Theory and Hazard Perception. The task now is to be able to apply this in a practical way and my book The What, Why & How of Instructional Technique for Driving Instructors www.instructordoctors.co.uk/material.htm teaches you how.

For this article, I will concentrate on the phase 1 part of the examination.

Phase 1: The Beginner or Partly Trained Pupil

Recap and Briefing

During the phase 1 part of the examination candidates are required to teach a new subject to a pupil who is either classed as a beginner or partly trained pupil. It is customary to start the lesson with a few Recap questions and then give a short briefing. My top tips are for a successful briefing are:

• Don’t try to give a theory lesson but talk from a drivers point of view
• Be practical - tell the pupil what he/she has to do, how and why in a way that they will understand
• Make a briefing plan to ensure you include all the ‘key points’ listed on the left hand side of the relevant marking sheet. For example, for Pedestrian Crossings and Use of Signals the key points are: MSM, Speed on approach, Stop when necessary, Inviting pedestrians to cross, Overtaking on approach, Signals by indicator, Signals by arm, Signals – timing and Unnecessary signals.
• Include any relevant reference points etc. and apart from the Controls lesson, make sure the briefing does not exceed 10 minutes.

Talkthrough – Prompting – Independence

After the briefing comes the practical part. If you take off the time needed for the recap, briefing and cockpit drill, then this part will only last between 15 – 20 minutes. During this short amount of time the pupil needs to be controlled until they have learned how to do the chosen subject and, if time allows, can try to perform this independently. To do this it is customary to use a talkthrough and examples for all the main examination subjects are included in my book. A talkthrough is basically:

• a series of commands that controls the pupil. A “do this, do that” approach which I guess in the military would be called a drill.
• It is not a sort of briefing on the move and it is not a commentary.
• You are verbally driving the car from the passenger seat and thus controlling the pupil’s body to do it, although the pupil is largely unaware of this.

The talkthrough routines need to be learned and practiced until they can be given confidently and accurately from memory and will need to be adapted to whatever road situation is happening at the time. While you are giving the talkthrough the examiner will disrupt this by making faults (more on this later) which will test your control.

Next comes the prompting phase. Basically various commands from the talkthrough are now changed into carefully timed questions to encourage more independence. This will confirm that some progress has been made. If this is achieved and if there is any time left towards the end of the phase then the pupil should be encouraged to try the exercise independently. Yes, all this in 20 minutes!

The Core Competencies

Throughout the phase, the examiner will be making faults and how the candidate deals with these will ultimately decide success or failure. For each fault committed the examiner will expect an identification, analysis and remedy – these are called the core competencies. My book gives numerous practical examples of how this should be done and also has a dedicated section on fault assessment. My top tips are:

• Watch the pupil closely – if you are looking the faults are usually obvious.
• Identify each fault the moment it happens with a simple statement of what is wrong.
• Analyse and remedy the fault as soon as it is safe to do so.
• Keep your fault assessment short and to the point.
• Learn the key points on the left hand side of the part 3 marking sheets as the examiner will base his faults around these.
• Use the key points as a ‘mental checklist’ of faults you have dealt with and faults you are still looking for.

Your overall grading is usually based on the lowest core competency mark, so if you were given a 4 for identification, 3 for analysis and 4 for remedial action, your grade would be 3. For this reason it is vital to give all three parts for each fault committed. You must score a minimum of grade 4 in both phases to qualify.

The What, Why and How of Instructional Technique for Driving Instructors is available to order online at www.instructordoctors.co.uk

Price £27.00 plus £2.00 (postage and packing)