Warning – this unit was last revised in 2007

Unit 6: Lesson Planning – Structure and Timings. ROMPS

Research Material:
The Driving Instructor’s Handbook

“Covers the planned and actual sequence of instruction/activity together with the appropriateness and effectiveness of teaching methods used taking due account of the difficulty/complexity of the content covered and progress of the pupil. Includes the allocation of time between training activities and methods used such as the distribution between theory and practice.” – From the examiner’s marking guidance (ADI1).

Each part of a lesson should follow a structure. Simply “driving around” is a waste of everyone’s time. This is an overview of the next 5 units.

None of the timings for these things should be strictly adhered to, but if big changes are made, or if things run over time on a regular basis there should be a reason for this – a change of plan, and this should be communicated clearly.

Compare these timings to how your trainer structured your part 2 training.

Discussion Points:
Recap – Previous lessons and experience relevant to the lesson
New subject – 1 Minute
Old subject – 3 Minutes, to include some discussion on problems encountered when previously covered

Objectives – SMART
1 Minute

Main Points – Depending on the lesson and previous experience
5 Minutes – Partly Trained – New Subject, talking through the most important aspects of the lesson
20 Minutes – Beginner, for example explaining all of the controls

Practise – Targeted and effective
15-45 minutes depending on subject.

Summary – Strengths and Weaknesses – Action Plan
5 Minutes

Warning – this unit was last revised in 2007

Unit 7: Lesson Planning – Recapping previous lessons

Research Material:
The Driving Instructor’s Handbook

Any recap should be interactive – involve your customer as much as possible, asking questions about their previous experiences, skills and knowledge. Ask them how they felt about things that happened to assess their attitude, try to summarise their strengths and weaknesses and make sure your customer is happy with your assessment.

With one of your own customers, you will already know what you have covered. Be as interactive as possible – this is not an exercise in telling them anything, but finding out and assessing. They may well have been proud of things they did, which you should build on, but they may have been dwelling on problems they had also, which you must help to overcome. This is also an ideal time to find out what they have done in between lessons – private practice, theory work, or simply thinking things through.

If you are covering a lesson for another instructor, or picking up with a new customer who has left a previous instructor you will need to ask more probing questions. Relate what you ask to the subject to be covered – so don’t worry about asking about roundabouts if the lesson to be covered is to be turning left or right (unless there is to be a roundabout on route – obviously!).

Bear in mind that with a new customer who has already had lessons, they may never have driven away from home before – establishing this early on can be a great help to you, and a relief to your customer.

Discussion Points:
Recap on previous lessons – targeting the discussion towards the subject ahead.

Recapping on previous experience – how skills and knowledge your customer has will be useful for the subject ahead.

Skills and Overlaps:
Mirrors and observations
Signalling?
Positioning safely and under control
Speed and gears (including clutch control)
Looking to ensure the next action is safe

Exercises:
Write a few notes on the skills necessary to recap before learning the following exercises:
Reversing (based on a customer who drives forwards to a competent standard)
Emergency Stop (based on a customer who drives competently)

Your trainer will role-play customers who have been passed to you by an instructor who is away for the lesson. You will recap their knowledge based on the lesson objective:
James – Mirrors and the Emergency Stop
David – Reverse Round a Corner
Jake – Working on mock test problems – signalling

Your trainer will role-play one of your own customer and you will deliver an interactive re-cap session.

Warning – this unit was last revised in 2007

Unit 8: Lesson Planning – Objectives – SMART

Research Material:
The Driving Instructor’s Handbook
Coaching for Performance – Chapter 7 – Goal Setting

Effective and inspiring goal setting can really help motivate customers. They also set good boundaries for you – meaning that you don’t try to achieve too much and find yourself falling short, or aiming too low and wasting time.

Discussion Points:
Specific – Clear definition of what the goal is

Measurable – How will achievement of the goal be defined?
Once a skill has been performed under guidance, prompting, or independently?

Agreed – This ensures that both parties are working towards a goal which they both feel is achievable. Your customer must feel they are a participant, and not just a passenger.

Realistic – The dangers of setting unrealistic goals.

Timed – Ensuring that goals are not open ended.

P.U.R.E.
Positively stated – negative goals will often have negative effects
Understood – this is needed before agreement can be gained
Relevant – putting current goals into the wider context of driving
Ethical – positively encouraging good attitudes

C.L.E.A.R.
Challenging – keep motivation high, but without being unrealistic
Legal – with reference to the Highway Code if necessary
Environmentally sound – with reference to eco-driving
Appropriate – fitting it to the customers experience and skills
Recorded – with reference to the track record

Exercises:
Write SMART, PURE and CLEAR objectives for the following lessons:
Controls Lesson – first lesson with a new customer who has never driven.
Turn in the Road Lesson – with a customer who can drive competently but has never manoeuvred
System of Control lesson – re-enforcing good use of the MSPSL system for a customer approaching test standard
You will role-play these objectives with your trainer.

Warning – this unit was last revised in 2007

Unit 9: Lesson Planning – Main Points

Research Material:
The Driving Instructor’s Handbook
The PST Sheets
Lesson Presenter

The Main Points of any lesson will be the items which are necessary to be covered before practice can begin. This can be hard to judge, but when prioritising what needs to be talked about remember that safety is the number one issue.

Discussion Points:
Bullet Points
Must Know – not ‘might need to’ know
Breaking down an action into its constituent parts
Practising this with a common skill
Creating a bank of ‘must know’ information for different skills

Exercises:
Write a bullet point list of main points to be covered in relation to the following subjects as if they are to attempted for the first time:
Meeting Situations
Reverse Parking
Progress and Hesitation
Pedestrian Crossings
You will role-play conveying these main points with your trainer.

Warning – this unit was last revised in 2007

Unit 10: Lesson Planning – Practise and Route Planning as seen by a novice driver

Research Material:
The Driving Instructor’s Handbook

Finding sensible places to carry out the teaching of different subjects can be hard. You will have found during the course of your part 2 training that finding a good place to practice the Turn in the Road, or reverse park for example can be hard.

Discussion Points:
Finding nursery routes

Understanding how routes fit in with what is already known

Avoiding problems outside the lesson plan

S.C.A.L.P.
Safe Convenient and Legal Places – to perform manoeuvres

Seeing things from the novice’s perspective

Exercises:
Using the area where you intend to work as an instructor, find areas and routes where you could implement the following as first lessons on the subject:
Moving off and stopping for the first time (bearing in mind that you may well be able to progress to turning left and right).

The Parallel Park

Meeting situations

Emergency stop

With your trainer you will drive these routes and risk assess them.

Warning – this unit was last revised in 2007

Unit 11: Lesson Planning – Summary – strengths and areas to be worked on.

Research Material:
The Driving Instructor’s Handbook
Coaching for Performance

The summary is possibly the most important part of any lesson – a lesson where a good amount of learning has taken place can be undone by dwelling too long on a couple of mistakes. Motivating the customer to take their learning out of the training car and into their own life must be your number one goal, as this will mean that when they next get in the car, they are ready and eager to learn again.

Setting ‘homework’ needs to be handled sensitively, and according to your customer’s style of learning. It can be anything from reading a chapter of a driving book, encouraging good habits in private practice, to researching the answer to specific problems on the internet. A well run action plan, agreed, carried out, and followed up by the instructor and the learner can greatly reduce problems during later sessions.

Discussion Points:
The Positive
Creating awareness of problems
The customer’s ownership of how to progress
The Action Plan for the next lesson

Exercises:
With your trainer you will role-play summarising lessons which have gone well, and lessons which have proved problematic. Your trainer will provide you with a picture of how the lesson went.

Warning – this unit was last revised in 2007

Unit 12: Levels of Instruction – Guided/Prompted/Independent.

Research Material:
The Driving Instructor’s Handbook (p99)

“Relates to the match (or lack of it) between the level of instruction and the level of ability of the pupil. This will normally match the grade given as it would be very difficult to explain why it would not be the case.” – From the examiner’s marking guidance (ADI1).

Your use of instruction, and the level at which you pitch it is of huge importance – quite literally it could mean your life or death, and it will make a big difference to how well your customers progress.

Over instruction will slow the learning process, but under instructing can leave you open to potential dangers. During the part 3 exam (the instructional ability examination) phase 1 (beginners and novices) is often under instructed, and phase 2 (experienced learners and full licence holders) is often over instructed. A thorough understanding of how to pitch instruction, depending on your customer is the basis of good instruction.

Guided:
Simply put, this is telling someone exactly what to do – guiding them through the process. This is used under 2 distinct circumstances

This is what you will do for example during your phase 1 teaching. Once you have completed your briefing, you will then guide them through the process, eg: “Set the as to 2000 revs, hold that foot still, then gradually bring your clutch up until you hear the engine revs dip, then hold both feet still” – would be your guided instructions for someone to find the bite point.

This can be necessary when a student has been pushed out of their comfort zone. It is easy for them to forget exactly how to set off smoothly at a give way, when there is a truck beeping from behind them. You may need to use guided instruction exactly the same as above to prevent stalling or dangerously fast moving off.

Prompted:
This is where you will remind them of the key points of what they are about to do, once they have proved under guidance that they can perform the task.

Using the same example as above, a prompt could be “remember to hold your feet still when you find the bite point”. This gives them a reminder of what you have been working on, and helps them with the part of the action which you feel they may forget.

If a student has been stalling, the prompt would be “remember to add enough gas when you find your bite point”.

The art of the prompt is to give them enough information that they can perform the task, while leaving out enough information to make them feel as though they are progressing. Prompts should become less specific and more questioning as the student becomes better at their task.

As skill improves a prompt may not contain any specific action, for example “on this hill, how can we avoid rolling back when we release the handbrake?” and eventually “is there a chance we could roll back here?” or “are we on a hill?”.

Independent:
This is the goal we aim for. To see a customer approach an uphill Give Way, and know that they will be able to find the bite in first, observe and pull smoothly and safely away if it is clear is a nice moment! However, remember that in between lessons things can be forgotten, confidence can lead to recklessness and brains under pressure don’t always work so well. Never be afraid to swing back to prompted if you notice problems creeping in.

Unfortunately, even drivers approaching test standard will put you in dangerous situations sometimes, so be prepared under these circumstances to swing your instruction straight back to guided. Simple, clear firm guided instruction should be able to get you out of most situations without any need for use of the dual controls.

Discussion Points:
How to determine where to start – The Recap
Swinging back from independent to guided or prompted
Your most important dual control – concise guidance

Warning – this unit was last revised in 2007

Unit 13 – Guided, Full talk through.

Research Material:
The Driving Instructor’s Handbook

Simply put, this is telling someone exactly what to do – guiding them through the process. This is used under 2 distinct circumstances

1. Teaching someone how to do something they have never done before.
   This is what you will do for example during your phase 1 teaching.
   Once you have completed your briefing, you will then guide them through the process, eg: “Set the gas to 1500 revs, hold that foot still, then bring your clutch up 1/3rd of the way quickly, then gradually until you hear the engine revs dip. Now hold both feet still” – would be your guided instructions for someone to find the bite point.
2. Helping someone to complete an action under stressful or dangerous circumstances.
   This can be necessary when a student has been pushed out of their comfort zone. It is easy for them to forget exactly how to set off smoothly at a give way, when there is a truck beeping from behind them. You may need to use guided instruction exactly the same as above to prevent stalling or dangerously fast moving off.

Discussion Points:
Clear concise and effective talk through
Leaving nothing out

Examples of talk through:
Move off from the side of the road
Changing gear

Commentary driving as a practise tool for talk through
Head it off at the pass
Talk through before dual controls

Exercises:
Using your commentary driving experience, practice talking through the whole routine necessary for moving away from the side of the road. Write a script if necessary, and practise this on your trainer, who will listen and react ONLY to your instruction. Remember if you miss anything out, it will not be done – it is all well and good giving a perfect description of finding the bite, but if your customer hasn’t selected first gear it will never work!

Your customer can set off independently in a quiet area, but is very nervous about setting off at traffic lights – you realise the car behind is driving impatiently and may run into you if you stall. Notice the warning signs and swing back to guided if you feel it is necessary.

Warning – this unit was last revised in 2007

Unit 14: Prompted Instruction

Research Material:
The Driving Instructor’s Handbook

This is where you will remind them of the key points of what they are about to do, once they have proved under guidance that they can perform the task.
Using the same example as above, a prompt could be “remember to hold your feet still when you find the bite point”. This gives them a reminder of what you have been working on, and helps them with the part of the action which you feel they may forget.

If a student has been stalling, the prompt would be “remember to add enough gas when you find your bite point”.

The art of the prompt is to give them enough information that they can perform the task, while leaving out enough information to make them feel as though they are progressing. Prompts should become less specific and more questioning as the student becomes better at their task. Eventually a prompt should not contain any specific action, for example “on this hill, how can we avoid rolling back when we release the handbrake?” and eventually “is there a chance we could roll back here?”.

Discussion Points:
A question based talk through:
Move off from the side of the road
Changing gear
Reduction of prompts
Movement from closed prompts to open prompts
Using prompts to push towards independence

Exercises:
Using the moving off experience, your customer has shown that they can move away under your full instruction, you now need to test how much of that instruction has been remembered and understood. Using questions and prompting where necessary, you will assist your ‘customer’ to repeat what he has been previously taught with regards to moving off. Gradually reduce the amount of prompting necessary.

Warning – this unit was last revised in 2007

Unit 15: Independence; the transfer of responsibility

Research Material:
The Driving Instructor’s Handbook

This is the goal we aim for. To see a customer approach an uphill Give Way, and know that they will be able to find the bite in first, observe and pull smoothly and safely away if it is clear is a nice moment! However, remember that in between lessons, things can be forgotten, confidence can lead to recklessness, and under pressure brains don’t always work so well, so never be afraid to swing back to prompted if you’ve noticed problems creeping in.
Unfortunately, even drivers approaching test standards will put you in dangerous situations sometimes, so be prepared under these circumstances to swing your instruction straight back to guided. Simple, clear firm guided instruction should be able to get you out of most situations without any need for use of the dual controls.

Discussion Points:
Recognising independence

Praise and encouragement

Testing independence:
Was it true independence with a thought process?
Did they just get away with it?
How can you tell? – ‘What if’ questions

Allowing independence within other levels of instruction:
Big picture guidance with small picture independence

Exercises:
Your customer now wants to move off on their own, and you know they have remembered the majority of what they have been taught. It is up to you to observe what they are doing, and if you see that something has been missed out, remind them in a way which reminds them of their own knowledge, and allows them to keep responsibility for what they are doing.

You and your customer both feel comfortable with their responsibility for moving off, and you don’t need to instruct during the exercise normally, but in heavier traffic and on hills your customer starts to have trouble. Try to swing the instruction back to a point where it keeps responsibility with the customer, but allows them to safely move off.