After 17 years I'm hanging up my training boots at the end of the year. I had what will be my final four yearly standards check on Monday. The DVSA assessor came to watch me train two students on a CBT at the car park that we use. The two lads are military from Hereford, both complete beginners. Long story short, I passed, I had very good feedback with a few comments of course but they have to justify their existence. The training expectation from the DVSA has evolved over the years into what they term "client centric training" which is about being more touchy, feely and asking more questions. I have to admit I am a bit old school and have had to work hard to adjust to the new DVSA reality. When I became fully qualified in 2009 after a two day assessment at Cardington we had to instruct, give lessons, identify faults then correct them, now the landscape has changed and we are now expected to be almost pastoral in our approach.
For example, one of the lads stalled when practising pulling away and stopping - I immediately said "you were a bit quick on the clutch and just needed a few more revs" in other words I gave a prescriptive intervention to help him solve the problem. Apparently I should have asked him "what happened their?" "what went wrong?" "why did it go wrong?" "what do you need to do to correct it?" "how do you feel about that?" etc My intervention got him going again in seconds and solved the problem! Sometimes, you just need to instruct, tell them what they need to know and let them crack on with it, or sometimes they just work it out for themselves, which in my mind is better than having a five minute q&a self-analysis session. Clearly I am not the future in the DVSA's brave new world.
I'm happy to have passed but at 71 I think the time is right for me to ride off into the sunset. I have trained thousands of students from CBT to full license and also delivered Advanced training but come the end of the year I'll be gone. My training ticket is still valid for another four years so I won't hand it in as I am sure that Simon, the boss, may well call me now and again to do the odd day here and there to help out which I will be happy to do. It's been great and I have gained enormous pleasure and satisfaction from helping students achieve their dream of attaining a bike license but I won't miss the standards checks.
There are other instructors on here who will understand exactly what I am saying, especially my mate Lee Boulton (leedude03) as he was assessed by the same examiner. I called him after I passed and he wants to know what my score was to see if I beat him.
I'll share it when I receive the written report.
Stay safe all!
For example, one of the lads stalled when practising pulling away and stopping - I immediately said "you were a bit quick on the clutch and just needed a few more revs" in other words I gave a prescriptive intervention to help him solve the problem. Apparently I should have asked him "what happened their?" "what went wrong?" "why did it go wrong?" "what do you need to do to correct it?" "how do you feel about that?" etc My intervention got him going again in seconds and solved the problem! Sometimes, you just need to instruct, tell them what they need to know and let them crack on with it, or sometimes they just work it out for themselves, which in my mind is better than having a five minute q&a self-analysis session. Clearly I am not the future in the DVSA's brave new world.
I'm happy to have passed but at 71 I think the time is right for me to ride off into the sunset. I have trained thousands of students from CBT to full license and also delivered Advanced training but come the end of the year I'll be gone. My training ticket is still valid for another four years so I won't hand it in as I am sure that Simon, the boss, may well call me now and again to do the odd day here and there to help out which I will be happy to do. It's been great and I have gained enormous pleasure and satisfaction from helping students achieve their dream of attaining a bike license but I won't miss the standards checks.
There are other instructors on here who will understand exactly what I am saying, especially my mate Lee Boulton (leedude03) as he was assessed by the same examiner. I called him after I passed and he wants to know what my score was to see if I beat him.
I'll share it when I receive the written report.Stay safe all!
