6. Standards Check & National Driver & Rider Training Standard
Two main messages came from the DVSA when they were going around the country delivering talks on the new Standards Check. The messages are:
Know the GDE
Don’t change what you do
In this article I am going to explore these two messages and consider the implications for our industry.
Know the GDE
The document that underpins the changes to the current Check Test is the ‘National Driver and Rider Training Standard’ (‘The Standard’), which sets out the skills, knowledge and understanding needed to deliver a programme of driver / rider training. When you look at the new SC1 Form and compare it to ‘The Standard’ you will recognise the competences, against which you will be assessed in the new Standards Check from April 2014:
Lesson Planning
Risk Management
Teaching and Learning Strategies
Implicit in ‘The Standard’ is the fact that the skills, knowledge and understanding needed to deliver a programme of driver training are based on the Goals for Driver Education (GDE). It is expected that driving instructors will deliver a training programme that equips their customers with safe driving skills for life and, in order to do this, they must address the higher levels of the GDE.
Unit 6.3, Element 6.3.3 – Coach. This element is about engaging in a conversation with the learner to help them identify obstacles to learning and strategies for overcoming these obstacles. To do this you must know and understand how to use a range of learner-centred techniques to:
Help the learner identify and overcome barriers to achievement of learning goals
Encourage the learner to join-up their understanding of practice and theory
Support the transfer of ownership of the learning process to the learner
The only way to address the above three points is through the use of essential coaching skills, such as, active listening, effective questioning, client-centred rapport and eliciting feedback. These skills enable you to address the higher levels of the GDE and also develop self-evaluation skills in your learner drivers. Through the use of these essential coaching skills you will have a client-centred / learner centred approach.
‘The Standard’ makes it overtly clear that skills-based training is not sufficient. It is not acceptable to simply get somebody ready for the driving test. Our responsibility as driving instructors is to equip the people we train with safe driving skills for life. We can only do this if we address the higher levels of the GDE framework and the right-hand column (self-evaluation) through the use of coaching techniques. All my articles focus on this.
Here is an everyday example of how the levels of the GDE all come together (first produced in Issue 9 – August 2013 of the Tri-Coaching Partnership Trainers’ Club Magazine):
Level 4 – Goals for Life and Skills for Living
Imagine you are going for a job interview. This is very important to you because landing this job will take you one step further towards being able to realise your dreams. You are nervously excited about the interview which will take place first thing tomorrow morning. You don’t sleep very well and find yourself up at 2am and again at 3am pacing around the house exhausted. When the alarm eventually goes off you are fast asleep and barely register it. You wake with a start and discover you are already running 20 minutes later than intended. You charge around the house trying to get ready. At least you had sorted out your clothes the night before.
Level 3 – Goals and Context of the Journey
With no breakfast you jump in the car and start the engine. Irritably you get out of the car again to scrape the frost off the windscreen. You reverse out of the driveway and drive off down the road, frantically trying to remember which way to go. You are now feeling very flustered and are not focusing on the driving at all. You vaguely wonder whether a taxi would have been more sensible.
Level 2 – Driving in Traffic
You find yourself in the wrong lane at your pet-hate roundabout and feel angry when someone blasts their horn at you.
Level 1 – Vehicle Manoeuvring
At the next set of lights you stall as you try to pull away quickly—you haven’t stalled in a long time.
By the time you get to your interview you have only one minute to spare and no time to compose yourself.
Coaching is the most effective method to address the Goals for Driver Education. Traditional instruction was okay for the lower levels of the GDE—vehicle manoeuvring and driving in traffic. However, only client-centred learning raises awareness and builds responsibility. If it really had been you going for an interview what would you have done differently and how would you have taken your personality strengths and limitations into consideration when making decisions about how best to deal with an important event like this?
Driving is a task that involves the whole person—body, mind and soul—or—behaviour, thoughts and feelings. Taking responsibility for the driving task means recognising how our thoughts and feelings motivate our behaviour and affect the choices and decisions we make. Learner drivers need a client-centred approach in order to best understand this for themselves. This is what is meant in Unit 6.3, Element 6.3.3 – Coaching of ‘The Standard’.
Don’t change what you do
Some people go for their check test and change everything that they do usually when teaching. All of a sudden, having never done this in their normal driver training, they decide to teach pedestrian crossings and the use of signals because this was a pre-set test on their Part 3 qualifying exam. In a nutshell, this is what is meant by ‘Don’t change what you do’. You are presenting yourself for an assessment of the knowledge, skills and understanding that you use on a daily basis in your driving instruction so that you can benefit from the feedback and advice given to you by the Examiner and, as a result, determine what you need to do to either maintain or improve and develop your standard. If you do something that is completely different from your everyday practice then you are wasting your licence fee!
Nevertheless, you are being assessed for your skills, knowledge and understanding as they relate to the ‘National Driver and Rider Training Standard’.
Unit 6.5 of ‘The Standard’ is all about the requirement to keep up to date with changes in the industry and develop continuously.
This Unit 6.5 is about evaluating your own performance against the established and evolving requirements of your role, identifying where there are opportunities for improvement and taking action to respond to those opportunities.
Amongst the performance standards for this unit you must be able to:
Keep up to date with training industry issues and recognise when changes in the industry mean that you need to update your knowledge, skills and understanding
Set out objectives for the ongoing development of your knowledge, skills and understanding
Identify training or development opportunities that will help you update or close any gaps in your knowledge, skills and understanding
Keep a reflective log so that you can evaluate the outcome of your professional development activities
CPD will not be made mandatory in this industry. However, it will be clear to some of you reading this article that you must change what you do NOW, in order to keep doing what you do when you come to take the Standards Check. Will you be ready?
Two main messages came from the DVSA when they were going around the country delivering talks on the new Standards Check. The messages are:
Know the GDE
Don’t change what you do
In this article I am going to explore these two messages and consider the implications for our industry.
Know the GDE
The document that underpins the changes to the current Check Test is the ‘National Driver and Rider Training Standard’ (‘The Standard’), which sets out the skills, knowledge and understanding needed to deliver a programme of driver / rider training. When you look at the new SC1 Form and compare it to ‘The Standard’ you will recognise the competences, against which you will be assessed in the new Standards Check from April 2014:
Lesson Planning
Risk Management
Teaching and Learning Strategies
Implicit in ‘The Standard’ is the fact that the skills, knowledge and understanding needed to deliver a programme of driver training are based on the Goals for Driver Education (GDE). It is expected that driving instructors will deliver a training programme that equips their customers with safe driving skills for life and, in order to do this, they must address the higher levels of the GDE.
Unit 6.3, Element 6.3.3 – Coach. This element is about engaging in a conversation with the learner to help them identify obstacles to learning and strategies for overcoming these obstacles. To do this you must know and understand how to use a range of learner-centred techniques to:
Help the learner identify and overcome barriers to achievement of learning goals
Encourage the learner to join-up their understanding of practice and theory
Support the transfer of ownership of the learning process to the learner
The only way to address the above three points is through the use of essential coaching skills, such as, active listening, effective questioning, client-centred rapport and eliciting feedback. These skills enable you to address the higher levels of the GDE and also develop self-evaluation skills in your learner drivers. Through the use of these essential coaching skills you will have a client-centred / learner centred approach.
‘The Standard’ makes it overtly clear that skills-based training is not sufficient. It is not acceptable to simply get somebody ready for the driving test. Our responsibility as driving instructors is to equip the people we train with safe driving skills for life. We can only do this if we address the higher levels of the GDE framework and the right-hand column (self-evaluation) through the use of coaching techniques. All my articles focus on this.
Here is an everyday example of how the levels of the GDE all come together (first produced in Issue 9 – August 2013 of the Tri-Coaching Partnership Trainers’ Club Magazine):
Level 4 – Goals for Life and Skills for Living
Imagine you are going for a job interview. This is very important to you because landing this job will take you one step further towards being able to realise your dreams. You are nervously excited about the interview which will take place first thing tomorrow morning. You don’t sleep very well and find yourself up at 2am and again at 3am pacing around the house exhausted. When the alarm eventually goes off you are fast asleep and barely register it. You wake with a start and discover you are already running 20 minutes later than intended. You charge around the house trying to get ready. At least you had sorted out your clothes the night before.
Level 3 – Goals and Context of the Journey
With no breakfast you jump in the car and start the engine. Irritably you get out of the car again to scrape the frost off the windscreen. You reverse out of the driveway and drive off down the road, frantically trying to remember which way to go. You are now feeling very flustered and are not focusing on the driving at all. You vaguely wonder whether a taxi would have been more sensible.
Level 2 – Driving in Traffic
You find yourself in the wrong lane at your pet-hate roundabout and feel angry when someone blasts their horn at you.
Level 1 – Vehicle Manoeuvring
At the next set of lights you stall as you try to pull away quickly—you haven’t stalled in a long time.
By the time you get to your interview you have only one minute to spare and no time to compose yourself.
Coaching is the most effective method to address the Goals for Driver Education. Traditional instruction was okay for the lower levels of the GDE—vehicle manoeuvring and driving in traffic. However, only client-centred learning raises awareness and builds responsibility. If it really had been you going for an interview what would you have done differently and how would you have taken your personality strengths and limitations into consideration when making decisions about how best to deal with an important event like this?
Driving is a task that involves the whole person—body, mind and soul—or—behaviour, thoughts and feelings. Taking responsibility for the driving task means recognising how our thoughts and feelings motivate our behaviour and affect the choices and decisions we make. Learner drivers need a client-centred approach in order to best understand this for themselves. This is what is meant in Unit 6.3, Element 6.3.3 – Coaching of ‘The Standard’.
Don’t change what you do
Some people go for their check test and change everything that they do usually when teaching. All of a sudden, having never done this in their normal driver training, they decide to teach pedestrian crossings and the use of signals because this was a pre-set test on their Part 3 qualifying exam. In a nutshell, this is what is meant by ‘Don’t change what you do’. You are presenting yourself for an assessment of the knowledge, skills and understanding that you use on a daily basis in your driving instruction so that you can benefit from the feedback and advice given to you by the Examiner and, as a result, determine what you need to do to either maintain or improve and develop your standard. If you do something that is completely different from your everyday practice then you are wasting your licence fee!
Nevertheless, you are being assessed for your skills, knowledge and understanding as they relate to the ‘National Driver and Rider Training Standard’.
Unit 6.5 of ‘The Standard’ is all about the requirement to keep up to date with changes in the industry and develop continuously.
This Unit 6.5 is about evaluating your own performance against the established and evolving requirements of your role, identifying where there are opportunities for improvement and taking action to respond to those opportunities.
Amongst the performance standards for this unit you must be able to:
Keep up to date with training industry issues and recognise when changes in the industry mean that you need to update your knowledge, skills and understanding
Set out objectives for the ongoing development of your knowledge, skills and understanding
Identify training or development opportunities that will help you update or close any gaps in your knowledge, skills and understanding
Keep a reflective log so that you can evaluate the outcome of your professional development activities
CPD will not be made mandatory in this industry. However, it will be clear to some of you reading this article that you must change what you do NOW, in order to keep doing what you do when you come to take the Standards Check. Will you be ready?
