One of the more challenging situations that can develop within the working relationship of driving instructor and pupil is when they have differing ideas of what the objectives are. Ideally, there would be agreement that the goal is for the pupil to become competent at driving efficiently and safely in a wide range of differing driving conditions. But sometimes it might become apparent that a pupil has the single goal of being able to operate the vehicle. Perhaps they may just be wanting to practise through trial and error, at driving around, and as long as the vehicle makes some form of progress, perhaps they are happy with that.

Having control of the vehicle is for sure, important and necessary but it should not be the limit of the learning. A driver could be extremely competent at physically operating a vehicle, but it does not follow that they are also safe. So this mis-match of expectations can cause some issues in the relationship of the instructor and pupil. It is therefore, a good idea to ensure that there are open communications between both parties, right from the very start. A driving instructor would not want to be accused of wasting a pupil’s time and money giving training that the pupil considers to be unimportant.

Some of the other skills that need developing will include: sensing increased risk, assessing more technically challenging tasks, interpreting other road users’ signals, timely and effective decision making, applying theoretical knowledge, being able to remember key learning points, and having the self-awareness to appreciate what is or has happened. There will be many more besides.

And so, bearing in mind the fact that when we all start to learn something new, we rarely know what we don’t know, it is a skill of a driving instructor to gently, with respect and dignity, start to raise our pupil’s awareness levels of what the scope of the learning is. And we can use DVSA resources to demonstrate this point, such as the ‘summary of skills’ document that is online, or the publication, “Driving – the Essential Skills”.

This is an important point to make because if we, as professional driving instructors, do not make clear our objectives from the start, then we may feel somewhat conflicted a few months down the line, when we find ourselves trying to persuade a pupil about the necessity to develop further skills that we had not made clear at the start. A novice instructor could well find themselves feeling an unwelcome pressure exerted on them, to attempt to develop these further, necessary skills in their pupils, on a restricted deadline due to the pupil’s unrealistic expectations of being ready to take a driving test.