In all the years I have been doing this job I honestly can\u2019t remember having been asked once what my grade is. Even when the topic has arisen later on during lessons, no one has shown any real interest in the grades. The only person who DOES have in interest is me \u2013 in the early days I wanted to improve, and in the present I want to maintain my standards. My grade was a good way of monitoring that.<\/p>\n
I don\u2019t have any issues with the new grading system from a practical perspective. It won\u2019t alter the way I do my job, or affect my earnings, and unless I suddenly start being a crap instructor the chances are I\u2019ll just end up with an A (even a B wouldn\u2019t matter, except to my ego). Politically, though, the change is pointless. No matter what the DSA\/DVSA says, parents and learners don\u2019t give a toss about grades, and combining the original grades 5 and 6 into a single grade A hardly helps instructors \u201cpromote themselves\u201d in any useful way. All most learners are interested in initially is passing for the least cost, then \u2013 after many have been bitten by cheapos delivering poor instruction because they\u2019ve cut their overheads to minimise the effect of cutting their prices \u2013 a damage limitation exercise with a decent instructor charging decent prices.![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.diaryofanadi.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/03\/monkey.jpg\" "\\"A")
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Mind you, it remains to be seen whether or not the new Standards Check actually fails more instructors than the previous system. The DSA\/DVSA\u2019s preoccupation with \u201csub-standard instruction\u201d that it never actually attacks head-on might come to something then.<\/p>\n
Recently, I\u2019ve picked up a handful of pupils from other instructors, and given the number of hours they\u2019ve had in lessons \u2013 bearing in mind that they have now had one or two sessions with me, and I\u2019ve been able to assess their capabilities – their lack of progress towards the test is shocking. They\u2019re far more able than their progress suggests.<\/p>\n
One pupil commented that she\u2019d had over 50 hours and \u201ccouldn\u2019t understand the stickers\u201d in her school car because they \u201cdidn’t line up\u201d the way her instructor kept saying. I\u2019ve written about these bloody stickers before. They don\u2019t work.<\/strong><\/p>\n And another immediately stalled my car because she\u2019d been taught in a diesel and her jackass of an instructor had taught her not to use gas (presumably, just to save him<\/strong> a few tenths of a penny in imagined fuel costs). I\u2019ve written about that before, too. It happens a lot. How can you call yourself a driving instructor if your pupils can\u2019t drive in any car other than yours if they manage to scrape a pass?<\/p>\n A monkey could do this bloody job \u2013 and unfortunately, they often do. Even worse, they sometimes manage to do it for years, putting on a brilliant show for the periodic check test which doesn\u2019t pick this sort of nonsense up.<\/p>\n Will the new Standards Check get these kind of people off the Register? I doubt it \u2013 but until it does, any grading system will remain meaningless.<\/p>\n
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