CPD and Standards Check prep

The Standards Check

The Standards Check looks at whether you can still teach. It is not your pupil’s driving test. A DVSA examiner watches you give a client-centred lesson, usually about 45 minutes. You agree the goal and the risks at the start, the pupil drives for most of the time, and you leave a few minutes at the end for them to reflect.

You are marked across lesson planning, risk management, and teaching and learning skills. The detail, the grade bands and what to take are on GOV.UK. Read those. This list is only a rehearsal.

• A lesson plan the pupil helped shape, not a script you wrote the night before.
• A goal you can both say out loud in the first few minutes.
• Risk talked through at the start: where this pupil is likely to come unstuck today.
• You listen. Client-centred means their lesson, not an hour of your stories.
• A few quiet minutes at the end so they can say what changed.
• You can name one thing you would do differently next time.

PassNear is not the DVSA and this is not DVSA-approved training. Use the official GOV.UK pages for the rules that count.

CPD for a busy week

Themes you can do in the car or after the last pupil. None of these is a course you can buy a badge for.

• Reflective practice logs

  • After the lesson, write three lines: what the pupil could already do, what changed, what you would do differently.
  • Note who set the goal. If it was only you, the next lesson starts with their words.
  • Keep the log. A standards check conversation is easier when you can show how you reflect, not just how you talk.
  National standard for driver and rider training

• Hazard awareness refresh

  • Sit the official practice clips yourself once a year. The developing-hazard timing still catches instructors who only teach it from memory.
  • On the road, ask the pupil what they are looking at, not only whether they checked the mirror.
  • Commentary for a minute, then silence. They need to scan without your voice.
  Official hazard perception test

• Highway Code updates

  • Read the updates, not a screenshot from a group chat. Hierarchy of road users and junction changes still surprise people who passed years ago.
  • Pick one rule a month and teach it on a real junction, not as a lecture in the car park.
  • Send pupils the highlights on PassNear, then the full Code.
  The Highway Code

• Nervous, autistic and anxious learners

  • Ask what helps before lesson one: quieter roads, a written plan, shorter lessons, or a familiar passenger.
  • Agree a stop word. Pull in, reset, then continue. Do not narrate their anxiety back to them.
  • Automatic can be the right car if the clutch is the barrier. Say so plainly, including what the licence will and will not cover.
  Ready to Pass: nerves

• Local test-centre knowledge

  • Paisley for the Renfrewshire core. Anniesland north of the Clyde. Shieldhall on the south side. Do not mix them up in the pupil’s head.
  • Drive the approaches you actually use, including the awkward ones, before test week.
  • A pupil who knows the centre they will use is calmer than one collecting slots they will never sit.
  Paisley, Anniesland and Shieldhall

• Eco-safe driving

  • Look further, lift off earlier, and avoid the brake-accelerate habit. That is the lesson, not a gadget.
  • In an automatic, eco-safe is planning and speed choice. Do not invent a clutch story you do not teach.
  • Tie it to the test: anticipation is a competence, not a fuel advert.
  Highway Code: speed and awareness

• Semi-intensive lessons

  • A two-hour block needs a plan with a break in it. One goal for the first hour, a short stop, then use it.
  • Do not fill both hours with new material. The second hour is where it either sticks or falls apart.
  • If they are not ready, say so before they book. Moving a test is their job, on GOV.UK, not yours.

PassNear is not the DVSA and this is not DVSA-approved training. Use the official GOV.UK pages for the rules that count.

Share with a pupil

Homework between lessons, not a replacement for you. Useful when they ask “what should I look at tonight?”

• Show me, tell me
• Ready to pass
• Highway Code highlights
• Getting ready

Local test centres

PassNear is not the DVSA and this is not DVSA-approved training. Use the official GOV.UK pages for the rules that count.