No-one can tell you what matters to you

You know how life has this tendency to occasionally spring up some ‘home truths’ that make you stop in your tracks and think “I’ve known that for ages but didn’t realise it”.  Many moons ago it came into my radar that each one of us will have more enemies than we would care to acknowledge.  Recently I have been learning how each one of us will tend to over-rate our worth.  But one that I am slowly coming to my own conclusions about is that ultimately, what we truly care about is simply non-negotiable; you cannot switch on or off something you feel passionate about. 

Last night I joined my 15 year old son while he was watching tv alone.  A 15 year old student in a school was being assisted by a teacher to overcome a stutter.  Later, my wife and I watched a paramedic in a call centre as she gave instructions over the phone to save the life of a newly born baby who was not breathing.  Two times last night I was reduced to tears.

Every year I get invited to give a road safety talk at one of my local schools.  It has just come to notice in the national press that this particular school has been unlawfully ejecting Year 12 students after they have received their AS exam results, because these lower performing students will be affecting the schools A level pass grades.  I had a 1 year spell as a parent governor at a local primary school and eventually left when I realised my opinion on bullying, differentiation and health and safety really stood for absolutely nothing.  No one can tell me what matters to me. 

With our pupils, we are working with a person who has a range of needs.  They actually NEED our assistance.  It is easy to get distracted with the peripheral ‘noise’ relating to our perception of their attitude to learning, or motivation, or the way they speak, smell or behave.  Underneath all of that, you have a person with a potential to learn a vital life skill.  The clever bit in our work is understanding how we can assist that pupil to develop.  Everything else is quite frankly unimportant.  Pass rates, time taken to learn, your price, the make of your driving school car…. ignore it all, it is almost entirely irrelevant when compared to one other thing.  Each and every one of us should be concerning ourselves with….. “WHAT CAN I DO TO HELP THIS PUPIL LEARN”.  And my personal take on this is that I will do everything I can to help absolutely anyone.  I’m not interested in filtering out certain pupils so that I get easy passes sooner.  I make no judgement at all on natural ability or learning difficulties.  The fact that I have a person who has a desire to learn is all that is needed. 

The idea that a school has systematically for years been ‘rejecting’ students from being given the opportunity to better themselves purely on grounds of ability is so shocking to me that it affects my sleep.  My experience of working with pupils wanting to learn to drive tells me that the reasons why pupils “under-perform” can be complex.  The idea that a school would dispose of a student at the very moment in time when they have a need is totally unprofessional and as is now being exposed…. unlawful.

If you are a trainee driving instructor and have got this far in this blog, I hope this helps you in understanding what matters to you.  

BIG TOM Driving School provides payg driving training for trainee driving instructors 0775 607 1464     http://drivinginstructortraining.bigtom.org.uk/