Consciously competent

Which is worse for driving instructors: the feeling of anxiety and resentment that they experience before, during and after a DVSA Standards Check or the culture of fear that is promulgated by driving instructor trainers in the industry that helps to feed that anxiety.

You won't find too many emotions expressed publicly on social media by driving instructors; primarily because they work within competitive market conditions where exposed weaknesses could be detrimental to the business.

Teachers don't suffer from such market forces and are far more willing to publish precisely how they feel at the time of OFSTED inspections.  Just scroll through > this thread < here to see how people are severely affected by these types of assessments.

Driving instructors do get traumatised by the prospect of a Standards Check, and it is entirely avoidable when you start to think why it is the case seriously.

When you are about to be assessed in a professional capacity, ideally what you want to be able to do, is carry on with business as usual.  You want to conduct your service in the same way that you have done so that your mind is not introducing anything new.  Think of it in much the same terms as our pupils driving on their test.  If they attempt to do driving actions that are not routine, such as systematic observations or defensive driving, then the resulting drive is problematic and inconsistent.

One tip is to consider the business in terms of its success.  Is the diary full with a waiting list for new customers, are you enjoyably providing the service day to day effortlessly with no dramas such as complaints lodged with the DVSA, or accidents damaging the driving school car,  and there are healthy profits?

In much the same way that little chinks of self-doubt in our pupils' driving ability can create problems in the high-stress environment of driving tests, so it is right with how the mind can upset behaviours on standards checks. 

 

An ADI needs to have confidence in their ability to add value for customers before the DVSA have even contacted them to give notice of a Standards Check.  If you have seeds of doubt on this point > contact me <

The ultimate aim is for the confidence in your self worth to obliterate any trace of anxiety generated by an examiner assessing you.  People in authoritative positions do abuse their power - it is a pervasive and desperately sad fact of human behaviour.  When people are on the receiving end of ill-treatment from such people, the mental consequences can be far-reaching.  I have no doubts in asking my reader to consider the behaviours of some examiners out there - in terms of learner driving tests or PDI qualifying tests; this is real and to pretend otherwise is not being very helpful to PDI's.

With systemized behaviours, it frees up brain space to raise quality standards.  In effect, it becomes less about "what should I do now/next" and more about "how can I maximise what I am doing now for the benefit of my pupil".