Lessons Explained

While everyone learns at a different pace, on average it will take around 40 hours of tuition to go from being a beginner to becoming a confident driver who is ready to sit and pass a driving test.

I encourage most people to do a 2-hour lesson once a week when learning to drive. You can arrange to do shorter lessons, but this usually results in people using more hours overall to get test ready. If you look at the structure of a driving lesson below, you will see why this is the case.

Lesson Structure:

Lesson Start (5 mins): Each lesson will start with a recap of the last lesson and a discussion of the new lesson’s goals which will take about 5 minutes.

Drive to training area (5 – 15 mins): The amount of time this takes will depend on the lesson’s goals and where a pupil is picked up. This bit of driving will be done by me in the early lessons, until the pupil is confident enough to do it for themselves. 

Training on Lesson goals: Any remaining time in the schedule will be spent driving around the training area and working on the skills needed to hit the lessons goals.

Drive home from training area (5 – 15 mins)

Lesson end (5 – 10 mins): Lessons will end with a debrief to ensure goals have been met and understood. We will also fill out a feedback sheet for the lesson and a skill tracker to make sure both myself and the pupil have a good understanding of their progress.

If we assume the times for the sections above are all in the middle of their ranges, 32.5 minutes are accounted for. If you opt to do a one hour lesson 27.5 minutes remain in the training area to work on lesson goals. If you do 2-hour lessons it leaves us 1 hour and 27 minutes to work on lesson goals. Over 40 hours that means you get 20 hours of on goal training with 1-hour lessons or 30 hours with 2-hour lessons.

Below is a rough structure that I follow over 40 hours of lessons with a pupil. This changes from pupil to pupil depending on a range of factors including: where they live, how quickly they learn, traffic conditions.

Syllabus:

  1. The basics – controls / moving off and stopping / basic T-junctions / MSPSL
  2. Improving on the basics / vehicle clearance / the controlled stop
  3. Meeting traffic / priority / hill starts / crossroads / mini roundabouts
  4. Roundabouts / the 2 second rule
  5. Bigger roundabouts / hitting 60 MPH
  6. Pedestrian crossings / box junctions / filter lights
  7. Reverse manoeuvres 1
  8. Reverse manoeuvres 2
  9. Multi-lane roundabouts
  10. One-way streets
  11. Country roads
  12. Dual carriageways and motorways
  13. Independent driving – road signs
  14. Independent driving – sat-nav
  15. Car maintenance and first mock test
  16. Mock 2
  17. Mock 3
  18. Mock 4
  19. Mock 5
  20. Test day!