Driving instructor grades are given by the DVSA.
Every two to four years a driving instructor has to give a driving lesson with an examiner sitting in the back of the car. This is called a standards check.
The examiner grades the instructor either A, B or fail with grade A being the best.
If you want to find out more then you can visit the instructor pages of my site through the “Instructors” menu above.
You can read more about signs of a bad driving instructor and why you should avoid driving lesson intro offers.
Things to consider about grades
Having a good grade is great but before choosing an instructor based purely on their grade, here are some things to consider:
- The examiner that gives the instructor a grade has never been an instructor, has never taught anyone to drive and isn’t qualified to do so. It’s like walking into a kitchen and telling the head chef he’s rubbish when you can’t even cook an egg yourself
- It is only a snapshot of how an instructor did on one given lesson on one given day, several months or years ago. Rather than choosing an instructor based on one lesson, you can watch me doing dozens of lessons and make your own mind up.
- I’ve trained hundreds of driving instructors, many of which have gone on to get a grade A. Does that mean I have multiple grade A’s myself?
- It’s only one persons opinion. If you had three examiners watching you they’d all mark you differently and you could get two A’s and a B
- There is tremendous pressure on an instructor on these tests. If we mess up we lose our jobs, our home and our family is on the streets. Can you image what it would be like taking a driving test under those conditions? It’s nothing like a normal lesson.
- I’ve never got the highest grade yet I’m still a great instructor. I used to be ranked 5/6 and now I’m B instead of possibly being an A.
Even more things to consider about driving instructor grades
We’re not finished yet. Just thought I’d give you a breather but here we go again…
- You can only take them by invitation once every 2 to 4 years. You can’t ask for one to get a better grade.
- There’s only a grade A and B. Is there really much difference between two grades? It’s like choosing between a 4 star hotel or a 5 star. I’d like to see it done from A to F to show a wider range of ability.
- It depends a lot on your pupil. Taking a naturally good pupil makes it easier than taking a challenging pupil. Some great instructors have failed the test purely because their pupil did something that couldn’t be predicted. Many instructors that got a grade A just took a good pupil and rehearsed the whole lesson with them.
My driving instructor grade
Here is my latest standards check result sheet from 22nd September 2016.
I’m proud to have passed with a grade B because just getting through this new test is extremely hard.
Around 20% of standards checks result in a fail and many instructors are removed from the register each year because they just aren’t good enough..
As pointed out above, I have trained hundreds of instructors that have got grade A and the examiner that did my test below is no longer doing the job.
Make of that what you will.
