Emma Cottington and Chris Bensted were two of the presenters on show at the recent Intelligent Instructor and ADINJC Expo, and they were kind enough to allow me to record them.

So on this episode, you'll hear those presentations and a quick chat with Richard Storrs taking a look at what's next for the Expo.

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The instructor podcast with Terry Cook, talking with leaders, innovators, experts and game changers.

About what drives them.

Welcome to the Instructor podcast.

This is a show where we help you become an even more awesome driving instructor.

And as always, I am your splendid host, Terry Cook, and I'm delighted to be here, but even more delighted that you have chosen to listen.

And we've got a cracking episode for you today because we've got two presentations from the recent intelligent instructor and Adi NJC Expo.

First up we've got Emma Cottington, who is talking about human relationships and mental health within driver training.

And then we've got Chris Spencer, who's giving his very unique take on the theory test.

And then last up, we've got a few minutes with Richard Stoss of Intel instructor, reflecting on this year's event and looking forward to next year's.

But I want to share a couple of quick thoughts just around this year's event because I felt like it was a sweet spot this year.

I felt like it was the perfect number of speakers, the perfect number of exhibitors.

I felt like the venue was spot on and I felt it was the right number of people for that venue.

So whilst they may be looking to evolve it going forwards, this really felt like the sweet spot for me.

And hopefully they'll continue getting that as they go forwards.

And as well, it was great to see so many people down there this year and hopefully we continue growing this event.

I think it's wonderful.

It's free.

We have to take time off, admittedly, and a lot of us have to travel, especially those from Scotland who have to do that long trip that I am not envious of.

But I think it's great that it's here and I think more people should take advantage of it.

And again, it was just so wonderful to see so many people down there looking to become better driving instructors.

And I do just want to take a moment to thank everyone that come up to say hello to me.

I just had some wonderful cuddles and some wonderful kind of messages and some heartfelt thank you.

So if you're listening and you said thank you, I appreciate that, genuinely.

And if you didn't say thank you, I appreciate you as well for listening story about that.

But I did just want to share my thoughts on the explore.

I'm a big fan.

There's always room to evolve, there's always room to improve and develop.

But I love that they're doing it, I really do.

But just before we kick on with this episode, I want to take a moment to point you in the direction of the instructor podcast website.

Now, over there you can find our entire back catalog of episodes, plus a load of other free stuff.

And you can find more details on the instructor podcast premium, which has literally hundreds of trainings to help you become an even more awesome driving instructor.

Plus, there's currently a free trial for a full week for that membership.

So if you don't like it, you can just leave without paying a penny.

Although I've got to be honest with you, it's unlikely you won't like it, but either way, you can find all that stuff@theinstructorpodcast.com.

or you can find links in the show notes.

But for now, let's get stuck into this episode.

Our first speaker is Emma Cottington, who's going to talk to us about human.

Relationships, mental health and driver training.

Morning, everyone.

So nice to see a full room.

Thank you.

When I was first approached to come and do this, I was like, oh, brilliant.

Yeah, what a great opportunity.

Let's go and do it.

And then very, very quickly, my other brain stepped in and went, whoa, what are we doing?

Like, we can't be doing stuff like that.

Like, what's going on?

Have we finally lost the plot?

But the reality is, my map of the world is very skewed.

I've got a lot of limiting beliefs and I've had to work really, really hard to overcome a lot of them over the years.

I'm aware of a lot of them, but the reality is it's caused a lot of cognitive distortions and they speak very, very loudly sometimes and take over.

And a lot of you now are probably going to be thinking, what is this woman talking about?

But hopefully by the end you will know.

So I've been to a lot of these, a lot of presentations and seen a lot of people speak.

And typically people will stand here and they will tell you about who they are, what they do and reel off all the things that they've achieved in their career.

Now, I've listed mine here, but my thoughts are that is not who I am.

I am not those things on that list.

They are the things I've done in my life, but they're not who I am.

So what I wanted to do was come at this with a different approach.

And I wanted to tell you that I am a book lover.

I'm a mum.

I'm a trainee counselor.

I'm a dog mum for my sins.

Sometimes I'm an adventurer.

I love climbing mountains.

I love swimming in open, cold water.

I'm a dreamer.

I'm a stress head, massively.

I'm a lifelong learner.

I'm a mental health trainee, and all of these things make me who I am, and they also bring a lot of pressures.

So I'm currently swimming in uni assignments, which I never thought I would hear myself say at nearly 40 years old.

Before that, life was a breeze, absolute breeze.

I was going around living the dream, wondering why everybody was complaining.

Life's easy.

I literally look at that person and go, who the hell is she?

Because I haven't got a clue who that person is anymore.

But the person who's here now is the complete, real me, the messy me, and the person who can stand here in front of you and hopefully show us how human relationships are, the building of everything that we do.

So nothing here is linear.

Nothing.

We have ups, we have downs, we have straight lines sometimes.

And we've got to recognize that the job that we do and how this fits in is that we are one human interacting with another humanity.

That's the top and bottom of our job.

And just when we're in our life and we can step in the car or wherever, your place of work is generally that you step in as the coach, the instructor, the trainer, whatever it might be, you're interacting with another person.

We're also countering our mental health rules.

Every single day, when I speak to people about mental health, a lot of people will say, well, mental health is mental ill health.

They automatically go to the negative that if you mention mental health, it's because something's wrong.

Well, actually, my mental health today, I score it every day out of ten.

So ten being fantastic, one being it's not so great.

I'm probably around about a seven.

And that's probably because the anxiety of standing here and speaking in front of you has knock me down a few pegs.

But my mental health is pretty good at the moment because I've had to work really hard on that.

But we might be getting in a car with somebody whose mental health might be on a four or a three that day, and we might not always get to know where that person is on that day, and we could be quite high.

We might be on a nine or a ten and feeling fantastic and trying to bring all our energy to the lesson and not getting much back.

And I think there's that recognition of, okay, where is this person and how are they going?

I would highly recommend that everybody keeps a mental health score each day it will go up and down and it's meant to.

We are meant to do that as humans.

We're not supposed to be high all the time or low all the time, but by scoring it each day, you will kind of get a bit of a track as to kind of, are you in a moment of actually being down for quite some time or high for quite some time as well?

We need to assess both.

So when I started to train as a counselor, I went from being a driving instructor, which I still am, I still teach each week, and we are client led in what we do.

And I walked into the counselling, into my uni environment, and the first thing that they said to me is, you are going to be a person centred counsellor.

I was like, oh, okay, this sounds familiar.

And everything that we went through was all about how I was going to be sitting one to one with another person and helping, helping that person figure out what was wrong, help that person figure out for themselves.

They was going to figure it out, not me, and they was going to figure out exactly what was going on for them.

And I was like, oh, okay, this sounds very much like what I do already.

And the three key components of what we do as a counselor is empathy, unconditional positive regard and congruence.

And when I actually sat and looked at these UPR and congruence I hadn't even heard of until I'd stepped into that room, and when I looked through it, I was like, okay, this is what we do.

This is what I do anyway.

This is my job.

So my job is to have empathy with the person who sits next to me in the fact that the struggle that they're having isn't the same struggle that I am having that day, but to help them figure out what's going on and to be in their shoes so that I can help them understand.

And then unconditional positive regard is having that non judgmental approach to the person who sat next to me.

So if that person's getting in my car today and they're feeling a little bit off, and I can see it through behavior or whatever, or attitude, sometimes what we may have is that if I can actually approach them with a non judgmental approach, actually they're going to correspond with me a lot better and we're actually going to have a more productive lesson.

And then congruence is me being genuine.

So at the time of that, they need support.

It's about me knowing what my limitations are in my support.

Now, I'll do that as a counselor, more so at the moment because I'm still a trainee, but it's knowing what my limits are as well when we're in the car and we're training other drivers, so letting them know when we're not understanding them, if there's another way that we can change that, and just having a really genuine and open approach of not trying to battle with them, but figuring out what's going on for them so that we can actually help them, so it's important that we can recognise the difference between our stuff and their stuff.

We get in the car with our stuff and some days you might be getting in the car with ten bags of stuff that's going on in the back of your mind, stuff that's happening at home, the shopping list.

The kids was arguing this morning.

I didn't feel great when I left the house this morning.

I'm recognising that if you're feeling that in the car, how do you separate yourself from those feelings as you get in ready to do your job?

But it's also that we need to recognise your learner at that point.

They're a 17 year old with a backstory.

So I talked about my map of the world at the beginning.

So my map of the world started the minute I was born.

And my map of the world is built by how I've been conditioned by my parents, how I'm the eldest of my family.

If I'd have been the youngest in my siblings, it would have been my map would have looked different.

If I'd have been the middle of three, my map would have looked different.

The friends that I've grown up with, the people that have come into my life, the people that have left my life, all change my map as I go along.

My education, what I've done throughout my life for jobs and careers, I've all changed what's going on in my map.

But our 17 year old, when they get in the car, sometimes older, as we know, they all come with their maps too.

And their map might be absolutely nothing like your map.

And this is what we're trying to navigate, is working out what their map looks like so that we can come into their story, if you like, rather than bringing them into ours.

So we're trying to work with them rather than against them.

Some of you may have seen this through training.

The cognitive triangle, again, massively comes from counselling and therapy.

And the belief here is that our thoughts and our feelings determine what our behaviour is and that's why sometimes we will get people who will behave differently on different days because their thoughts and their feelings aren't the same as they were when you seen them last week.

So they're good at work.

But we generally, as instructors, we tend to only see the behaviour, we see something outwardly from them without knowing what the thoughts and the feelings are behind them.

And this is where our coaching and our questions can come in to start tackling limiting beliefs.

So our map creates limiting beliefs.

So this will be things like, one of my key examples of a limiting belief was that I wasn't good enough unless I went to university, and that was.

That came from my dad.

So I've had that limiting belief since I was about 14 and I've lived up to 39 with that same belief.

I've had to really dig under the layers to get out of that because I wasn't good enough unless I had that university education, which ironically, I am now going getting, but it's not because of my dad.

What that does then is it creates these cognitive distortions.

So we then become part of these and they become part of who we are and we start to think that this is who we are.

So we've got a few on there.

There's more that kind of.

We could recognize in our learner drivers in this industry in particular, catastrophizing being one of them.

So.

Oh my God, that was awful.

Like, the whole lesson's ruined now and this is it.

I can't ever be a driver.

You know, I'm sure you've all kind of heard similar things like that.

Should statements is one of my favorites.

I call them should isms.

I should be better at this by now.

I should be able to do that.

I should be able to be a driver by now.

I used a should statement this morning.

I shouldn't be nervous coming into this scenario this morning.

I talk in front of people all the time, but it didn't change me putting that shud on myself this morning.

Mind reading is a good one for what we do as an industry, so you might typically get somebody who mind reads the I failed my test because the examiner didn't like my jumper.

So we've got all of this mind reading going on where they're trying to find an answer to the things that's going on for them and trying to make it to what's going on.

Overgeneralization is another good one for us.

Some overgeneralisation is one mistake's been made, but lots of ten.

There might be ten positives in the lesson.

But that one mistake that was made, I'm a terrible driver because I couldn't get out of that roundabout.

I can't do roundabouts, but they've done ten previously to that that we're fine, but it's just that one that's gone into their mind and this is what we're battling against.

This is what we're up against when we're in the car with people.

And this is why we need to be a human.

We need to sort of step out of driving instructor mode in a way sometimes and just have a conversation with these people of tell me a little bit more about why we've made that should statement.

Tell me a little bit more about why that one roundabout meant that we couldn't do roundabouts generally today and you'll be surprised at what kind of comes out.

And this is how we start to break down them.

Irrational thoughts, those limiting beliefs.

We're absolutely not going to get rid of them.

I'm 39 years in and still trying to battle mine.

But they do get better and do get easier.

Our job massively comes from rapport.

If you can build that rapport and using your questioning techniques.

So these are just coming from our skills.

So we've got our five essential coaching skills here and if we can use these, our rapport, our questioning techniques, listening, intuition and feedback, generally we can start to understand our human in the car, we can start to build relationships with them and we can start to understand what's going on for them.

So bridging the gap, we've got to remember sometimes, and I think we do tend to forget that this is a big deal for them.

This is a massive dealer learning to drive.

They've waited 17 years at least to do this.

We do it every day.

I think sometimes we can forget because we get in the car and if we've had a bit of a stressy morning with the kids or tends to be the dog in my house, then you're getting in the car with all of that baggage, with everything that's going on and we forget.

It's a big deal for them.

We're just going to work.

I try to remind myself every morning that this is a big deal for them every morning.

I'm a big deal to them.

I'm the person who's getting them to achieve this massive milestone in their life.

And that's a privilege.

We're really privileged to do that.

This is a balance, really, between our IQ and our EQ.

So the emotional intelligence part of what we're doing.

And Sir John Whitmore, in his coaching for performance, did a trial where he had participants who had been through a coaching scenario with two different people.

And what he wanted to know was for the people who had really got something out of and made some real changes in their life through this program, he wanted to know what were the top reasons that the coach that they had had made these changes and why they got so much out of their changes.

And the top ones were.

The other person treated me like an equal.

They listened to me and were interested in my opinion.

They gave me their full time and attention.

They challenged me.

They believed in me.

They believed that I could do it.

They were fun, enthusiastic and made me laugh.

I felt cared for, supported and safe, and they respected me.

Not once did any of these people say they was able to teach me a skill.

They was able to show me what to do.

They were able to tell me how to do these things.

Practically everything was based on how that person had been treated by the person who was helping them and coaching them.

It all came down to a human relationship.

It all came down to how they was treated.

Can be hard in driver training because typically our education system doesn't allow for emotional intelligence.

So if you're in a classroom full of 30 kids, that teacher can't be one on one and have that human contact with those kids.

It is very much chalk and talk.

So it can be difficult when they come to us because they're not used to coaching.

They're not used to us having been questioned or having these opinions.

So it can be tricky.

But again, going back to your essential coaching skills, you can get there.

And I think for me, this isn't about having coaching skills.

This isn't about us being good at being at our job.

This is just about us being a human.

If you can go in there and be a human and show that you're a human with some genuineness as well and some vulnerability in some cases of sort of saying, you know, it's like me stood in front of you today and saying to you, I feel really nervous doing this.

I'm here to be a human in front of you.

I'm not going to stand here and tell you to be a human without me putting my humanness into the room.

You know, it's a big thing.

And that's what we've got to kind of do with these kids.

We've got to show them that we're human as well, so that we're willing to listen and be open.

Comes from transpersonal coaching.

So it's a form of humanistic psychology.

And the basic strapline of this psychology is that if we can put purpose, meaning and direction to anything, we can overcome anything.

So for us, why are they learning to drive?

What's their purpose?

What will it mean to their lives?

What's the meaning to it?

And where will their driving licence take them?

What's the direction for them afterwards?

And if we can attach this to as many lessons as possible, we're overcoming a lot of stuff without even realizing it because we're making it about them and their lives.

We're making it human.

Briefly going to touch on this.

This is Maslow's hierarchy of needs.

Again, it comes from coaching and psychology.

And the basic belief is that none of us here are striving to not do our best.

We all are.

No matter what it is we're doing, whether it's just be getting off and cleaning the house, we want to do it to our best abilities because we're human.

That's what we do, that's what we're ingrained to do.

So if we've got this belief, this can happen, but it can only happen with the correct support and the correct environment.

So I'm striving to be my best stud in front of this room now and show you what I know, what my knowledge is and what my experience is and my education is to this point of knowing what this stuff is.

But I'm really, really aware of that.

I couldn't do that without the support in the right environment.

I've got support in this room.

I can see faces that are here just to support me.

They've heard all of this stuff from me several times, but they're here again to listen to it again because they're here to support me.

And you guys just been in this environment and being stood here and sat here and listening to what I'm doing is creating that lovely environment for me to do that as well.

So I am striving to be my best in this room.

You guys are making it easier by giving me support on the right environment to do it.

So thank you.

So in conclusion, this is just about human relationships.

It's about knowing your own mental health as well.

I can't kind of stress that enough.

I ended up having that mental health breakdown because I didn't track my mental health.

I wasn't aware that I'd been down for x amount of days before it was too late.

And then I was like, oh, right, okay, there's something really wrong here.

I physically can't get out of bed this morning, and I don't really know why.

Now, if I'd have been a little bit more knowledgeable, a bit more in tune with myself before that, I would have known a little bit more.

Now I'm very in tune with myself and I know exactly where I am.

These are the resources that I've used today.

So if anybody's interested in doing any further reading, this is where I get a lot of my stuff from, and this is where you will find me.

So if anybody has got any questions, then I'm happy to take some.

Other than that, that's where you'll find me in the future.

Thank you.

I'll ask you a question.

Yeah.

So how do we.

I know it seems a lot of what you were saying that you can support your students quite subtly, just with.

How you are as a person in the environment, creating the care.

Now, if you were to openly suggest kind of conversations around the students mental health and well being, is there a.

Way you would broach that in car?

It's really, really difficult because I suppose in a way that's easier in my car because I am a mental health first aider.

So my alarms are going to go off fairly quickly for you guys who haven't necessarily got a background in that.

We're also got to be really, really careful that we don't step into zones that we're not qualified for or related to as well.

Now, as a.

As a mental health first aider and as a Cheney counselor, I am the protocol.

I can be a protocol for this industry.

People can just contact me through these links, let me know what you're struggling with, with your student.

You don't need to necessarily.

No, not that way.

But you can come to me and sort of say, you know, I've got this going on.

What I can do then is help you with any signposting that I think would be relevant to that person.

We've got to be careful because we're nothing.

We're not.

You guys aren't trained to do that, but you can, if you are picking up on things, that's with your learner driver.

You can have subtle conversations of, look, I know, I've noticed for the last four, six weeks or whatever that you've not been quite yourself.

Just want to let you know that, you know I am here.

If you need to discuss anything, if it's affecting your driving lessons in any way and we need to change anything, then by all means you can approach me and I can, you know, I can do my best to.

To support you.

You can only really be like an open book for them.

We can't necessarily.

Even me as a mental health first aider, I can't tell them what to do, I can't tell them where to go, but I can signpost and say I think it might be worth you speaking to x organization or whoever so we can sort of help and support them then.

But it's about sort of seeing how they are because you might just.

They might literally just be having an off week.

It's more about if it's going on and you're feeling it's more of a prolonged situation.

We've also got to be careful with safeguarding as well because obviously if they're under 18, we've also got the parental link in there as well.

Now, I'm not a safeguarding person.

I've not done too much with safeguarding.

I know Neil Whiteman does.

If anybody needs anything for safeguarding, all, as I would recommend from a safeguarding point of view, it's something I do, is that if I've got somebody who I feel is having issues, I start to document it and date it and time it in it just to keep a book at home and just kind of keep basic notes on that person without too many personal details, just so I can kind of keep an eye if I do have something that I've got worries and concerns about.

Yeah.

Roughly seven out of ten of every young person I teach in the Koran home.

By young person I mean anyone come 17, probably mid twenties, is suffering from neurodiversity and autism and it's extreme and I get the impression it's being caused through the lack of friendship and fellowship with their peers post Covid, whilst the COVID lockdown happening and it seems to be afflicting more and more young people.

Now, I'm not qualified as a psychologist to deal with this and yet I'm the person who's in the car alone with them for the first time in their lives as well someone else.

Shouldn't we all be trained to deal with this or is it just me that's experiencing this?

I think there should be a level of awareness from all of us.

I think it should be part of.

I mean, I think, without going off on a tangent, I think there's a lot that could be included in our training that isn't and this one of them, you know, the human relationship side of things isn't included.

My question is, is this for the DBSA to sort out or is this something that we should do as continuing professional development?

For me, it would be that.

I'm being honest about this.

Yeah.

I'm the father of a 19 year old who is also extremely autistic, but it's not just limited to her.

Yeah.

It's covering so many people again.

Yeah, it is.

It is something that I think as an industry is becoming more aware and for all of the reasons that you've just said, you know, Covid played a massive part in all of that and we aren't qualified to deal with those things.

Yeah.

What I would for me, and I thank you for being a human in the room because it takes a lot of vulnerability to do that and speak up.

So, well done for that.

And I think there's a lot of people that's probably thinking the same thing in this room and it's just this gentleman that's actually voiced it.

You know, we are up against a big challenge with human relationships, I think.

And this is why this is really so powerful for me and so involved.

I think if this was me in your shoes, I don't have that weight in this at the moment in my car, but I do see it in my school as a whole.

And that for me, this would be to go firstly and get support for yourself.

You know, look after you, for you to be feeling the way you are, it would to be go and get some support for yourself.

Go and speak to a mental health first aid or I'm happy to speak to you later on if you like, and sign post and get some support.

Yeah, 100%.

I agree with that.

I think there should be more training.

I mean, there is training in the industry.

It's personally not something I've delved into going as far as neurodivergent.

I know we've got confident drivers here this weekend, and Julia Malkin, both of those are very knowledgeable with this stuff.

So maybe they are two people that you could maybe kind of grab and see if there's any support that you could get for training for you in your car and seeing where they go.

But they're brilliant people that I would sign, post to for more knowledge on that stuff that, yeah, could go with.

Yeah, I agree with that.

But sometimes, you know, just teaching, teaching them to drive is the second part, actually.

The first part is to make, you know, make them feel good and listen to them.

I mean, you know, I'm a great a as well.

Sometimes I feel like I'm.

I can't deal with that.

And yes, they got problem like you know, dealing with the emotional.

But we have problems as well.

As you mentioned that when you leave home, you got problems with your kids and other people, other things.

And when you score yourself, I like that actually.

You know, you score yourself like three.

So what do you do?

What's the physical things that you can do to give yourself higher rate or do you still need to teach people?

I think sometimes you've got to.

Sometimes it's good for us to actually sit in it and understand why we feel in that way.

You know, we don't want to kind of brush it off and go, right, I'm going to do this to make myself feel better today.

If you, then it becomes sort of a more.

So you're three now for five days, consecutive rather than.

It was just that one isolated day because something's gone wrong in the morning and it just made you feel a bit rubbish if it gets to five.

I think at this point it's very much about finding you and what works for you.

I have tried every holistic therapy I could think of and, well, everything.

I've been for, professional counselling and things like that.

I've been through all of this and I think it's about finding what works for you.

And then once you've found that, you're able to implement it either into your daily work.

So I literally wake up every day and I meditate and I use breath work, but that's because it what works for me.

But I know that wouldn't work for everybody.

So I think it's about one tracking it.

Initially, I'd maybe suggest tracking yourself for a month and see where you are.

Is it a normal fluctuation should be, or is there more on the lower end or the higher end than should be?

And then start to sort of figure out why that's happening.

And then from there, what am I going to do that I can support myself to feel better?

Lovely.

Thanks so much.

Thank you.

Thank you.

An excellent presentation there from Emma Cottington, I'm sure you'll agree.

And next up, we've got Chris Spencer giving his unique take on the theory test, followed by a few minutes with Richard Starr sharing his thoughts on the event and its plans for next year.

But I do want to take a moment to point you in the direction of the Instructor podcast premium.

It's a monthly membership that can help you become an even more awesome driving instructor.

Over there we take a look at the stuff we do in car, improving our business and looking after our health.

So if you want to upgrade your personal and professional development.

The instructor podcast premium has a one week free trial to get you started.

Find out more@theinstructorpodcast.com orlando, use the link in the show notes, but for now, let's get stuck back into the show.

Seminar room two.

I'd like to introduce to you Chris Benstead, talking about theory test.

Hello, everybody.

Thank you for coming along, everyone.

Have a good day?

Cool.

Yeah, I took two and a half hours to do the left hand side, so this afternoon I'm going to do the other side and see how things go.

So I was asked to talk about theory, and initially I had this lovely idea about road signs, and it sounded really interesting and I started putting together and it was boring as anything.

So I changed things up a bit and decided to really focus on the reason that I think theory is important.

And not everybody can read the highway code.

Not everyone can just digest it in that way.

We all work differently, and we know that in the cardinal.

And then you suddenly speak to driving instructors about theory, and it's as if everyone's the same.

So today is based on the fact that everybody's different.

So for anyone who doesn't know me or what I do, I specialize in theory training.

I've done 16 years as a driving instructor.

Covid came along and I started to specialise in theory.

And I spend my whole day on Zoom now and say I work with lots of different people doing lots of different things.

So different people see things differently.

There's a model, and it is a model because actually, modern day science has proven it's a load of rubbish as an actual way that we work, which is the left and right sides of the brain.

So you've got the accountant on the right side.

I just had to check that one.

Accountant on the right side and the artist on the left.

So the accountant is responsible for or the way that it works.

The accountant side of the brain is the logical, sequential approaches.

Really good on your first lessons, learning those step by steps, it's the mathematicians.

The artist is the much more intuitive, the visual, woolly stuff, my other half tends to call it.

So all of those sides of things, where would creativity sit?

Who would say right hand side?

Who would say left hand side?

Cool.

Both lovely.

They would agree with you.

Einstein, Turing and Newton, in case you haven't recognized them.

You know, dealing with maths is creative.

So just because we say that someone is leaning to one side or the other of a model like that doesn't mean that things don't fit and that they want to have the highway code, the dry black and white stuff.

So this is when it gets interactive for everybody who hates the interactive, Terry, so it's just for you.

But you do get to close your eyes, which I know you like.

So if anyone here is snoring at the end of this, just give the person next to you a nudge.

Okay.

You do not have to do this.

It's way better if you do and everyone else in the room is going to do it.

So if you don't, you'll be the only one that's not.

So what I would like you to do is close your eyes and get your left hand and think about something from the past, from a month ago, maybe a week ago.

If you can't manage a month, think of something from the past and put your hand where that memory sits.

Might be behind you, might be to the side of you.

Try and visualize that memory and when you think about it, put that hand there.

So we should have everybody in the room with one hand up next to the side of their head, and then you're going to get your other hand.

We call that the right hand.

And you're going to think of something in the future, something that's happening next week, next month, it might be the holiday that you're hoping to have next year.

And then put that right hand where that memory is and keep those hands there.

And now open your eyes and have a look at everybody else in their hands.

So keep them all there for a second.

And anyone who now rapidly, quickly puts their hands up because they weren't doing it a second ago.

Right, so just think about where those are.

You can now put your arms down.

That's all good, but bear that in mind.

So some of you were front to back or back to front.

I find that really odd, but it does happen sometimes.

So, back to front, sorry, of the past behind you and the future in front of you.

Or left to right or right to left.

And then might even be some that were up and down.

They've actually done studies on this, particularly people who speak Mandarin Chinese.

You read Mandarin top to bottom, their lines tend to go from top to bottom.

So there we go.

I did put it on there.

So these are something called a mental timeline, right?

This is proper science, so feel free to check it out.

Google it if you're looking for mtls, that will help you find the good stuff.

So, mental timelines, what's it got to do with theory and driving and stuff?

So, something that I became aware of when I was in the car, which is where I discovered some of these things, is that people who've got a back to front mental timeline, so past to the future, going forwards, were much better at dealing with one step at a time.

So my preferred structure of look, tell, do rather than mirror civil maneuver.

But you can use either dealing with the look, then dealing with the tell, then dealing with ado and layering up in that fashion.

Whereas the people that were from left to right or right to left, they could see the overview much more easily and could work through that as a way of learning.

So it's something you can do with your pupils to see which way they work and see where those things are, particularly if you're struggling and you're kind of hitting a bit of a brick wall.

And the point of this is, some of us, we might think.

We kind of think the same way, but if our brains are mapping things really differently, then surely we're going to be dealing with things in a different way.

And therefore it might be.

You can see a pattern because we're all quite good at that as part of the job, spotting patterns.

Because it worked for the last pupil, it might work for this one.

Where we go wrong is where it worked for all the pupils because it's the only thing I do.

So we want to look at different ways of doing things.

So looking at other variations of how we see things differently, what do you see first here?

You might have seen this one before.

Do you see the young lady or the old lady who sees the young lady?

Who sees the old lady, who doesn't see either and can't figure out what we're talking about?

I have one, I did this with my driving instructors the other week and, yeah, he's still staring at the picture, but you can probably then see both.

A lot of people will adapt to doing so.

I'll stick it on my facebook later.

So if anyone wants to see it, they can sit and stare.

Now, the next one, if you've seen it before, if you can just keep it to yourself.

Who can see the arrow?

Who can't see the arrow?

Okay, I'm going to help.

Can you see the arrow now?

We're good.

Okay, good.

So it's a deliberate part of the design.

It's actually not there.

You know, it's part of the picture that's not there.

It's part of the message that FedEx is sharing about going forward.

It's someone who's been paid way too much money for design.

We're all in the wrong job.

That got them a fortune.

You won't be able to unsee it.

Next time you see that FedEx lorry, that's what you're going to be seeing.

It's the arrow company and some of these things.

You won't see it until you see it.

And we've all had those conversations with pupils where you're talking about something and they're looking at you as if you're absolutely mad because they don't see the same.

Same thing.

It's just a reminder that it can happen to us as well.

And then negative space is something I've got really interested in looking into things like tattoos, they use negative space.

Various different art techniques use negative space, where it's what they don't do.

And I love that concept because I'm really lazy.

It means not doing work, but actually getting something at the end of it.

And I like that idea.

So it's something I'm looking into more and more of ways to kind of, you know, to fill in the gaps rather than necessarily paint the picture.

I'm just going to go with, what can you see to start with?

Have a look and see what's there, because I thought this was really obvious or you didn't see it.

There were people seeing faces, people hearing voices.

I don't think that was to do with the picture.

But, you know, who can see the dog drinking water or sipping the floor?

Yeah.

Who, again, really doesn't, because it's not there.

The people that can see it have got more of an issue.

Yeah, that's my rough drawing.

Not one, not even a titter at my rough drawing.

So have a look at that.

Gotta go back again.

And you possibly still can't see it.

Yeah, it's filling in the gaps now.

Why is this important?

I was talking to Les about this because I do a bit of magic.

I'm not doing a trick now, but if you catch me later.

So I've got a trick with three cards, which I'm gonna film and stick out there for driving instructors, because it's a really nice way of demonstrating it.

When the pupil sees a bus and you see behind the bus, you see what you can't see, and they're seeing that bus that's there.

That's all that they see.

So they go, it's safe for me to go because I can't see anything dangerous.

And you're going, it's not safe for you to go because you can't see that difference.

It's about negative space and whether we can process and we can see that or nothing.

Okay, so that is a really interesting thing.

Say it's a three card trick that anyone can do, and the awesome thing is you show people how it's done, and then you do it again and they can't see it again because our brains like to make life easy, like to make things simple.

So I'm going to skip that screen because I changed my plan there.

My mum changed the plan there because she came up with this and it was better.

So I'm just going to go for a little bit of a tour, and I'll bring you in as I go.

So what have I got in my hand?

Apple juice.

Apple juice.

Ridiculous, right?

Don't.

Don't.

You know, just.

What have I got in my hand?

Carton.

Carton.

What have I got in my hand?

Carton of apple.

Carton.

Carton.

Yeah.

Nice bit of Sainsbury's.

Yeah.

Ridiculous, right?

Are they right?

You can all turn around, look this way.

It's fine.

Heads move, right.

Blind spot checks, everybody.

So, all right, it's not a carton of apple juice.

No, we're happy on that front.

Okay.

All right, go on.

I'm just interested what the answer's gonna be.

Empty carton about.

I won't suck it.

So if I come to here, if you can all turn around, you can then see it wasn't a carton of apple juice.

It's Donald Duck.

How no one got Donald Duck, I don't know.

But when you first saw it, what you saw was, understandably what you thought it was.

You now know when you're looking at this that it's actually Donald Duck.

It's the same thing as driving instructors and the driving instructor mindset.

Sorry, just to clarify the books, just because I'm product placement thing, it's nothing to do with anything else available on Amazon, while I remember to mention it.

So the thing about being a driving instructor is we see things through driving instructor eyes and we think it's really easy.

And we see pdis asking questions on Facebook, and we go, what are you, stupid?

No, they just haven't done it before and we have and they haven't seen it, or they haven't seen it the same way and it's the same with your pupils.

And to take that to an extreme, we've then got people with different neurodiversities.

I sit in at least the dyslexia category, just making contact with Fiona, who outs me as neurodiverse every chance she gets.

When my brain is firing like fireworks and I'm talking about a hundred different things.

So I've never been tested.

I got to 42, got tested as dyslexic, so it all made sense.

It didn't change how I saw things, but it changed how I saw me.

And that's something else that we work with, with people in the car or out of the cardinal.

But you came here because you wanted to hear some theory stuff.

So we'll move on to the theory stuff now.

But this is about.

It's not obvious, because so often we see what we see as theory and it should just be.

You just read the highway code and it makes sense.

No.

Why?

Why should it?

So who knows what that sign, based on everything I've just said, what is that sign?

Evil Knievel.

There we go.

Lovely.

Right, because it is, isn't it, that one?

Most of us can go, yeah, all right.

It is a bike jumping over a car.

So what about this one?

Oh, spoiler alert.

So this one here.

So one of my pupils, why am I showing her a picture of wiggly pencil drawing a line?

And you might not have seen it that way.

She did, straight away.

Now all I can see is the wiggly pencil and it annoys me.

It's not one of the answers on the theory test.

Interestingly, that pupil I had a real nightmare with, because it just wasn't clicking and I couldn't figure out what I was missing, because it's not her, it's me.

And exactly as Emma said this morning, which really resonated with me, we should be going into their world, it shouldn't be about them coming into ours.

That's my approach to it.

When they don't get it, it's because I haven't translated it right for their world.

So what I discovered was I was talking about the red circular signs, she was seeing the white circular signs and trying to figure out what I meant when I was talking about the red circular signs.

And if you then think about the blue ones, she's right.

So I was talking about.

She was just seeing a border so you could see it, because you wouldn't see the white ones otherwise.

So without understanding how she saw it, it's not going to make sense.

And the theory test is reading, written, heavily reading, written based, it's not about the pictures, so that everybody is creating their own pictures from a theory perspective and we, as an industry, not aimed at anyone specifically, we're crap at it.

So we need to change the way that we deal with theory in some way.

And everybody can address that just by one thing of starting to define words inside the car so that those words mean something more.

Provide pictures to back those up, if you can.

So I had another pupil, different pupil, who came to me after her theory test, and she said there was this really scary sign about big spikes sticking up from the.

From the bottom and there were boulders falling down on top of it.

Does anyone want to jump in now and see if they can tell me what that sign is?

So she then said about the fact it looked a bit like a cookie.

And when you look at the picture that she was given for her theory test, that's not a stop sign, that's a stop sign.

I don't know what that is.

I think we can afford for someone to go and take a photo and provide it.

The test doesn't help us.

None of it is designed to make life easy for us.

And then another pupil.

I'll let you analyze his diagnoses yourselves.

But he was fun to work with.

Which type of vehicle should you be ready to give way to as you approach the bridge?

Hands up for a, hands up for b.

Sorry, I'll read them out.

So, hands up for bicycles.

Hands up for buses.

Hands up for motorcycles.

Hands up for cars.

Why did you not all have your hands up for all of them?

Surely we should be ready for all of those coming together.

You know, it's one of those questions.

So he was really struggling with it.

So I said to him, right, let's look at the picture.

Forget the question.

What can you see?

First answer, straight.

No problem answering it.

He said, there's a roundabout.

I've been looking at this blooming picture day in, day out for years now.

I am a trained observer.

I have not seen that roundabout at all.

I saw it straight away.

It's that looking further ahead.

See, I'm a theory trainer for a reason.

I'm not good at that.

It's.

Yeah.

So awareness and planning is not my thing.

So that's why this presentation went in late.

So there's a roundabout there.

So I gently kind of said, maybe that's not the point.

Let's look at it in relation to the question.

And we went through it.

What else can you see?

He said, the island in the middle of the road.

I said, well, if it wasn't.

If it wasn't something, you know, static around that area, what else might there be?

So he said, the cars that might then come up the road, he then went through the train.

A lot of people hadn't even seen the train.

We then ended up on the railings, because they look quite dangerous and they might fall in front of the road.

Then we ended up on the dustbin and then eventually.

And the signpost, but I've covered it up.

That was silly.

But anyway, the signpost that was there.

And then we ended up on the fact that there was a tunnel.

And just to explain it, because I went through this the other day and there was a big question about it, the reasoning is that.

Let me go back to there.

Oh, because it's an arched bridge.

The thing that is important, the thing that's going to be different is going to be the lorry in the middle.

All of those things could be coming through.

Thank you.

So all of those things could be coming through, but it's the lorry in the middle that's the really important thing.

It's not obvious, it's not the best question, but I've got some good news.

So I now have the opportunity to talk, hopefully on a regular basis.

I'm saying it's regular until he said otherwise, with the head of the team, Greg Wallace, who's not the bloke off of MasterChef, but you now remember his name, and all DVSA email addresses work the same.

So he's in charge of the test questions.

Now, I've got some really bad news.

The revision questions, the apps that you all get your pupils to look at and go through the revision questions written by the revision department, the test engine questions written by the test engine department.

They're in different departments, they're in different directorates and they don't talk to each other.

So I went in with a list of questions, topping up batteries, what level should you top up a battery for?

Don't worry about it.

It's not the test.

Not saying, necessarily, don't address batteries in the car as part of your syllabus, but don't worry about it for the theory test.

And who's topped up a battery anyway?

For a long, long time?

Etching your number plate on the window of the car.

He looked at me like I was mad.

Why would that be in the theory test?

I'm like, it's in the revision questions, but there's no communication.

Now I'm encouraging some communication.

He's gone away because he recognized he's new to the job as well.

So hopefully, he's keen, so hopefully there'll be some changes.

But what happened was the rote learning was happening with the revision questions, that the questions that you learnt on the apps or in the books were on the test.

So they separated them.

We end up with two different sets of questions and over time, they're getting further and further and further apart.

So the more time that goes by, the more that your pupils are going to need specific theory training and support.

The good news is that that is from the.

From driving essential skills, highway code and know your traffic signs.

It's from those books.

So that's where the content is.

If it's not from those books, it won't be on the test.

Now, it does mean when there's changes to those books, we need to keep on top of it.

The advanced detection adas stuff is going to be coming into the book soon.

That's all I'm allowed to say.

Yeah.

They won't shout about the fact it might be added, but look for it, you know, be ready for it.

So if you're not talking about the adaptive cruise controls and the lane assists, then you should, because it just suddenly pop up.

And if that's that question that stops them getting the success, then, you know, they've got a lot more work to do.

Just got to go through my crosses again.

There we go.

So, say what I do is with the theory is not just go through questions, and that's what I keep trying to say to people.

It's.

I actually start by not going through questions.

I start by going, how do we deal with the questions?

How do we understand what they're looking for?

Two things to take away.

One safest answer doesn't work.

It was always the go to.

It was the advice I was giving.

The safest answer isn't always the right one.

So there could be really safe answers that are wrong.

You won't see it as much in the revision questions, but you will in the test questions.

And the 50 50 approach of get rid of the rubbish answers more and more.

The way that they're trying to teach, that is.

Sorry.

The way they're trying to write the questions is they're all good answers and then you've got to figure out which one's the right one.

So those approaches, if you're passing those onto your pupils, they can work.

They can work on the revision, they work a lot less on the actual test.

So that brings me, essentially, to the end of things.

I'll leave that there in case anyone wants to get my detail.

If you've got questions, do shout.

So, yeah, I'm happy to answer them.

Has anyone got any questions?

Now, it's already happened, so historically.

Yeah, that's a really good question.

03:00 yeah.

Cool.

So, 245.

Sorry.

245.

Yeah.

You won't have missed anything.

So I don't need my badge anymore.

I'm doing theory.

So it's the.

Historically, the questions were the same.

They were the same questions on the theory test as they were on the test.

So when I did my theory, you just learned all the questions and answers, and you went along and you just answered them.

Did it make you any safer?

No.

Did I understand it?

No.

And two weeks later, could I have passed it again?

No.

So they changed it to the position where the people that could figure it out enough pass, and the people that struggled with that for no reason, you know, no fault of their own, struggled and failed.

And you get the situation where people get the same score over and over, however hard they work, because their struggle is not knowledge, it's understanding, comprehension, or they're learning 75% of the wrong information because that's how multiple choice works.

So they separated that out.

That was the solution.

Let's have different questions on the test, which worked well at the beginning because they were in parallel with each other, but then they.

The longer the time goes past, we change questions, and they can easily change questions on the publications team.

But why would they?

Because no one's getting those wrong.

There's no real feedback on those.

And if they're getting them wrong, actually in revision, you want the ones people are getting wrong, because then you're hitting the right buttons.

In the actual test, they can't put questions in there until they're in the publications.

So they could have some really good questions prepared, and they could be waiting for the day they hit print on the new version of driving essential skills or highway code or know your traffic signs.

So the division was a good one.

But as too often is the case, it's not the DVSA that's the problem.

We haven't adapted.

Now, I think there could be massive improvements to the revision questions, and there's questions we could get rid of, and how easy would it be to just get rid of them?

But actually, what we need to address, really, with a bit that's in our control, because, you know, by all means, ask for change from the DVSA.

I've been doing it for 16 years.

The change can come from us and our attitude towards theory and the way that we approach it.

Just making sure they understand what's going on.

Don't make those assumptions.

Remember that they haven't done it before, and just because every one of your pupils in the past has done it successfully without you.

It doesn't mean they found it easy, it doesn't mean that they found it simple.

It just means they managed to get there in the end.

And if you like that approach, then just chuck them the car keys, let them get on with it.

It's odd how people won't do it with practical, but with theory, it's, well, you know, just go and work harder.

Just go and use the apps.

And then the other thing I didn't mention really important, don't do mock tests.

Ban them from doing mock tests.

Use a good app.

I use theory test pro because as a trainer, I can see what they're doing and how they're getting on.

And a lot of my pupils, like, especially the neurodiverse pupils, they like the James may app.

So that has got a bit of a different spin to it.

They seem to appeal there.

But whichever app it is, make sure that you're telling them, don't do mock tests, because the best way to explain it, if you put all the questions in a bucket and you pull out the question and they answer it and you put it back in the bucket, there's going to be some questions they see all the time and some questions they never see, especially when you.

Then in mock tests, you have, for example, the road and traffic science question has eight questions on the actual test from that category.

So that cookie cutter is going to leave lots of waste around the outside that they're never going to see.

Whereas if you get them to do it topic by topic or all topics, then at least they're going to have seen everything once.

And if you use something where, say, theory says pro monitors what they're getting right and wrong and it asks them over and over again what they're getting wrong, then hopefully they'll have got it right at least one, at least once, nearly got all the way through without coughing.

So, yeah, so those things, we can change how we work to try and adapt to the fact that revision and theory aren't matching, and hopefully we've spoken about it, the DBSA will change things.

I have one slide left.

Sorry, you got a question?

Go for it.

I was just going to say, when's.

Your app coming out?

It's being spoken about.

I've learned a lot about what doesn't work, but at the moment I consult with theory test pro quite regularly.

I worked with James May on that app, but that's now been brought by red, so I don't know what's happening there and I'm available to talk to anyone who does theory.

So, yeah, one slide that's left big debates as to whether I put it up or not.

So if anyone's likely to be offended, please don't.

If there were pupils in the room, it wouldn't go up.

But anyway, I think it made a point.

Thank you very much.

Okay.

Thank you, Chris, for that.

Sorry.

How are we doing, Richard?

I'm pretty tired, actually.

It's the end of the day.

I've been rushed off my feet, but it's been all good.

Good.

Well, I'm not surprised because it has been hectic today.

I'm just keen to get your sort.

Of thoughts today at the end of the day because.

Well, I'll share mine later, but how's it gone today?

Well, I think for me it's.

How's it gone for the instructors and the exhibitors and our sponsors.

So, having spoken to quite a few of them this afternoon, a lot of them are really happy.

In fact, all the people I've spoken to have exhibited have said how wonderfully busy they've been today.

And a lot of the Delhi's I've spoken to said what great content they've listened to today from our many varied speakers in our three different seminar areas today.

Well, I can back up because I've come down in more of a driving issue and I've embraced some of this CPD.

So I can back a little bit.

You know, I like to ask this question, have we broken records?

You think?

I know.

You don't know.

Officially that'll be broken records.

I just checked my.

So that's a 35 40% increase.

So, yeah, thrilled with the numbers.

Awesome.

No, I love that.

That's great.

And next year we got.

We got two.

Next year we've got two.

Next year we've got the driving instructor convention, which has the Ghana dinner the night before, where we handed out the intelligent instructor awards.

That's the 22nd, 23 March that's been held in Milton Keynes, and then we've got the national conference and that's going to be held in a new location, a bigger location, because I think we might have outgrown this venue.

And that's at Cranmore park in Sommiholm.

In September.

Smashing.

Well, as always, thank you for sharing me a few minutes.

Thank you.

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