What is a DVSA Standards Check? Everything ADIs Need to Know

In brief: The DVSA Standards Check is a 60-minute assessment of your teaching ability conducted every four years. It is marked on lesson planning, risk management, and teaching strategies — not on driving technique. Scoring below 31/51 means losing your ADI badge. Most instructors who prepare properly score a Grade B (31–42) or better.

Why the Standards Check Exists

The Standards Check replaced the old ADI Check Test in 2014. The key philosophical shift was away from assessing whether an instructor could drive and demonstrate manoeuvres, toward assessing whether they could teach — specifically, whether they used a client-centred, coaching-based approach.

The DVSA's position is that good instructors do not just tell pupils what to do and correct their mistakes. They ask questions, involve pupils in setting the lesson agenda, help them self-evaluate, and gradually hand over responsibility for learning.

How the Check is Structured

A DVSA supervising examiner accompanies you on a 60-minute lesson with one of your actual pupils. The examiner sits in the back and observes — they do not participate in the lesson. You teach as you normally would; the examiner marks you using the Standards Check criteria.

After the lesson, the examiner gives you a debrief using the same coaching approach they expect you to use with your pupils.

The Marking Criteria

Marks are given across three categories with a total of 51 points:

1. Lesson Planning (12 points)

• Did you identify the pupil's starting point?
• Was the lesson goal agreed with the pupil?
• Was the lesson structure appropriate to their ability level?
• Did you adapt when conditions or ability changed?

2. Risk Management (24 points)

• Did you ensure the physical risk to the pupil and public was appropriate?
• Was the level of coaching control appropriate to the pupil's competence?
• Did you prompt, guide, or take control at appropriate moments?
• Did you avoid creating unnecessary risk through your instructions?

3. Teaching and Learning Strategies (15 points)

• Did you use a variety of teaching techniques?
• Did you use questioning effectively?
• Did you encourage the pupil to self-evaluate?
• Did feedback focus on improvement, not just correction?

Grade Boundaries

Common Reasons for Failing

Most failed Standards Checks fall into a small number of patterns:

• Instructor-led rather than pupil-led sessions. Examiners look for the pupil to set at least part of the agenda. Starting a lesson with "right, today we are doing roundabouts" without involving the pupil in that decision is a red flag.
• Insufficient questioning. Telling a pupil they are in the wrong gear is not coaching. Asking "what gear do you think you need here?" is.
• Risk management mismatch. Taking physical control too early (or not early enough) affects the risk management score. The examiner wants to see calibrated responses to actual risk levels.
• No self-evaluation from the pupil. Asking "how did that feel?" and "what would you do differently?" at key moments shows teaching and learning strategy.

How to Prepare

Record your lessons

A dashcam or phone mount pointed at the interior lets you review your teaching. Watch back and count: how many times did you ask questions versus make statements? How often did the pupil assess their own performance? The ratio is revealing.

Take a CPD course focused on coaching

Several ORDIT-registered trainers offer Standards Check preparation workshops. These are worth the investment before your first check, especially if you qualified under the old Part 3 marking scheme and have not updated your approach.

Choose your pupil carefully

A pupil at an intermediate stage — roughly halfway through their learning — gives the examiner the most scope to assess all three marking categories. Very new pupils mean you will spend most of the lesson managing high risk, which limits teaching strategy marks. Very advanced pupils may not need much coaching, which limits scores similarly.

Brief your pupil beforehand

Tell your pupil that an examiner will be in the back. Explain they are assessing your teaching, not the pupil's driving. A pupil who is nervous and not performing normally gives you an incomplete lesson to work with.

Example Coaching Questions That Score Well

One of the most practical preparation steps is building a bank of coaching questions you can use naturally during a lesson. These are the kinds of questions that demonstrate teaching and learning strategy to an examiner:

• "What do you want to focus on today?" — involves the pupil in lesson planning
• "Before we start, what do you remember from last time?" — activates prior learning
• "What were you thinking as you approached that junction?" — encourages self-reflection
• "What would you do differently next time?" — promotes self-evaluation over correction
• "How confident do you feel about that manoeuvre on a scale of one to ten?" — establishes a baseline and invites dialogue
• "What do you think went well there?" — builds self-awareness, not just error-awareness

The goal is not to ask questions constantly — that becomes mechanical and the examiner will see through it. The goal is to weave questioning into the lesson so that the pupil is genuinely thinking and reflecting, not just executing instructions.

What Happens After a Grade C

A Grade C is not just a failed check — it results in your ADI badge being revoked. You cannot legally charge for driving instruction once your badge expires. To return to practice, you must re-sit both the ADI Part 2 (driving ability) and Part 3 (instructional ability) tests from scratch. The waiting period and test availability mean this process typically takes several months.

There is a trainee licence provision that allows you to give paid instruction while awaiting a rescheduled Standards Check, but this applies only in limited circumstances and requires you to be supervised. Speak to a qualified ADI trainer immediately if you receive a Grade C.

After the Check

Whether you pass or fail, request the full marked sheet and treat it as a professional development document. A Grade B with specific low-scoring sub-areas tells you exactly where to focus your CPD over the next four years. A Grade A still contains useful information — the areas closest to the lower boundary of that grade are worth monitoring.

Instructors who treat the Standards Check as a periodic exam rather than a reflection of their daily practice tend to find each subsequent check harder. Those who coach consistently in the way the check assesses — pupil-led, questioning, with calibrated risk management — find the check itself straightforward, because they are simply doing what they do every day with an observer present.