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Go to Students in the sidebar and click "Add student". Fill in their name, phone number, and test date. You can add more details like their address and target hours later from their profile page.

Go to Settings → Availability. Toggle on the days you teach and set your start and end times for each day. Once saved, students can only book slots within those hours.

Every school gets a unique booking link like driveinstruct.co.uk/book/your-school-name. Share this link with students via WhatsApp or your website. They pick a date, choose an available time slot, enter their details, and confirm. You get notified and the lesson appears on your calendar.

Yes. Open DriveInstruct in your phone's browser, then add it to your home screen (on iPhone: Share → Add to Home Screen. On Android: Chrome will prompt you automatically). It works like a native app.

Go to Calendar and click on any empty time slot, or click the "Book lesson" button. Select the student, date, time, and duration. The lesson will appear on your calendar immediately.

Yes — on the calendar you can drag and drop any lesson to a new time slot. You can also click on a lesson and use the reschedule option. The student receives an automatic SMS notification.

You'll be prompted to log the skills you covered in the lesson. These are saved to the student's profile and update their skills matrix. The lesson is removed from your upcoming calendar and added to their lesson history.

Cancel is used when a lesson is called off in advance — either by you or the student. No-show is for when the student simply doesn't turn up. No-shows can trigger an automatic payment reminder if a deposit was outstanding.

Go to Settings → Payments and click "Connect Stripe". You'll be taken to Stripe's website to create or connect your account. This takes about 2 minutes. Once connected, you can take deposits at booking and sell lesson packages online.

Go to Payments and create package templates (e.g. "10 hours for £350"). You can then send a payment link to any student — they click it, pay via Stripe, and the hours are credited to their account. Hours are automatically deducted each time you mark a lesson complete.

DriveInstruct takes 2% of each payment processed through the platform. Stripe also charges their standard fee (1.4% + 20p for UK cards). So on a £350 package, you'd receive approximately £337.

Yes. Go to Settings and enable "Require deposit at booking". Set the deposit amount. When a student books online, they'll be taken to a Stripe payment page before their booking is confirmed. Deposits are automatically recorded in the system.

When a lesson is booked, DriveInstruct automatically schedules two SMS reminders to the student — one 48 hours before and one 2 hours before. These send automatically without you doing anything. You can customise the message templates in Settings → Reminder templates.

Yes. Go to Reminders and click "Send manual message". Select the student, choose SMS or email, type your message, and send. The message is logged in the reminders history.

Check the Reminders page — any failed reminders will show with a red "Failed" badge and an error message. The most common cause is the student's phone number being in the wrong format. UK numbers should start with 07 or +44.

After marking a lesson complete, you're prompted to log which DVSA skills you covered. Each skill can be marked as Introduced, Developing, or Independent. Over time this builds a complete picture of each student's progress against the full DVSA syllabus.

Yes. From a student's profile, go to the Portal tab and generate a progress link. Share this with the student — they can view their hours, skills, upcoming lessons, and lesson history without needing to log in.

On a completed lesson (either from the calendar or the student's lesson history), you'll see a "Download lesson report" option. This generates a PDF with the lesson details, skills logged, and cumulative progress stats.

Yes. When adding or editing a student, scroll down to the Parent / Guardian section. You can store a guardian name, phone number, and email address. This is particularly useful for learners under 18 whose parents pay or need to be kept informed.

Open the student's profile and click Edit. In the Test Details section you'll find a Theory Test sub-section where you can record the test date, whether they passed, and their Multiple Choice and Hazard Perception scores. The scores show pass/fail automatically (43/50 for multiple choice, 44/75 for hazard perception).

Yes — there are two types of notes. Private notes are only visible to you. Shared notes appear in the student's progress portal. You can write shared notes when completing a lesson (in the Log Skills modal), or edit them later by clicking "Edit notes" on any completed lesson in the calendar.

Students can book up to 6 weeks ahead. The booking calendar shows one week at a time with Prev/Next week buttons to navigate forward.

Go to Settings → School. Scroll down to the Booking Settings section (visible to school owners). You can set the minimum notice required before a booking (e.g. 4 hours), the default lesson duration, and whether a deposit is required — and how much.

Yes. Students who provide an email address when booking receive a confirmation email with a "Manage booking" link. Clicking it shows them the lesson details with options to cancel or reschedule, subject to your cancellation policy.

Go to Refer & Earn in the sidebar to find your unique referral link. Share it with other driving instructors. When they sign up using your link and subscribe to a paid plan, you both get a free month — your next billing cycle is free, and their subscription is extended by 30 days automatically.

There's no limit. Every instructor you refer who subscribes earns you one free month. Credits are applied to your billing cycle automatically — you'll see them on the Billing page.

Go to Billing in the sidebar. If you have queued credits, a green banner shows how many free months you have. The credits are also listed in the current plan details alongside your next billing date.

The free trial lasts 2 months from when you sign up. You have full access to all features during the trial. A card is required at signup but you will not be charged until your trial ends.

You'll be shown a page to choose a subscription plan. Your data is never deleted — once you subscribe, everything is exactly as you left it.

Go to Billing in the dashboard and click "Manage subscription". This opens the Stripe billing portal where you can cancel, change your plan, or update your payment method. If you cancel, you keep access until the end of your current billing period.

Yes — the School plan (£79/month) supports up to 10 instructors. Go to the Instructors section and click "Invite instructor". They'll receive an email to set their password and join your school.