Write up on today’s ORDIT test. 

PRE ORDIT SESSIONS

Borrowed a PDI and did first session last week with her, covering interventions and it all went fairly well, utilising the approach i outline in the tutor guidance document. Starting by building the skills 

ZERO ROLEPLAY, just provided her with opportunities to experience things from the passenger seat braking gently at first and building up to full blown emergency stop, interventions by hand and then by mouth. She felt much more confident and relaxed by the end of the session. I then helped her to  reflect on what she had discovered. 

She wasn’t particularly good at writing reflective logs (well she noted what had happened, but hadn’t focused on what she had learned or what skills had been developed. she also didn’t really have any ideas about what she wanted to gain from the current or following sessions. We discussed how the reflection during the session helped her to see what she had learned and how that might influence what we did, and I made the link to reflection at home and what that might bring to the game.

We did  session two yesterday and she had done a pretty full reflection, so I made sure that I took the time to really look at it.

She decided yesterday she wanted to work on giving route directions as she felt that she got tongue tied when she tried it with learners she has helped for free. We discussed the need for clarity and the power of the words used i.e. go straight over the roundabout and turn left here right. She saw that it was important to be clear, I helped her shorten some of her directions and she decided she had learned enough to be able to practice on her own. We had a little time left so she elected to start looking at the fault spotting and correction end of things.

I set up so that I would make only one mistake (NOT IN ROLE, driving as me) letting her know I would not compromise safety in any way. Her job was to spot the fault. We discussed what would happen when she saw it and we decided it would be wise to say it, because otherwise the learner may not be aware. She expressed that she had concerns at this phase with one of her pupils as she felt the pupil might react badly to being criticised. We discussed (at length) the job of an ADI and its relation to keeping things safe, but also to ensure the learner knows how to keep themselves safe in the future. She discovered that to be able to do this, the learner needs to be made aware. A discussion followed about how we might raise awareness (how we might ask the question in a non threatening way)

The following practical was set up so that she had to say when she saw an issue, but if she hadn’t seen it after I had done it three times I would pull over and we would discuss. She didn’t see the issue (very wide at junctions) We discussed why that might be, and she discovered that it was because she was observing as a driver and not as an ADI. We discussed the difference. This led to discussions on timing of observations, i.e. early or late, or even both but not when the driver is doing it as we need to be observing them.

This led to better results on the fault finding exercise. We then discussed what we would do once the fault had been spotted and awareness raised of the issue. I asked the question what would you do if your learner disagreed it was an issue and what would you do if they agreed. We decided we couldn’t allow the car to move away again until the learner had agreed it needed fixing (it became their goal) and that we needed to decide how to fix it (lesson plan adapted) I ended the session at this point as I felt we were placed nicely for the ORDIT test.

ORDIT TEST DAY

She had done a really fulsome reflection and decided she would still like to work on Fault spotting. We linked this to giving route directions and observations so decided to use the drive to the training area to work on giving route directions to me (NOT IN ROLE) whilst looking at me so we don’t miss anything (The roof of Pontefract test centre is collapsing which meant the drive to the location was a few minutes longer as we started from a different location).

The drive initially was a mixed bag of sometimes getting it right and sometimes forgetting. We pulled over to discuss and this led to a really fruitful discussion on how she might practice this whilst alone and with her learners. This segment was longer than I had planned, but because she was really cooking with gas in terms of onward development I let it run a little longer. I thought at this point I was running the risk of being marked for spending too much time on it, so there was a judgement call. Cut her off in mid flow when she has only just learned to develop this level of self development to suit my needs, or to allow her to develop plans more fully. We probably spent 8 minutes on this, which I see as time well spent for the pupil, but falls foul of the time management element of the ORDIT exam.

We then decided to move on to fault spotting and correction, breaking it into two parts. Spotting and correcting. We played the same game as yesterday I drove and made only one mistake, told her I would be driving as me and that if she didn’t see it after three goes I would tell her. I was at no point in role. We got to the fault being committed three times and I got her to pull me over and we discussed why she had missed it. It was again, looking in the wrong places and at the wrong time. I prompted her to remember what she had discovered the day before and we decided for the next fault she was going to look at me just before the time she would be doing things as a driver to ensure I had done what I should be doing. This worked really well. We then talked about head, hands and feet and timing of observations, how this might manifest itself in getting more successful fault spotting outcomes. How we might develop practice regimes (commentary driving) to help. This was a very fruitful discussion which led to all sort of learning and self development. We then pushed on to what we would do now the fault had been highlighted. Again similar discussions led by me such as “what would you do if your pupil disagreed it was an issue” this was the way I phrased all of my questions, I was never in role at any point, we just played out the scenarios.

We discussed how she might help a learner in these circumstances, and what to do if the learner shrugged and said “I dunno” we discussed at length how to describe what needed to happen to keep things safe, why that was the best way to do it, the consequences of doing it the way they had been doing it and plans to cure the fault. She discovered she could demo, talk through or prompt. This led to a discussion on breaking down barriers by offering options to the learner. I said lets assume your learner wanted a talk through, could you talk me through this next junction. She did very successfully. We then discussed what would happen next, and she thought she could just let me have a go on my own, I agreed that might work, but what if my learner wanted some help still? She then said I could offer a range like before.

This led us to time to head back. She decided she wanted to use the time to revisit route directions. She got it right most of the time and we chatted on the move about when she hadn’t. We were on a fairly straight section of road so I asked her, how would you feel about drawing my attention to things that might need a learners input. She was happy to do this and picked up some good things. We then stopped and discussed how she could turn this input into questions. This lead to asking more powerful questions (i.e. how to find out what was happening in the head of the learner) she really was switched on to this and we continued. She asked me if I had seen the speed limit change and what the new speed was which was nice. I asked her what she would say If the learner chose to do 30 in a 40 and when challenged said it was ok because they felt safe or they thought it was ok because their friend did it? We discussed (on the move) how asking “what are you basing that on” might help her to find out what the cause was rather than the symptom. This really opened her up and she talked non stop about how this would help her with her learners and how she could use this on herself to challenge beliefs. She talked about how it would help learners reflect more on things and how that was important because she had discovered the power of it herself.

We arrived back at the test centre at 11.30 for de-brief (was told to finish at 11.35) and she talked about what had happened today, how this linked to yesterday and last week and how she was going to structure her practice, very little input from me, but she was on a roll so I let it run. I tried to let it come to a nice conclusion, but had to close the conversation down at 11.39

said sorry to the examiner for over running slightly during my de-brief, but he said he had enjoyed listening to her and it was obvious she had gotten a lot from the session so he was quite happy.

Over running a little on the route directions cost me a mark in each section, and I can see that if I had cut it a bit shorter then a 51 pointer on ORDIT might have been within my grasp, however, the joy of seeing this PDI develop in this way made the three point loss TOTALLY worthwhile.

It may be a little rambling and not maybe as focussed as it might be, but I’m also back to my main job. I might re-visit it later with more detail. But I conducted the whole of this test without using role-play, and the examiner complimented me on the approach.