Allan Henderson

I am employed by West Yorkshire Fire and Rescue Services as a Driver Trainer Instructor. To enable me to do this I have to have qualifications both in car and lorry. The car qualification is ADI. To qualify you must complete 3 parts – theory, driving test and instructional ability test. There are four trainers who are at different stages of the ADI process. I had completed parts 1 and 2 myself, with little or no training, but then came the dreaded part 3, which has a low pass rate of 38%. As a department, it was decided to seek professional help from an ORDIT trainer. So, my line manager (Mik), my colleague and I went to LDC in Pontefract and spoke to Gemma who was helpful and managed to fulfil the needs of the department. Like any company LDC prefer to start with someone from the beginning of their journey so they can assist throughout, so it was somewhat a step into the unknown for both the company and us as driver trainers. Mik mentioned straight from the outset that she wanted to be my student which would help her improve her own driving. This was at first a little bit daunting as I had never seen her drive, and I was a little apprehensive of potentially telling my boss that there could be improvements in her driving. We sorted out our training around our work commitments and LDC went out of their way to ensure the dates were suitable for themselves. I started off receiving a call off my trainer – Martin Firth, enquiring about my background, and if I had anything planned for my lesson with Mik, to which I had. We then discussed this and mutually came up with a plan of action. Mik was with us for 3 sessions out of 6 before my upcoming ADI part 3. On the first session, Martin suggested we look at Mik`s driving, which would give us an idea of a good starting point. Mik then left and Martin then looked at my own personal driving including commentary, to which he was pleasantly surprised. We then discussed the future sessions with Mik, and where Mik was not available, Martin sorted out a live student for me. This was greatly appreciated. Throughout the following sessions, Martin passed on his knowledge and made learning easy and more importantly filled any gaps in my knowledge. This made the whole process of learning enjoyable. It also made me feel more relaxed and confident with the upcoming ADI part 3. After each session Martin asked me to self-reflect on the session and then gave a good debrief which helped me in planning the next lesson. On 2nd October, after 21 hours of quality training, I sat and passed the ADI part 3, dropping 4 marks and achieving a Grade A. Martin listened in on the debrief by the examiner, and again gave praise for the result, which would never have happened without his help and the help of the whole team in the office at Pontefract.