Practising for the test in Crawley?
Find the Crawley test centre routes to practise with your child.
Parents: How can you help?
Helping Your Child Learn to Drive – Let's Work Together
A guide for parents who want to help their children become safe, confident drivers for life.
We All Want the Same Thing
As a parent, you want your child to learn to drive safely, confidently and independently. You want them to pass their driving test, but more importantly, you want them to develop the skills, judgement and experience to stay safe on the roads for the rest of their lives.
As a trainee driving instructor, I share exactly the same goal.
Whether you're hoping to reduce the cost of driving lessons, help your child pass their test sooner, share your own driving experience or simply become more involved in their learning, I want to help you do that.
I believe parents can play an incredibly valuable role in helping their children learn to drive. With the right guidance, structure and support, supervised practice can complement professional lessons and make a real difference.
My philosophy is simple: we are all part of the same team, working towards the same outcome.
Before Their 17th Birthday
Get a head start before your child turns 17. From about 16½, ideally in the summer after their GCSEs when they have no exams, they can apply for their provisional licence and start studying. Buy The Official Highway Code, Know Your Traffic Signs and The Official DVSA Guide to Driving: The Essential Skills (plus the other books on the Theory & Test Help reading list) so they can start reading them early. Passing the theory test takes roughly 30 hours of study: reading the books, installing two or three apps and watching plenty of online videos. If they have done that by their 17th birthday, you can book their theory test that very day. I believe pupils who pass their theory test first time are more likely to pass their driving test first time too.
Professional Tuition First, Parental Practice Alongside It
My recommendation is that your child receives their initial driving tuition from a professional driving instructor.
Approved Driving Instructors (ADIs) and appropriately qualified trainee instructors (PDIs) receive specialist training in teaching techniques, risk management, identifying driving faults, assessing progress and helping learners develop safe driving habits.
These skills go well beyond simply knowing how to drive.
As a general starting point, I would recommend approximately 10–20 hours of professional tuition before parents take a substantial role in supervising practice on public roads. This isn't a fixed rule, and some learners will be ready earlier or later. What matters is their competence, confidence and ability to manage the driving situations they will encounter.
Ideally, parents should help their children practise skills that have already been introduced and developed with their instructor, rather than attempting to teach unfamiliar or complex driving techniques themselves.
This helps ensure that everyone is working consistently and that learners aren't receiving conflicting instructions.
Can parents help before the first professional lesson?
Absolutely.
Some parents may feel comfortable introducing their children to the basic controls of a car, including the steering wheel, pedals, gears, mirrors and dashboard instruments.
Where it is lawful and safe to do so, an initial session on genuinely private land, with the landowner's permission, might include becoming familiar with the vehicle, clutch control in a manual car, and basic moving and stopping.
However, a supermarket car park or other area accessible to the public may still be treated as a road or public place for legal purposes. The relevant provisional licence, supervision and insurance requirements must be satisfied.
There is no expectation that parents should provide these early sessions. Starting from scratch with a professional instructor is absolutely fine.
How Much Driving Practice Does a Learner Need?
A commonly quoted UK learning-to-drive estimate is around 45 hours of professional lessons plus 22 hours of additional private practice.
These figures are a useful illustration of how professional instruction and additional practice can work together, but they are not compulsory requirements or a guarantee of passing.
Every learner progresses differently.
Some learners need considerably more tuition, while others develop their skills more quickly. The important thing is the quality and variety of their experience, not simply accumulating hours.
Supervised practice can help learners gain experience in different traffic conditions, road types, weather and everyday journeys, provided those situations are appropriate for their stage of development.
It can also help families manage the overall cost of learning to drive, without compromising the quality of the professional instruction.
My Free 31-Lesson Driving Course – For Learners and Parents
I've created 31 free online driving lesson guides covering the key subjects, techniques and practical skills involved in learning to drive.
These guides are available to learners and parents alike.
They are designed to explain what a learner needs to understand, what good driving looks like, and the skills and observations required to drive safely.
Parents can use them to:
- Understand what their child is learning during professional lessons.
- Familiarise themselves with modern teaching methods and driving standards.
- Prepare for supervised practice sessions.
- Reinforce techniques already taught by the instructor.
- Help their child identify areas where they need further practice.
- Follow a structured learning programme rather than simply driving around without a clear objective.
These 31 guides are a learning resource, not a substitute for professional driving instruction.
If you choose to take a more active role in teaching your child, the guides can provide a useful framework. However, my recommendation remains that new skills are introduced and assessed by a professional instructor, with parents helping learners consolidate those skills through additional practice.
You're Welcome to Join Us for a Driving Lesson
I actively encourage parents to become involved in their child's learning.
If your child is learning with me, you're very welcome to arrange to sit in the back of the car during a lesson, provided your child is comfortable with this and it is safe and appropriate for the session.
This gives you an opportunity to see how I explain techniques, structure lessons, assess risks and help your child develop their driving skills.
You can see what your child has achieved, understand what they're finding difficult, and learn the methods we're using.
Later in the week, when you take your child out for supervised practice, you'll be much better placed to reinforce the same techniques.
Rather than you teaching one method and me teaching another, we can work together to provide a consistent learning experience.
A Client-Centred Approach – Your Child Is in the Driving Seat
I believe learning to drive should be centred around the learner, not simply following a rigid timetable of lessons.
At the beginning of each lesson, I'll ask questions such as:
“What would you like to learn today?”
“What do you feel you need to improve?”
“What would you like to be able to do confidently by the end of this lesson?”
Of course, I'll also provide professional guidance on the skills they need to develop and any safety issues that require attention.
But I want learners to take ownership of their progress.
If your child feels they need more practice with roundabouts, parking, meeting oncoming traffic or understanding road positioning, we can make that the focus of the lesson, where appropriate for their ability.
My role is to coach, guide and support them towards becoming a safe and independent driver.
Your role as a parent can be to reinforce that learning, encourage progress and provide additional opportunities to practise.
Preparing for Lessons – Keeping the Wheels Moving
One of the ways I hope to make driving lessons more effective is by encouraging learners to prepare before getting into the car.
Ahead of a lesson, I'll aim to send your child a message by WhatsApp, email or another suitable method, recommending the relevant lesson guides and topics to study.
They might spend some time reading the guidance, watching recommended instructional videos and familiarising themselves with the techniques we'll be practising.
That way, when they arrive for their lesson, they already have some understanding of what we're going to cover.
We can spend less time explaining basic concepts while parked at the roadside and more time developing practical driving skills.
This also gives parents an opportunity to understand what their child is learning and support them between lessons.
The lesson plan is always a guide rather than a rigid instruction. Your child's goals, progress and safety needs will determine what we actually work on.
Three Elements Working Together
I see learning to drive as a combination of three important elements.
1. Online learning – Knowledge and understanding
My free driving course, the Highway Code, instructional videos and other resources help learners understand the principles of safe driving and prepare for practical lessons.
2. Professional driving tuition – Developing practical skills
Driving lessons turn that knowledge into practical ability, with structured coaching, risk management, feedback and progressive development of driving skills.
3. Supervised parental practice – Experience and confidence
Parents can help learners reinforce those skills, gain additional experience, develop independence and become more comfortable making safe driving decisions.
These three elements complement one another. The balance will vary from learner to learner, but together they can provide a comprehensive approach to learning to drive.
Preparing for Your Test in Crawley or Burgess Hill
As your child approaches test standard, parents can play an especially valuable role in helping them become familiar with the roads around their chosen driving test centre.
For learners taking their practical driving test in Crawley or Burgess Hill, I can help them prepare for the types of roads, junctions, roundabouts and driving situations they are likely to encounter locally.
I'm also exploring a satellite navigation loan and rental service for learners and parents.
The intention is to offer TomTom Start 52 sat nav units preloaded with practice routes around the Crawley and Burgess Hill test areas.
This would allow parents to take their children out for structured practice, using the sat nav to guide them through unfamiliar roads and more challenging driving environments.
Rather than simply repeating the same familiar journeys, learners can develop experience of following directions, planning ahead, responding to changing road conditions and making safe decisions independently.
The aim isn't to memorise a driving test route. It's to become confident driving safely on any road, including roads you've never driven before.
Practice routes are not guaranteed to be the routes used during an actual driving test, and learning them is no substitute for developing independent driving skills.
Saving Money Without Compromising Safety
I fully appreciate that learning to drive can be expensive.
For some families, the cost of professional driving lessons is a significant consideration. Others simply want to make the most of the driving experience and knowledge they already have.
I support parents who want to become involved, and I'm happy to help them do so safely and constructively.
My goal isn't to sell you as many driving lessons as possible.
My goal is to help your child become a safe, confident, competent and independent driver, using the most effective combination of professional tuition, independent study and supervised practice.
If parental practice helps your child consolidate their skills, gain experience and potentially reduce the number of paid lessons they need, that's a positive outcome.
The important thing is that we don't sacrifice safety, good technique or long-term driving ability simply to reduce the cost of learning.
Let's Work Together
Whether you're a parent who wants to be involved in every stage of the learning journey, or you'd prefer to leave the teaching entirely to a professional, I'm happy to support you.
You can use my free 31-lesson driving course, join your child for a lesson where appropriate, discuss their progress and help them practise between professional sessions.
We can agree on suitable practice objectives so that your child knows what they're working towards, and you know how best to support them.
Your child brings the ambition. I bring the coaching and structured tuition. You bring the encouragement and opportunities to practise.
Together, we can help them become not just someone who passes a driving test, but a safe and confident driver for life.
One Big Thing You Can Do
Once your child is test ready, download the GPX files and take them out on as many of the practice routes as possible in the run-up to their test.