The Instructor

Thinking about becoming a driving instructor? Or already working your way through the PDI process?

In this special episode, Terry is joined by Emma Cottington and Tom Stenson for a comprehensive look at what it really takes to become an ADI.

They explore the Part 1, 2 and 3 process, why training shouldn’t simply be about passing tests, blended training, choosing the right trainer, and whether a trainee licence is right for you.

The conversation also tackles the minimum 40 hours of training, gaining real teaching experience, training costs, franchise agreements, going independent, running your own business and the importance of continued development.

Whether you’re considering becoming an instructor or already somewhere along the journey, this episode is designed to help you ask better questions, avoid common pitfalls and make more informed decisions.

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When you join the email list, you’ll get a custom workbook to help you reflect, take action, and apply each episode’s message to your real-world lessons. Plus, weekly tips that actually make a difference.

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Quick insight, links to key industry documents, and a prize giveaway on Mondays.

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The Instructor Podcast uses a variety of social media channels, including a Facebook group. You can join the group or follow us on the following platforms:

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What makes a driving lesson fun, and does fun always mean games and laughter?

In this first Monday Night Live, Terry Cook is joined by Tom Stenson to explore how instructors can make lessons more enjoyable, engaging and effective. They discuss the importance of energy, enthusiasm and engagement, as well as how rapport and client-centred learning help us understand what each pupil actually enjoys.

The conversation also covers creative lesson ideas, involving pupils in decisions, learning outside the car and making activities between lessons more interesting.

Not every pupil wants games, and not every lesson needs to be hilarious.

Sometimes, fun simply means being involved, making progress and leaving the car feeling positive.

🔥 Get More Than Just Test Passes - Join the Premium Membership

If you're a driving instructor who wants to teach better, earn more, and stand out from the crowd, the Premium membership is where it happens. With exclusive content you won’t find anywhere else, from expert sessions to confidence coaching, business building, and beyond, this is the stuff no one else is giving you.

👉 Start your free 7-day trial now: Sign up here

Get the Workbook for selected Episode

When you join the email list, you’ll get a custom workbook to help you reflect, take action, and apply each episode’s message to your real-world lessons. Plus, weekly tips that actually make a difference.

Sign up for The Instructor email

📲 Stay Connected via WhatsApp

Quick insight, links to key industry documents, and a prize giveaway on Mondays.

Join the channel: whatsapp-link.com

The Instructor Podcast uses a variety of social media channels, including a Facebook group. You can join the group or follow us on the following platforms:

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In this remastered From the Vault session, Terry Cook is joined by trainer Chris Bensted to explore the third standards check competency: was the practice area suitable?

They examine why suitability is less about finding the “perfect” location and more about matching the environment to the pupil’s needs, ability and goals in the moment. Chris explains how to choose a reliable pupil, plan around test-centre constraints, adapt when circumstances change and communicate openly with the enforcement officer.

It’s a practical, refreshingly straightforward conversation for ADIs and PDIs who want to simplify the 17 competencies and deliver a responsive, effective lesson under pressure.

🔥 Get More Than Just Test Passes - Join the Premium Membership

If you're a driving instructor who wants to teach better, earn more, and stand out from the crowd, the Premium membership is where it happens. With exclusive content you won’t find anywhere else, from expert sessions to confidence coaching, business building, and beyond, this is the stuff no one else is giving you.

👉 Start your free 7-day trial now: Sign up here

Get the Workbook for selected Episode

When you join the email list, you’ll get a custom workbook to help you reflect, take action, and apply each episode’s message to your real-world lessons. Plus, weekly tips that actually make a difference.

Sign up for The Instructor email

📲 Stay Connected via WhatsApp

Quick insight, links to key industry documents, and a prize giveaway on Mondays.

Join the channel: whatsapp-link.com

The Instructor Podcast uses a variety of social media channels, including a Facebook group. You can join the group or follow us on the following platforms:

• Facebook
• LinkedIn
• Instagram
• YouTube

Sharon Huddleston and Dr Ian Greenwood share the heartbreaking stories behind their campaigns for safer roads.

They discuss graduated driving licensing, why inexperience rather than deliberate law-breaking can place young drivers and their passengers at risk, and the continued reluctance of successive governments to act despite decades of evidence.

The conversation also explores the wider impact of road death, the importance of language, the support provided by Forget Me Not Families Uniting, and how campaigning has helped Sharon and Ian keep their daughters’ memories alive.

Crucially, they consider the role driving instructors can play right now, helping young drivers and their families understand risks involving passengers, night-time driving, rural roads and the difficult first months after passing.

🔥 Get More Than Just Test Passes - Join the Premium Membership

If you're a driving instructor who wants to teach better, earn more, and stand out from the crowd, the Premium membership is where it happens. With exclusive content you won’t find anywhere else, from expert sessions to confidence coaching, business building, and beyond, this is the stuff no one else is giving you.

👉 Start your free 7-day trial now: Sign up here

Get the Workbook for selected Episode

When you join the email list, you’ll get a custom workbook to help you reflect, take action, and apply each episode’s message to your real-world lessons. Plus, weekly tips that actually make a difference.

Sign up for The Instructor email

📲 Stay Connected via WhatsApp

Quick insight, links to key industry documents, and a prize giveaway on Mondays.

Join the channel: whatsapp-link.com

The Instructor Podcast uses a variety of social media channels, including a Facebook group. You can join the group or follow us on the following platforms:

• Facebook
• LinkedIn
• Instagram
• YouTube

AI is everywhere right now, writing posts, creating images, answering questions, and promising to save us time. But is it actually helping… or are we creating a whole new set of problems?

In this episode, I’m joined by AI educator Colette Mason to dig into the growing world of “AI slop”, low-quality, inaccurate, AI-generated content that’s flooding social media and beyond.

We explore the dangers of blindly trusting AI, from misinformation and privacy concerns to losing our own critical thinking and creativity. We also discuss where AI can genuinely help, where it absolutely shouldn’t replace human judgment, and how driving instructors can use it responsibly.

This isn’t an anti-AI episode.

Use AI as a tool, just don’t let it do your thinking for you.

Colette has also created a 'Privacy Pack', driving instructors, discounted to £1.50 for 50 people - access it here

And visit Clever Clogs AI here

🔥 Get More Than Just Test Passes - Join the Premium Membership

If you're a driving instructor who wants to teach better, earn more, and stand out from the crowd, the Premium membership is where it happens. With exclusive content you won’t find anywhere else, from expert sessions to confidence coaching, business building, and beyond, this is the stuff no one else is giving you.

👉 Start your free 7-day trial now: Sign up here

Get the Workbook for selected Episode

When you join the email list, you’ll get a custom workbook to help you reflect, take action, and apply each episode’s message to your real-world lessons. Plus, weekly tips that actually make a difference.

Sign up for The Instructor email

📲 Stay Connected via WhatsApp

Quick insight, links to key industry documents, and a prize giveaway on Mondays.

Join the channel: whatsapp-link.com

The Instructor Podcast uses a variety of social media channels, including a Facebook group. You can join the group or follow us on the following platforms:

• Facebook
• LinkedIn
• Instagram
• YouTube

What happens when you take five specific problems from the driver training world and try to solve each one in just 15 minutes?

In this episode, five mystery guests bring five very different challenges to the table. Some are practical, some are bigger-picture, and some may just send us down a few unexpected rabbit holes.

Who are the guests? What are the problems? And do we actually solve any of them?

You’ll have to listen to find out.

It’s a slightly different format, but one packed with ideas, challenge, reflection and practical takeaways for ADIs who want to think a little deeper about what they do.

🔥 Get More Than Just Test Passes - Join the Premium Membership

If you're a driving instructor who wants to teach better, earn more, and stand out from the crowd, the Premium membership is where it happens. With exclusive content you won’t find anywhere else, from expert sessions to confidence coaching, business building, and beyond, this is the stuff no one else is giving you.

👉 Start your free 7-day trial now: Sign up here

Get the Workbook for selected Episode

When you join the email list, you’ll get a custom workbook to help you reflect, take action, and apply each episode’s message to your real-world lessons. Plus, weekly tips that actually make a difference.

Sign up for The Instructor email

📲 Stay Connected via WhatsApp

Quick insight, links to key industry documents, and a prize giveaway on Mondays.

Join the channel: whatsapp-link.com

The Instructor Podcast uses a variety of social media channels, including a Facebook group. You can join the group or follow us on the following platforms:

• Facebook
• LinkedIn
• Instagram
• YouTube

Travel back to 2021 for a remastered edition of The Instructor Podcast Extravaganza: six hours of live conversations with six brilliant guests.

Terry is joined by San Harper, Emma Morgan, Lee Spary, Keir Wotherspoon, Robin Bates and Chris Bensted to explore mindfulness, instructor development, coaching, business, confidence and the realities of life as a driving instructor.

It is also a fascinating snapshot of the podcast in its early days—and a chance to hear how the conversations, the industry and Terry’s own presenting style have evolved over the past five years.

Six guests. Six conversations. One enormous episode.

🔥 Get More Than Just Test Passes - Join the Premium Membership

If you're a driving instructor who wants to teach better, earn more, and stand out from the crowd, the Premium membership is where it happens. With exclusive content you won’t find anywhere else, from expert sessions to confidence coaching, business building, and beyond, this is the stuff no one else is giving you.

👉 Start your free 7-day trial now: Sign up here

Get the Workbook for selected Episode

When you join the email list, you’ll get a custom workbook to help you reflect, take action, and apply each episode’s message to your real-world lessons. Plus, weekly tips that actually make a difference.

Sign up for The Instructor email

📲 Stay Connected via WhatsApp

Quick insight, links to key industry documents, and a prize giveaway on Mondays.

Join the channel: whatsapp-link.com

The Instructor Podcast uses a variety of social media channels, including a Facebook group. You can join the group or follow us on the following platforms:

• Facebook
• LinkedIn
• Instagram
• YouTube

Sign up here

This episode is exactly what it says on the tin — a shameless plug.

Terry explains why he’s launching the first-ever IPP Summit on Sunday, 2nd August, what makes it more than “just another webinar”, and why driving instructors should consider being in the room live.

The Summit features separate live CPD sessions across the day, with Stewart Lochrie, Adil Amarsi, Emma Cottington, Bob Morton, and a Road Safety Panel including Dr Elizabeth Box, Dr Lisa Dorn, Prof Gemma Briggs and Prof David Crundall.

Terry is joined by Peter Harvey, vice chair of the Motor Schools Association GB, to discuss the current state of the driving instructor industry.

They unpack a massive list of challenges facing approved driving instructors, including skyrocketing test waiting times. Peter provides essential clarity on the controversial regulation changes that restrict instructors from booking tests directly for pupils.

The conversation also dives deep into upcoming measures to stop "test tourism," the future of ORDIT and instructor training standards, and the recent leadership transition at the DVSA. Finally, Peter shares insights on maintaining industry professionalism and how trade associations support instructors.

Find more from the MSA

🔥 Get More Than Just Test Passes - Join the Premium Membership

If you're a driving instructor who wants to teach better, earn more, and stand out from the crowd, the Premium membership is where it happens. With exclusive content you won’t find anywhere else, from expert sessions to confidence coaching, business building, and beyond, this is the stuff no one else is giving you.

👉 Start your free 7-day trial now: Sign up here

Get the Workbook for selected Episode

When you join the email list, you’ll get a custom workbook to help you reflect, take action, and apply each episode’s message to your real-world lessons. Plus, weekly tips that actually make a difference.

Sign up for The Instructor email

📲 Stay Connected via WhatsApp

Quick insight, links to key industry documents, and a prize giveaway on Mondays.

Join the channel: whatsapp-link.com

The Instructor Podcast uses a variety of social media channels, including a Facebook group. You can join the group or follow us on the following platforms:

• Facebook
• LinkedIn
• Instagram
• YouTube

Donate to Brake

In this special "From the Vault" episode, originally recorded in 2024 and newly remastered for 2026, Terry Cook sits down with Stewart Lochrie of Bright Coaching to look at road safety and instructor responsibility.

Terry and Stewart tackle the tough topics that many in the industry turn away from. They dive deep into poignant lessons from road safety campaigners and bereaved parents, challenging the emotional detachment that can easily creep into daily instruction.

This conversation shifts the focus from merely getting a student to pass a test to actively shaping post-test driving behaviour. You’ll explore:

• The critical difference between fault and taking professional responsibility.
• The stark reality of teaching "safe daytime driving" versus true safe driving for life.
• The psychological impact of smartphones and attention theft on young drivers.
• Practical, high-standard habits you can introduce immediately, from multi-pupil distraction exercises to parent integration.

As Stewart and Terry remind us throughout this episode, you might not change all 40,000 instructors overnight, but you can choose to do something today that prevents road harm.

🔥 Get More Than Just Test Passes - Join the Premium Membership

If you're a driving instructor who wants to teach better, earn more, and stand out from the crowd, the Premium membership is where it happens. With exclusive content you won’t find anywhere else, from expert sessions to confidence coaching, business building, and beyond, this is the stuff no one else is giving you.

👉 Start your free 7-day trial now: Sign up here

Get the Workbook for selected Episode

When you join the email list, you’ll get a custom workbook to help you reflect, take action, and apply each episode’s message to your real-world lessons. Plus, weekly tips that actually make a difference.

Sign up for The Instructor email

📲 Stay Connected via WhatsApp

Quick insight, links to key industry documents, and a prize giveaway on Mondays.

Join the channel: whatsapp-link.com

The Instructor Podcast uses a variety of social media channels, including a Facebook group. You can join the group or follow us on the following platforms:

• Facebook
• LinkedIn
• Instagram
• YouTube