Hi all
Another newbie here going for the career change. Fully understand about how hard it will be to get work etc especially in this climate. Sent off for my provisional. Just looking at potential driving schools initially for my class2.
Many seen to offer four day courses/ have also seen weekend option with A test on Monday morning? And others similar to car lessons where you fit in here and there.What’s the best way? What structure was your course? Any advice?
Cheers
I’ve done these:
C: 4 days training with two of us in the cab with the test on Friday.
C+e: 4 days training with just me 8-12 with test on Friday.
D: weekend Training 1:1 8-12 over two weekends with the test on the Friday following.
Worst for me was with 2 of us in the cab. I didn’t really take anything in when I was in the back seat, just sat bored for 4 hours. Also If you are with someone who is struggling they can get more driving time which diluted down your own training.
Best was my C+E where it was me and the instructor for 4 consecutive days and my test on the 5th.
Doing my PCV over weekends, I was still fine and passed first time, but my nerves were worse as I thought I would have forgotten it all.
It’s horses for courses. I would be more bothered about finding a decent instructor/company rather than which type of training I did.
I did training over a weekend and test Monday.
It’s all still fresh in ya mind that way.
Have class 1 booked in a couple of weeks, same scenario.
The traditional training method is 2:1 for full days (often 4) followed by test on day 5. When I started PSTT in 1985, I broke with convention and started training 1:1. It’s not as profitable, but that’s not the be all and end all. I firmly believe it’s better. But ROG may well be along to give an opposite view. From my experience, (started teaching in 1971) I’m sticking to my guns.
As we offer residential training, some of our sessions are longer than the 3.5 or 4 hours often on offer. By extending the day, we reduce the number of days you’re away and it reduces “dead time” for the candidate.
But I’m sure you’ve noticed we’re in strange times at present. So, as part of our Covid Secure procedures, we are working with candidates in 7 hour sessions 1:1. This is the pattern we’ve used for many years at weekends and is surprisingly successful. (On the face of it, this is too long and should lead to brain fade. Once again, experience says otherwise). The reason for this at the moment is to minimise the number of folks using a truck and also the number of folks that my trainers meet in a day/week.
Typically, a candidate will start training, say, on Tuesday morning with test Thursday. And it’s perfectly possible that no-one else will use that vehicle. This minimises the risk of viral transfer. I dont think it will be many weeks before further options are available, but this depends on the community spread reducing further.
I take the safety of my staff, customers and examiners very seriously.
If I can help further, you can contact me via pm or the forum.
Take care, Pete 
Check that you get a warm up drive on test day. IMO that’s important.
Whatever structure you choose, don’t get demotivated after the first session. It’s normal to make fairly rapid progress, reaching “test standard” sometimes comes very late in the training… in the case of my bus training, I didn’t reach test standard until I sat in the seat with the examiner next to me and passed with 1 minor. On the warm up drive I was still hitting kerbs, failing to anticipate and plan, driving like ■■■■. My instructor thought I was joking when I said ‘1 minor’, he asked how many serious 
Check that you get a warm up drive on test day. IMO that’s important.
Absolutely logical - but not actually backed up with fact. We use both methods ie warm up and no warm up. And there’s no difference. In fact, sometimes the first hour of the drive can be the best. Why waste that when that could have been the test drive? But there’s no right or wrong with this.
Another example is Fred who has not passed so goes back for a retest some 3 weeks later. No warm up. Comfortable pass.
The whole essence of it is the quality of the training and the candidate’s information retention. With those in place, it really doesn’t make any difference.
Pete