Using Your Colourfile

In the car:

Colourfile Professional PLUS has been designed without instructional text on the diagram pages. This is to prevent your pupil becoming distracted by attempting to read ahead of you. All the diagrams are in portrait orientation and, where practicable, are intended to be read from top to bottom. Place the training aid on your knee or clipboard so that the pupil can see the diagram without sight of the lesson plan. When you are familiar with the training aid you should be able to keep the lesson plan page covered/folded back with minimal reference to it. Try not to cover the diagrams you are referring to with your arm or hand. It is better to use a pointer (a pen or pencil for example). Another useful tip is to turn the page round on occasions to present the information from another road user's point of view or so that the approach to a junction appears the same as the driver's view ahead.  

Workstations:

These are blank road layouts included in your Colourfile and may be used in several ways:

1) It is often useful in the early stages of learning to illustrate what the pupil did wrong on approach to a junction or other hazard (for example, being too close to the left and clipping the kerb on a left turn).

2) You may want to illustrate a particular set of circumstances which may have led to your pupil making an error, or which requires further explanation. You should make sure that your drawings are at an appropriate scale for the road layout you are using.

3) You may want to use the workstations independently of the prepared diagrams. This may be particularly useful during a recap session, or when your pupil is approaching test standard and is 'brushing up' on how to deal with particular hazards. However, it is not possible to provide diagrams that suit every circumstance and you might find it necessary to draw particular road layouts on the 'white board’ or ‘notepad’ provided.

Teaching Independent Driving:

It is a problem with any practical driving assessment that instructions or directions given by the assessor or examiner inevitably provoke a response from the candidate:    

“Take the next road on the left please” = “Check your mirrors and signal!”

Sensibly, in 2010 the Driving Standards Agency is introducing an assessment of ‘unprompted driving’ into the practical test. This subject is easy to teach. You might simply ask your client to drive you to a particular area by following road signs. Alternatively you could give a series of left and right turn instructions as might be the case had the driver stopped to ask local directions. Colourfile has numerous road layouts and images of road signs and markings to assist with teaching this topic. You can also use the white board to sketch out a route for the driver as may be used in the practical driving test.

Using dry wipe pens:

Colourfile pages are encapsulated so that you may use a dry wipe pen  to draw on or annotate the diagrams when in use. Before you do this it is a good idea to  check that the pen you are using is compatible with the plastic encapsulation. Test this on a blank area such as the inside of the cover. We recommend the STAEDTLER lumocolor non- permanent  brand. It is helpful to keep a selection of these in the training vehicle. Periodically you should clean the encapsulated diagrams with a slightly damp cloth.

Icons and Symbols:

Colourfile includes a number of icons and symbols. Most are self explanatory or are defined within the lesson plans. They are mainly used as prompts to encourage your use of coaching skills/Q&A technique. The exception is the Pass Plusicon which is shown with a number above it. The number refers to the Pass Plus module which the diagram page may be wholly or partly relevant for. These are summarised below:  

The ‘green earth’ symbol is used as a prompt  to coach on ‘eco-driving technique.