Goal Setting: Importance of Agreeing Skills Based Goals/Plan

Tell me whats wrong with this statement:   

“We’re doing roundabouts today” sounds like a plan, but it often leaves learners unclear on what they’re trying to improve or how to judge success, its telling not engaging the student in the plan setting and lacks definition - as we all know - Roundabouts as a theme includes a host of skills, processes and decision-making skills.   

However, in contrast with the above approach, a meaningful briefing/conversation with the student, about the skills involved in a particular subject or theme can make it clear and result in setting student-owned targets for the lesson and a clear mutually agreed plan.  

And when things change during the lesson, again, meaningful unpacking and conversation can easily lead to resetting the goals and /or plan as required with the student. This is a world away from simply telling/directing what is to be done that day and requires active engagement with the student.  

We walk through how to pull meaningful goals from a pupil without putting words in their mouth or using instructor jargon which the student probably does not understand, nor has a connection to what is actually going to be covered and how!. 

The shift is simple but powerful: set goals around skills, not subjects. Roundabouts become approach speed, lane position, observations, signalling choices, and decision making. 

Meeting traffic becomes a discussion and focus on its elements like planning and anticipation, confidence, and safe positioning. When you name the underlying skills, you can discuss them with the student, set meaningful SMART Goals that you revisit during the lesson and debrief them so pupil can feel a real part of the learning process and plan. 

We also tackle the tricky moment when a pupil wants something too advanced. We share a framework for checking where they are in the syllabus, identifying the gaps, and guiding them toward the next best step while keeping safety front and centre. Along the way, we talk about chunking lessons with short reflect and review check-ins so goals stay alive throughout the drive and the debrief ends with clear wins and next steps. 

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Transcript

Why Goals Matter In Lessons

Speaker 2 0:00

Hi, I'm Sarah Hart, Director of Drive Heart. And today I'm joined by one of our PDIs, Cass. Hi Cass. Hello. Hi there. So we're going to be having a quick chat today about goals, what they are, how we set them, why we set them. Do you have any particular questions about goal setting, Cass, to start with?

Getting Goals Through Real Conversation

Speaker 0:19

Yeah, so in terms of setting a goal with your pupil, obviously you want your pupil to have as much input in it as possible. So how how would you extract that information out of them?

Speaker 2 0:31

Okay, that's a good question. goal setting is achieved through the art of conversation with your student - if you brief them on the subject, its skills, processes and rules/accepttions at the outset they are informed learners - this is the starting point. Chatting about what you did last lesson and what they have done in private practice. together you will have set some idea of what they want and need to progress . Its not about being soley student led, but having an informed discussion. Having a recap on that verbally is a really good idea because it'll set your scene for where the starting point for today's lesson is. And it might be that they don't want to continue with that. They might have had some interruption during the week with private practice with a parent or something. Which means your planned goals may need to change to address something that happened in privat epractice.

Speaker 2 1:15

How are you doing? Have you had private practice? Do you remember what we did last lesson? Yeah, we did roundabouts last lesson. And what did you want to do at the end of that lesson? What did you want to do? This lesson. Oh, I wanted to go on to more complex roundabouts. Okay, is that still something you want to do? Well, I've had problems with my mum in the town with my planning and anticipation, or you know, I knocked over a couple of pedestrians. So, you know, then in that case, you're going to reset your goals. Forget the roundabouts, you'd need to work on the planning and anticipation, wouldn't you?

Speaker 1 1:46

The key thing is to make sure that you're having a conversation and it's real. And in in most respects, the actual goals come out of that conversation. So it it the words of the students are really important. So, for example, if you take Sarah's example, that they've had problems in private practice, is unpack that a little bit, and it may well be that the expression

Set Goals Around Skills Not Subjects

Speaker 1 2:12

of the problems actually gives you the goals. So, for example, I was driving in town with my dad, and he was driving really fast, and I was getting very nervous because when I took over driving, he was expecting me to drive at the same pace. So it may be that you know, speed of driving, negotiating, city driving, or something like that might be the new goals that he wants to work on. So it's really getting the student to express, if you will, of what the skills are that you're going to be working on, not just the subject.

Speaker 2 2:45

Yeah, exactly. And you'll find that with your student, a little bit of conversation, you know, if they say, Well, you know, last week we started on meeting traffic and I didn't like it because I could never make a good decision about where my position needed to be. So that would be a really good entry into the type of skills that you need to work on. So it might be planning and anticipation, positioning, all of those things. And again, by discussion with your student, you'll probably come to an agreement that that would be a good subject for you to work on. And it's really important to remember that, your your goals are set around skills, not themes or subjects.

Speaker 1 3:22

So just taking that, does that does that have any sort of meaning for you, what we're talking about in terms of skills, not subjects?

Speaker 3:29

Yeah, absolutely. So you're you're extracting the skills that they need to develop to be able to tackle whatever situation comes on the road.

Speaker 1 3:39

So just thinking about that practically, if I was if I was saying we're going to be doing roundabouts, it's really important to get an understanding in your student when you first do the briefing about the subjects. And that's why we always emphasise it's important for the student to understand through an initial briefing on a subject where you'll start to introduce the different skills that they're going to be working on. So, you know, speed on approach, when to signal when not to. And that actually gives them an understanding then of the breadth of the subject that you're going to set goals for, doesn't it?

Speaker 2 4:14

Yeah, absolutely. We we take on, you know, we try and help a lot of ADIs and PDIs, and all too often you get told, okay, well, today we're going to do roundabouts. Well, that's not really, that's certainly not setting goals. As Jack says, it's breaking down the skills, as you say, what you know, what speed and perhaps gear on approach, how far back from the roundabout, where are you going to be looking? How are you going to make that decision? So, all of those little mini skills

Make Goals Realistic And Measurable

Speaker 2 4:40

are the sort of things you need to work on and tease out with your students. So, so that's setting realistic goals. You've got to be realistic as well. Again, it's got to be something they can achieve if possible in that lesson because the last thing you want to do is go away. And at the end, well, at the end of the lesson, when you're debriefing the lesson with them, you want to want to be able to say to them, How do you think you did today? Oh, I did great because I did this and I did that, still need to work on this and that and the other. But you've got some successes and some learning outcomes with the student.

Speaker 1 5:12

Yeah, it's quite important. I mean, we advocate chunking lessons so that you have a reflect and a review after probably about 10 or 15 minutes, because otherwise you tend to lose a lot of learning. And it's that time if you can tie in the goals that you set with the student to the success or or issues that they've encountered. And that's really important, isn't it, throughout the lesson to actually revisit the goals. So if they've remained valid throughout that 15 minutes and you stop and have a bit of a check-in with them and a chat about how it's going, that's the point where you might just adjust the lesson if you get feedback from the student. Have you had that in practice, Cass?

Speaker 2 5:57

Yes, yeah. I think as well. Oh, sorry, Cass, you were gonna say something.

Speaker 6:03

No, you're okay. Um I was just wondering.

When The Pupil Wants Too Do Something Beyond Their Capability

Speaker 6:05

So you mentioned about setting realistic goals. So, what if you're having this conversation with your pupil and they want to do something that may be a bit too challenging for them? How would you address that?

Speaker 2 6:18

That's a very good question again, Cass. Again, by conversation with them, I'd be asking them whether you know, where have we got to in the syllabus? What have we done? How have we covered things? How do you think you're doing with it? And then if there's a massive gap between where their skill and and confidence level is now to where they want to get to, we've got to try and fill in the the gaps really.

Speaker 2 6:40

So I would be guiding them saying, Well, I think you know, it's great that you really want to get onto that, and we will get onto that, but I think for the moment we might be better, it might be more beneficial for you to concentrate on on this skill because that will then help build your ability so that when we do get onto that subject, you're going to be better able to deal with it. So it's about guiding them and and sort of leading them into the areas that you think they're going to benefit better.

Speaker 1 7:06

I think the other thing is that there's a safety aspect. If somebody's asking you to take them on a particular lesson and they clearly haven't yet got those skills, then that represents a safety issue. And it's discussing that with them and getting them to understand the responsibilities and risks that that might present. I think that's correct, isn't it, Sarah? Yeah, absolutely. Does that help?

Speaker 7:29

Yeah, that's perfect.

Speaker 1 7:30

Have you had any practical examples of setting goals where you found it difficult with a student?

Brief Students on the Syllabus & Skills -

Speaker 1 7:39

I think one you know, whether you get, you know, tongue-tied or hesitant with you as a new student.

Speaker 7:45

Yeah, I s yeah, i if sometimes you get the the student doesn't know what the next like so if you doesn't know the syllabus. Yeah, so if you if you started on one thing and then sometimes you ask a question on what what what might be the next thing that we go on to, and then they you tend to get I don't know.

Speaker 1 8:07

It's actually really important question or point because a lot of instructors don't take time to actually let the student have an understanding of what the breadth of what they're gonna learn is. So it's good uh uh you know, not all in one go, but actually start introducing through your student app. They'll have the syllabus on it, and it's really worthwhile having a discussion about the breadth of subjects that overing you're c so that they can see themselves progressing through that syllabus. It doesn't have to be an in-depth, you know, we're gonna do X, Y, Z, but it can be at a first briefing level, a higher level explanation of you know, normally we do forward moving, don't we?

Speaker 2 8:48

Yeah, forward driving generally before you start reversing, but of course, not always again, you need to respond to your students' needs. But I mean I agree completely that having the structure to the lessons is really important because there's nothing worse than when a student goes out for a lesson, they drive around for a couple of hours, they don't really know what they've learnt, they don't know what they were trying to learn, they certainly have got no marker of success. You know, that's very demoralising. So having a structure to your whole lesson to start with and setting clear goals at the beginning, and then you can review against those goals at the end of the lesson, and and throughout the lesson as well, when something has happened that directly links to the goals, you can link back to to give them the confidence. See, remember what we were set our goals to to look at, I don't know, positioning and look at that position you just achieved there. So a bit of reflection on the goals to give them the confidence and the positivity, I think is really important as well.

Speaker 1 9:46

Okay, so any other questions on goal setting?

Speaker 9:50

No, I don't have any more questions. Sarah, if you want to cover any other points.

Speaker 2 9:54

No, I think that's fine

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Speaker 2 9:55

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Speaker 2 9:56

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Speaker 10:07

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