Why I Don't Do Gimmicks

I expect you have seen many adverts from other schools such as: 10 lessons for £99!

Here is a quick explanation as to why we do not do this and some free advice about those that do!

Everyone is always looking for the best deal on everything. People of the young generation are used to looking on the internet and trying to find the best price possible for what they want to buy. This is fine when buying, say, a new phone, but when buying tuition from someone who is teaching you a life or death skill, you must be extremely careful to pick someone who is offering quality tuition. Someone selling lessons based just on them being the cheapest in town should ring alarm bells.

Ask yourself why they are doing this and are they a good instructor if they have to give cut price lessons to get work when others don’t?

First of all, most of these ‘10 lessons for £99’ gimmicks have terms and conditions attached so the offer lessons are taken as part of a block of, say, 40. The first 5 lessons are to be taken at the start of the block, the last 5 lessons at the end (often on test day). The rest of the lessons in between are charged at a higher rate of, say £45 per hour. It means if you take up the offer you are then tied to them for 40 lessons and may not want to stay with them.

The thing you really need to be wary of is instructors who offer very low price lessons all the time with no offer tie-in. You don’t get anything in life for free and more importantly, you generally get what you pay for! Ask yourself: why does someone need to offer such cut price lessons while others have a thriving business charging a lot more? If someone is offering a cut price service, they are obviously struggling for work. Why is this, especially if they are so cheap? They should have pupils queuing around the block! If they are working for such a low amount, will your lessons give you value for money? Will someone hardly making a profit be motivated to give you a good lesson, or might they prefer to save fuel by wasting time talking rather than driving? These instructors often keep a pupil for a few lessons before the pupil realises their mistake and goes elsewhere. It always costs more in the long run to go with someone offering cheap lessons.

People often contact lots of driving schools and go with the first instructor to answer the phone to them. Perhaps they would be better off leaving a message with the busy instructor who can’t answer there and then because they are busy teaching!

Quality driving lessons might seem expensive, but by the time an instructor has taken off their expenses (tax, national insurance, car expenses, teaching aids, DSA fees, and of course the most costly of all – fuel), they are working for a lot lot less than this, some have even worked it out to be not much above minimum wage. The cost of a guitar or piano lesson is £40 an hour and that isn’t really comparable with teaching someone a skill for life like driving a car safely!

We keep our general pay as you go prices as low at possible. You are not tied in to us in any way, that’s how confident we are that you will stick with us! This way, instructors are motivated to do their best and keep you as a pupil learning with them, and you get the best value for money lessons which are tailored to your individual needs in order to take you through your lessons at your own pace, whether that’s as quickly as possible or just taking things slowly.

We are not struggling for work, we do not need to offer cut-price lessons, we have a great reputation, we do not string-out lessons or try and cut fuel costs, we don’t need to tie you in with offers to keep you with us. We retain our pupils by offering quality tuition from our quality instructors! (All fully qualified and not trainees like a lot of others!)E