Long serving examiner hangs up his clipboard

Today was the last day of testing on our site by Cliff White, a highly respected and well liked examiner who has been working with us since day one as a test centre. That’s well over 10 years now.

With his permission, here’s a photo of him with some of the gifts from management and staff of Peter Smythe Transport Training Ltd.

Hoping he’ll come and join our training team, part time, in the near future.

All the best Cliff, Pete :laughing: :laughing:

Very nice chap is cliff as are all the other examiners there.

Best wishes. Cliff. LOVE the walking stick btw :smiley:

The things Pete will do to butter up the examiners to keep his test average decent :grimacing: :grimacing: :grimacing:

Only joking before the humourless start going mad.

Ain’t that cheating having a former examiner as ya trainer, no ones going to dare fail the candidates now! :smiley:

Pretty sure it was that Cliff who passed me for C+E, a very knowedgeable guy, so would be a good asset to the team. Albeit very confusing as you will I believe have 2 Cliff instructors and another Cliff examiner?

Hope he enjoys semi retirement although got to ask, will he have to prove he can do the reverse manouver before he’s taken on? Everything else is easy compared to that!

will he have to prove he can do the reverse manouver before he’s taken on? Everything else is easy compared to that!

I know the question is tongue in cheek - but I’ll answer it anyway.

Being an examiner in no way qualifies anyone to train - though they obviously have knowledge of test requirements. In this particular case, Cliff was an ADI ( qualified car instructor) before he jumped ship and became an examiner. And prior to that he had donkeys years experience of Class One driving. But he will have to go through the following before he’s let loose on our candidates:

100 question theory test (topics include instructional techniques in addition to what you would expect)

Driving test - this is a full test marked to a higher standard than the “normal” test with only 5 driving faults allowed. There’s 15 on a standard test.

Test of instructional ability - this is a mock up scenario based test of a minimum of 90 minutes. During this period the examiner will take the role of the candidate and will probably adopt more than one persona during the period.

Having passed all that, he will be trained in our own procedures. And then, eventually, let loose with constant mentoring and supervision. This becomes less frequent as he proves himself. It’s a tough regime but this is what gets the results for you guys.

He could have gone elsewhere and been given the keys to a truck and a candidate. And that’s the norm. But it aint good enough for me.

Pete :laughing: :laughing:

Passed with Cliff on C in Dec17 And CE this March.

I Will never forget the moments he told me I had passed.

Wish Cliff all the best for the future.

Peter Smythe:
It’s a tough regime but this is what gets the results for you guys.

He could have gone elsewhere and been given the keys to a truck and a candidate. And that’s the norm. But it aint good enough for me.

Pete :laughing: :laughing:

Says it all, Pete :slight_smile:

All the best Cliff.

Passed my C+E with him back in April 2017, probably the most relaxed driving test you could hope for.

Update: Cliff has passed all his tests at the first attempt this week. Congratulations to him and well done Tim for all your work in delivering Cliff’s instructor training.

We’re now happy to welcome Cliff to our training team.

So far, he has 100% pass rate with his first candidate passing this week.

This is why we only employ fully trained, qualified and registered instructors. Other trainers were offering Cliff work straight away with zero training. Surely it’s best to do it properly? I believe so.

Congratulations Cliff.

Pete :laughing: :laughing:

Wow, this is amazing.

Cliff was fantastic examiner. He always create relaxed atmosphere and he was fair in his judgement.

I thought you are going to give him some time to enjoy his retirement but I can see, he can’t give up and stop working.

All the best for him. Candidates are in good hands, no doubt about it.

Cliff will be filling in for staff leave, hospital appointments etc which is brilliant. He will also be running his own programme of courses and these will include some weekends and EVENINGS (from when the clocks change at the end of March). So if you’re working all day and you’re not tired, this could be ideal for you.

He will also be at the Darren Shaw (Sheffield) site from time to time to take the pressure off.

Pete :laughing: :laughing: