Drive School of Motoring

Automatic Driving Lessons, Driving Schools

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Website | 01268 478606
171 Curling Tye, Basildon SS14 2PW, UK

Opening Hours:
Monday: 9:00 AM – 5:00 PM
Tuesday: 1:00 – 5:00 PM
Wednesday: 9:00 AM – 5:00 PM
Thursday: 9:00 AM – 5:00 PM
Friday: 9:00 AM – 5:00 PM
Saturday: 9:00 AM – 4:00 PM
Sunday: Closed


Area Served:
Within 4 miles (6.4km) of 171 Curling Tye, Basildon SS14 2PW, UK
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Cost and Pricing:

Many learner students and their parents assume that all Driving Schools and Driving Instructors are the same! After all, they are qualified and trained to prepare you to pass your driving test, aren’t they? Well it may come as a surprise but not all Driving Instructors are qualified at all! It’s been a long-standing issue within the driving school industry that ‘trainee’ instructors are allowed by law to provide lessons at the same lesson rate as fully qualified instructors! Personally, I think this practice is very wrong and many Driving Schools do not mention this fact when students are booking their lessons. There are a couple of things you can do to find out if your allocated Instructor is fully qualified: 1. Ask at the time of booking and 2. Check their operating licence that should be in the front window of the tuition vehicle. A PINK licence indicates a trainee that is yet to pass their qualifying exam and a GREEN licence for a fully qualified Instructor.

Let’s assume that your Instructor is fully qualified. Instructors vary enormously in the way they teach the syllabus and the quality of their teaching. They also vary in customer skills when it comes to their patients and friendliness. It is quite disturbing that around 30% of all learner drivers feel the need to change their driving instructor before reaching test standard because of incompatibility issues or the lack of student progress. Many Instructors work as sole operators and have no requirement for ongoing training. In fact, many independent Instructors never take any further training from the day that they qualified. Very few Driving Schools monitor their driving instructor’s performance and provide ongoing training to ensure they keep up to date with modern teaching methods.

Ever since Colin qualified over twenty years ago and started the Driving School, his approach has always been to provide outstanding value for money and customer rapport. As he started to grow the School, his main concern was how he could scale the School but still retain his own ethics. He was alarmed in the early days just how poor some of our early Instructor recruits were and the general standard of tuition being offered in the local area.

It was for this reason that we opened our own Instructor Training Academy during 2007. The only way we were able to guarantee that we only recruited the very best Instructors, was to teach and prepare them ourselves. All our Instructors now must come through our own Training Academy and take a comprehensive 80-hour course and qualify before they can teach any of our learner students.

As you can probably appreciate, the cost to prepare the very best Instructors is considerable and then we must pay them a suitable lesson fee to retain their services.

So how is this a benefit to you, the student? We operate a unique ALS (Accelerated Learning System) which as the name suggests, is in place to speed up your learning period and ensure you receive full value for your money. All our Instructors are trained on this system and we have quality control procedures in place to monitor the tuition you receive. You will also be provided with feedback forms on your Instructor, so you are able to mark them on their performance for all aspects of their interaction with you.

Your driving lessons will adhere to the DVSA’s client centred policy and will be interactive so you will have a big input to how they are conducted. This policy eliminates many frustrations that students encounter with large amounts of time parked at the kerbside and endless hours of aimless driving around with no firm lesson objective.

You can access full details of our unique ALS system by watching the main video on this page – ‘Save your time and your money by watching this video’.

Hopefully, I have been able to enlighten you as to why driving lesson prices vary enormously and explain why Driving Instructors are not all the same. Purchasing what appear to be ‘cheap’ lessons and a good deal is tempting, especially when on a tight budget, but like most things in life, there is often a hidden cost to cheap and that is quite often a much longer learning period, frustration at the lack of progress and the expense of a failed test and having to take further lessons.

We operate a very simple pricing policy:

Manual Lesson fees are £34 per hour with a minimum of two-hour lessons, so £68.00 per two hour lesson.

You can purchase a block of ten hours for £320.00, which gives you a saving of £20.00 on each block of ten hours.

Automatic Lessons are £35.00 per hour, again with a minimum of two-hour lessons, so £70.00 per two hour lesson.

You can purchase a block of ten hours for £330.00, which will save you £20.00 on every block of ten hours for automatic lessons.

We suggest that if possible, you purchase a block of ten hours to benefit from the discount.

If for any reason you are not delighted with your instructor and your tuition, we will make a refund and any unused lessons purchased will also be refunded.

We operate a 48-hour pre-pay policy and lessons can be purchased by using any of the methods listed below. We do not take cash on the day of your lesson.

Card payment over the phone during the working week between 9am and 6pm

Bank Transfer: using the details below

Drive School of Motoring

Sort code 09-01-29

Account Number 35871936

Please use the name of the student taking lessons as the payment reference

The shop facility on this website 24/7 – You can find the shop link in the top menu

Google Rating: 4.8 out of 5 stars (32 total ratings)

Reni Tina
5 Star
I would like to thank my driving instructor Colin for all of his patience, time and hard work. Colin is a wonderful teacher who managed to remain calm the entire time even when I made mistakes. He took the time to explain everything to me with great detail and care. I would highly recommend Drive School of Motoring to anyone who is looking to gain the adequate knowledge and confidence on the road.
Wednesday 16th August 2023
Paulina Pluta
5 Star
I have no words on how amazing my experience was with Driving school of Motoring ! I was really lucky to have the best in the world Peter Wright as an instructor , patient and understanding (we literally joked about everything so i did not feel any stress.) No matter how much you dont believe in yourself Peter believes in everyone he is one in a million HIGHLY HIGHLY RECOMMENDE ! (ps. Pete loves to be surpsrised with home baked cakes ;) ) I passed my test today with only 1 driving fault Thanks Pierre you are the best
Monday 1st May 2023
Samuel Pattman
5 Star
Joined Colin after my previous instructor changed careers with only a few months before my test. Colin inspires confidence and has a very clear and concise way of explaining not only how to drive safely, but why driving in a certain way is necessary as well! I thoroughly enjoyed the lessons and he made changing instructors at a crucial time so much easier to handle! Would highly recommend Drive School of Motoring!
Wednesday 23rd November 2022
Amir Ali
1 Star
(Giving review on behalf of friend): So I believe Colin is an instructor who definitely has the knowledge. He knows what he is talking about. Seems very experienced and no question about their driving knowledge/understanding. However it is one matter having knowledge but it is another skill effectively transferring that knowledge and teaching someone a skill like driving. Colin's approach and style to teaching pupils is definitely not an effective one in my opinion. If you want an instructor who will shout at you (as in genuinely raise their voice extremely loudly), then he is your person. I am giving an honest review because this is what I experienced. I still recall a time when I questioned him about this approach of shouting at me. I did not like it and I really should have maybe changed my instructor from there. Being calm and understanding that a learner driver is going to make mistakes is something an instructor needs to understand. In fact, shouting is definitely not going to help the situation and I think it made me make even more mistakes. Additionally I think he is an instructor who will not even let you drive for a good period of time before pulling you over. In fact it takes half hour just to go through what we will be doing for a lesson. You learn by driving, not solely by you having a discussion with the pupil for a whole hour. If you want an instructor where you sit for an hour (bearing in mind you pay £30-32 an hour) then you shouldn't mind this. But I've realised that we were wasting sooo much time just parked up on the side of a road where we will discuss the most minor matter for around 10 to 15 minutes. There was a time when there was a slight mistake and instead just talking to me whilst driving, he pulled me over and explained this small mistake for 15+ minutes. He didn't even let me drive for 1 minute, and already pulled me over. This is an approach that is not effective at all. So if any pupil seeking to learn driving likes this approach, rather than an instructor who actually let's you drive continuously and practice, then this may not be an issue. But for me personally, I've realised this is not an effective approach. It's like saying you can teach someone to ride a bike by explaining things to them. You actually need to let the pupil do driving. Not constantly stopping them and having talks with them. Especially when the issue is soo minor. I think this was something he did continously with me. Do not get me wrong, there were times where he would let me drive for around 5 minutes, but then when I changed instructors, they let me drive continuously and always was calm and never pulled me over once. My new instructor recognised that you learn by doing (in this case driving), not sitting parked up for 15 minutes explaining such a minor matter. I hope all those seeking to learn how to drive bear this mind before making a decision. I want to help other people and so I am giving my own experience. Also, I passed 1st time and learnt sooo much more with my new instructor at a much faster pace. I realised the difference of not shouting, remaining calm, letting me drive continously and only speaking to me for short periods of time for minor mistakes. Hope this helps everyone. Again, I am not saying this instructor isn't knowledgeable but I am giving my experiences/opinions and trying to help other people seeking to learn how to drive with my review.
Sunday 14th May 2023
Vix Smith
5 Star
Colin has a unique ability to convey information and give instructions in a simple way that can be easily digested, in any situation. He was consistently calm, collected and positive throughout all of my lessons which made me feel at ease from start to finish. Over the months I learned to drive, Colin was never late and didn't cancel a single lesson. I loved the way he supported my learning with various visual props and continuously gave feedback. I also appreciated him asking for my input when planning our next session whilst summarising the one we just had. - Nothing was to much trouble and his ability to adapted my lessons to suit my needs was impressive. I feel very lucky to have had Colin as my instructor. His commitment to ensuring my driving knowledge was sound and I had the correct mindset was most definitely key to improving my confidence and led to me passing my test, with only 2 minors. Lastly, despite of coronavirus he continued my lessons putting in place as many safety precautions as he could. Because he understood as a key worker I desperately needed to learn to drive for the safety of my family and those I work with. Amazing guy, always went above and beyond, patience of a saint and his car is fantastic to learn In. I highly recommend Colin to anyone because he succeeded where others failed and help me pass my test. Thank you so much.
Wednesday 17th June 2020