There is no single document called "the DVSA syllabus". Two DVSA standards do the work between them. The national standard for driving cars and light vans (category B), published 30 March 2010, sets out five roles a safe driver has to fulfil, running from preparing yourself, the vehicle and its passengers through to reviewing and adjusting driving behaviour over a lifetime. The national standard for driver and rider training, published 31 October 2011 and last updated 20 November 2020, sets out what an instructor must be able to do. Its unit on designing learning programmes expects you to create lesson plans with learning objectives and to specify how you will review learner progress and programme effectiveness. DVSA also publishes a 27-skill breakdown in the learning to drive record.
DVSA's form Record your pupils' progress learning to drive was first published 11 February 2020 and last updated 7 February 2023. It lists 27 skills in eight groups: the basics, control and positioning, observations, signalling and planning, junctions, roundabouts and crossings, manoeuvres, road types, driving conditions, and following routes. Each skill is marked across five levels: 1 introduced, 2 helped, 3 prompted, 4 independent, 5 reflection. Two versions exist, a lesson-by-lesson sheet and a progress summary, and use of either is optional. DVSA stresses that a pupil can move down the levels as well as up. DVSA states: "You must not use digital versions of the forms on a tablet or mobile device", because using such a device while supervising a provisional licence holder is illegal.
An ADI usually takes a standards check every four years. The examiner observes around 45 minutes of a client-centred lesson and marks 17 competencies in three groups: lesson planning, risk management, and teaching and learning strategies. Each competency scores 0 to 3, giving a maximum of 51. On the current ADI SC1 report form, 43 to 51 is grade A, 31 to 42 is grade B, and 30 or below is a fail; scoring 7 or less on risk management is an automatic fail regardless of the total. Several marked questions bear directly on knowing where a pupil has got to, including whether the trainer identified the pupil's learning goals and needs, whether the agreed lesson structure suited the pupil's experience and ability, and whether the pupil was encouraged at the end of the session to reflect on their own performance.
DVSA neither collects nor audits pupil progress records. What it does track is test outcomes. Its published ADI standards check: indicators and triggers, last updated 17 May 2023, uses four measures over a rolling 12-month period, applied once at least five of your pupils have taken a test in that window: average driving faults per test of 6 or greater, average serious faults per test of 0.55 or greater, examiner physical action in 10% or more of tests, and a pass rate of 55% or lower. Reaching the trigger point on three or more of the four brings a standards check. Progress records feed none of those figures directly.
If progress recording matters to your school, start by checking whose syllabus is built into the software. The DVSA 27-skill list with the five named levels should be there as standard, and any house scale a supplier has invented should be visible as such, with room to add your own items for intensive courses, refresher work or Pass Plus. Check that a level can be moved down as well as up, and that each change keeps its date and its author, since a single "current level" field destroys the evidence of how a pupil got there. The record should belong to the pupil, so that someone moving between cars in a multi-instructor school keeps their history, and there should be a clean pupil-facing summary you can print or email without exposing your own lesson notes. Look at where test dates and results are stored, and whether faults per test and pass rate can be reported per instructor, because those are the numbers behind a standards check trigger. Ask directly how the software expects marking to happen, since using a tablet or mobile device while supervising a provisional licence holder is illegal. Finally, confirm bulk export and per-pupil deletion. Pupil progress notes are personal data and the school remains the controller, whatever the diary software does with them.
All figures were checked against GOV.UK on 6 September 2026: the national standard for driving cars and light vans (category B, published 30 March 2010), the national standard for driver and rider training (updated 20 November 2020), the DVSA learning to drive record (updated 7 February 2023), the ADI standards check guide and ADI SC1 report form, and ADI standards check: indicators and triggers (updated 17 May 2023); DVSA revises thresholds and forms without notice, so verify current wording before relying on any figure here.