Glossary
The words of running
a driving school
The ones that come up every day at the front desk, in a quotation, in a contract or on an invoice. For the terms of driving itself and of road risk — REMC, AAC, plateau, ANTS, OPCO — see the driving glossary.
- Initial assessment
- The review carried out before the first driving lesson. It is marked section by section — experience, knowledge of the vehicle, skill, perception, nerves, and so on — and produces a proposed forecast volume of training, which then appears in the contract without committing anyone to the final number of hours. The trainer can still change the proposal, but never below the statutory minimum number of driving hours for the category being prepared.
- Digital learning record book
- The record book the law requires you to fill in for every learner, tracing their path through training. It is how the driving hours given are declared to the authorities — and it is also what feeds the calculation of your training capacity.
- Package (or plan)
- The offer in the school's catalogue: a licence category, a period of access to the theory course, a number of driving hours, a price and a VAT rate. It is what you attach to a learner in a quotation, and then in the contract. A generic package also exists, for anything that fits no category.
- Licence category
- The licence being prepared. Car: B, accompanied driving, automatic gearbox, B96, BE. Two-wheelers: AM, A1, A2, A. Heavy-vehicle group: C1 to DE. Each category carries its own theory test, the presence or absence of an off-road test — which also exists for BE and for the whole heavy-vehicle group, not only for motorcycles — a minimum age to sit it, and the qualification the instructor must hold in order to teach it.
- ETG — the general theory test
- The "theory test". One and the same general theory test counts for cars and for the heavy-vehicle group; the motorcycle categories come under a separate theory test, and AM training has no classroom test at all. A theory pass is valid for five years. After that the learner has to sit it again — and a driving test slot booked for nothing costs months.
- Training contract
- The written agreement between the school and the candidate. It carries, among other things, the cancellation terms, the declaration of hours to the digital record book, the result of the initial assessment, the right of withdrawal when the sale was made at a distance or away from the premises, the rules for terminating in proportion to the services already delivered, and the free return of the candidate's file on request.
- Payment schedule
- The payment calendar drawn from the contract: one amount spread over several dated instalments, with or without a larger deposit at the start. Spread to the cent — the last instalment absorbs the rounding, so the total comes out exact.
- Credit note
- The document that corrects an invoice already issued. You do not rewrite an invoice: you issue a credit note, numbered and dated, and the accounts stay consistent and auditable.
- Attendance signature
- The learner's signature, taken at the start and at the end of the lesson, which stands as proof of attendance at the session.
- CEPC
- The official marking grid for the category B practical test. It is also what you use for a mock test, so that the learner is assessed against the same criteria as on the day.
- Branch
- The office a learner is attached to in a school that has more than one. Staff access is divided branch by branch.
- Hours owed
- Hours already paid for by learners and not yet given. It is not a regulatory term, it is a way of counting: as long as there are hours still to give, part of the money already in the account is a commitment, not a profit. It is the line most often missing when you look at your cash position.
- Cost price of an hour
- What an hour of driving really costs. The salary is monthly, the car wears out by the kilometre, the rent is quarterly — and the hours given are counted nowhere against them. Putting the two side by side gives the only figure that tells you whether your price holds up.
- Leaving balance
- What is still owed, or to be refunded, when a learner leaves the school before the end of their training. The calculation is made in proportion to the services delivered — and two equally defensible ways of counting do not give the same result. Better to know that before the conversation than after.
- Training capacity (FTE)
- The weight of the school in full-time equivalents, which sets how many of your candidates can be waiting for a test slot at the same time. It is not declared and it is not derived from employment contracts: where the figure comes from.
A term missing? This glossary grows as the questions come in. See also the questions support gets and, depending on your post, what supervision changes for the front desk, the instructor or the manager.
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