What is the ADI Part 3 Test?

Part 3 is DVSA's assessment of your teaching ability, a real driving lesson, typically around 45 minutes, delivered while an examiner observes.

On the day, you turn up at the test centre with a pupil, either a learner driver or a full licence holder (they can't be another ADI or PDI). If you're on a trainee licence, bring your PDI licence with you. Your trainer or mentor can come along too, but they can't take part in the lesson itself.

The examiner will have a chat, introduce themselves to your pupil, and head out to the car with you. Here's the bit that catches people out: the test isn't a full lesson from a blank start. It's set up as though the examiner is joining partway through, the initial briefing has already happened, so you do a quick recap and carry on from there.

Once the lesson's underway, it's assessed against the National Standard for driver and rider training, broken into 17 competencies across three categories: lesson planning, risk management, and teaching and learning strategies. It's fundamentally about demonstrating a client-centred lesson, how you teach, not just what you teach. That's also why the test format naturally favours a pupil who's actively driving throughout, it's simply not possible to properly demonstrate teaching in a stationary, controls-only lesson within the test's structure. You can stop, reflect, and adjust the plan throughout, same as you would in any real lesson.

At the end, there's a short debrief with your pupil to reflect on the lesson together. The examiner then steps away to go through their notes, and comes back with feedback and your result. The exact procedures examiners follow are set out in DVSA's own guidance for examiners conducting instructor tests (ADI1), worth a read if you want the official detail behind what's being assessed.

If you'd rather talk through how to actually prepare for it, get in touch, that's a conversation worth having properly rather than over a page of text.