Constable driven to succeed

SUCCESS: Constable Chris Leppien with Alessandra Cope, 17, and some of the 65 students who have gained their learner licenses this year. PHOTO/GLENN TAYLOR

Before a police officer began stopping by three years ago the pass rate for a learner driver's licence at Hastings Girls' High School was not flash.

"We had a lot of fails," the school's workplace co-ordinator Maxine Gilmour said.

But since Constable Christine Leppien, now known to the students as 'Constable Chris', began applying her special touch the pass rate has become 100 per cent.

"We have put through 65 students this year and they all passed," Mrs Gilmour said.

The turnaround was sparked by Ms Leppien who had been involved in a police Blue Light programme which provided groups of students from Hawke's Bay schools a one-day, paid-for course to learn the initial steps toward gaining a driver's licence.

It was run three times a year but the success rate was not high.

"So we looked at it."

She began putting together a resource package involving printed off series of questions which she refined by applying her own learning aides - like more memorable answer associations.

These included using Superman to remember the answer to which way the wheels of a car should be pointing when parked facing uphill.

"Like Superman who went up, up and away," she said.

Go up and the wheels must face away.

"It's about putting it into a context they can understand and use in a practical sense."

She also took a focused one-on-one approach with the students, and for those who struggled with dyslexia or with English as a second language she would put in the extra time, reading for them where it was required.

The students would practise through the questions (they must get at least 32 of the 35 correct) at lunchtimes and the school set up a $5 a week payment system so they could get to the $96 it cost to sit the learner's test which then allowed the holder to begin driver training on the road.

Mrs Gilmour said before the programme was applied students who failed to pass the initial test took "a real blow" and many did not bother trying again.

She said it was vital for them to achieve the learner's while in their senior year at school, as outside the school environment many did not pursue it.

"It can be an expensive and scary process but Chris has got them to overcome that."

The programme will now be taken up and applied by mentor students, although Ms Leppien would still call by to check out how it was going.

And the resource she had created was now being taken up by Hastings Boys' High and Havelock North High Schools.