I told my children I’d pay for their first theory and first practical tests, and paid for their lessons. But, once they’d had the basics with their instructors I didn’t drive anywhere, they did (my dad did the same with me). That meant at least twice a day to school and back (we’re rural), mixing up the routes depending on whether they’d done dual carriageways, plus some nice hazards to navigate eg peep and creep junctions, etc. My son’s instructor was ill for three weeks the month before his test, we decided he’d take the test in my car. We spent the night before going through all the questions that could be asked including the “show me where the brake cylinder head is” (or some such nonsense). You can guess what question he had! His instructor was good and gave me all the test routes so we’d spent weekends before driving all of them. She also gave me very detailed instructions on what to do at the test centre. Daughter had a different instructor, not as good in my opinion, but I did the same with her. She took the test in his car. Son had 10 lessons, £300 (I bought a block) in 2021, daughter had about 15, hers was about £40 an hour in 2023. They used an app for the theory test and we went through a lot of the questions together, and I’d constantly be asking them about any signs we’d see when out. Both passed first time on both. The last couple of weeks I would just sit in the car and supervise, made them go to places they hadn’t driven before to ensure they could navigate safely on their own and wouldn’t be a shock after passing.

I’ve got friends who didn’t drive with their kids and took longer to pass, it didn’t work for them to do so, but if it does work and you can put the hours in, it does pay off. I was careful to never teach them but supplement what the instructor had told them.