My name is Jamie Roberts and I am a DVSA approved driving instructor. After 18 years of teaching in the classroom, I took my knowledge and experience of learning into the car, to begin a successful new career as an approved driving instructor. With a pass rate of over 72% in 2025 (compared to national averages of 53%) and an average lesson time to test of just under 32 hours (compared to national averages of approximately 44 hours), JR Driving Academy prides itself in offering a fast, cost effective route to gaining your driver’s licence, whilst also prioritising the development of driving intelligence, so that each student has both the knowledge and skills prepared for a lifetime of safe, independent driving on our roads.

There’s more to our approach than getting your licence quickly, after all 32 hours (average time to test) is a long time to spend with a driving instructor. Throughout our lessons, from our first phone call, I aim to make the student feel confident and put them at ease about the process of learning to drive a car.

Each new student receives a pre-lesson virtual tour of the car and an introductory phone call to discuss any concerns, answer any questions, find out a little more about one another’s lives and to give an overview of the first lesson, which is typically (depending on experience) based in a car park before moving onto quiet beginner roads (and if really successful you will be driving yourself home).

Every learner gets access to our private WhatsApp group, where students celebrate their successes and receive weekly learning tips designed to accelerate their learning. In addition to this, we fully utilise modern technology to provide students with a range of learning materials (e.g. POV narrated videos of popular test routes; in-depth video analysis of local driving hotspots, free Sat Nav loans to students to use in their own car and links towards helpful YouTube content). Students are encouraged to engage with these resources pre-lesson and post-lesson, to optimise their in-car experience, minimising idle time at the side of the road, maximising their time spent driving, and ultimately your development, in lessons. We also help organise and book your theory and practical driving test, finding and changing dates that synchronises with your learning progress so that you have an optimal test slot for when you are fully prepared.

Teaching for 18 years taught me a great deal about how every learner is different and learner drivers are no different, each student needing their own unique approach. Every student is different, a unique combination of their gender, age, origin, previous experience(s), learning style, skills, self-esteem, special education need etc…, and I tailor my instruction approach to YOU, so that YOU can learn in the most optimum way possible.

Outside of the car, I live in Cringleford, Norwich, with my beautiful wife, Kirsty, and our three children, Toby (14), Noah (12) and Lydia (4). I enjoy being outside, whether it’s in our garden, which we share with our four chickens, out on a dog walk (the beach being my favourite destination) or on a countryside run/bike ride either with the family, friends or by myself. I love running (when I have time), which has led me some of my proudest personal achievements: running the London Marathon four times, not only completing but winning a 100km (63 miles, equivalent to 2.5 marathons) ultra marathon and in 2017 representing Great Britain, in Switzerland, as part of the 35-40 age group, in the Duathlon World Championships.