So I had an assessment with South Eastern on 21st Nov but failed the group bourdon on the written part of the assessment because I wasn't fast enough. Does this mean I can apply to anything with the OPC assessment for 6 months or is that just with southeastern
I've had a few people say I only need to resit the group bourdon test on the written assessment if I were to try again
[TOC = Train Operating Company i.e c2c, Avanti, Southeastern]
Other people will probably know more but here is my experience navigating this awfully convoluted process (I failed first time at MMI)
The group bourdon is one of seven tests (the ones you get introduced to in that orange practice pack thing) used nationally by all companies in the driver assessments. If you fail on any test of the seven to national standard as part of a driver psychometric assessment then it will count as one of two attempts and you won’t be able to retake the driver assessments for another six months.
Finally, any parts of the assessment which you pass are valid for 5 Years. You don’t need to resit those. If you, say, hypothetically, fail at MMI, and pass everything else, the second time (within five years) you would need to just resit the MMI. If you passed let's say four tests, failed one, and didn't get to sit two as a result, then you'd have to sit the failed test + the two not yet taken.
That bit is straightforward, but operators don’t like straightforward because there’s more to it.
Some TOCs will want higher scores on the tests, so you could fail with them specifically on their requirements but still pass to the national standard and not lose a life. You might pass to one TOCs “enhanced standard” but not to another’s enhanced standard. In this case, you would have to retake it (the tests not reaching their standard) with them, and the two lives in the case of failing to national standard would apply.
Some TOCs will use additional tests outside of the seven tests. For example, the VSE (Visual Search Exercise). If you were to fail twice on an additional test then that TOC and any others which use them are no longer an option. If you passed the main seven then these additional tests don’t affect your lives and you can apply to TOCs which don’t use them.
Some TOCs won't recognise results for the whole five years. Some do three, heard that one might do two. Again, this is down to the TOC. In that case, you would not have to resit the entire process until five years, but a TOC may force to resit the whole thing earlier than that to progress the application depending on how long they see results valid for.
Southeastern use national standard so it is a six month wait. I’d say you’re lucky because in the future people will be made to wait a year after failing
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