Navigation, however you do it takes practice and more practice. Hopefully you will be properly taught the basics and you will make sure that you understand them (ie don't hesitate to ask if your intructor makes a complete bish of teaching it). Sadly there are many instructors who cannot navigate very well themselves. Most of us navigate using a mixture of techniques, all of which are valid providing the user understands them.
"Track crawl" ie the technique of navigating by ground features is difficult to pick up but extremely useful. Afterall it combines enjoying the view with navigation. I find the half mil charts about as good as useless except for planning long legs. The quarter mill is far better and can be used to pick out the shapes of towns, lakes and woodland (very useful). Often it is a combination of features that confirms a location (eg motorway junction with forrest on its east side). Helicopter pilots will also use 1:50,000 OS maps, but only for finding a private site or for low level poor viz nav in a specialist role.
Get your instructor to point out land marks AND their relative position to Elstree. The Buncefield depot (or what's left of it) is a good one as it is also close to the Luton zone. Also learn the shape of the local motorway junctions - there are many in that area, but by judgeing the directions each motorway goes in helps with identification. Familiarity will eventually mean that you will be able to readily recognise where you are.
By the way, I think we all as students were concerned with navigation at early stages of the ppl. You are not alone!