DX Wombat
Before reading both the above and the comments in the Private Flying section I had already made a couple of comments on the Flyer Forum (MrShoe is everywhere).
At a glance:
The safe altitude isn't a safe altitude. The figures are the relevant MEFs. I always teach my students to be prepared for inadvertent entry into IMC. Standard 5 nm/ 1000'/ plus 300' for unknown obstacle calculations.
There are heading calculation inaccuracies. This should have been noticed by the instructor. Having said that, none of us are perfect.
A lack of drift lines makes me wonder what techniques the student has been taught to get back on track/ correct heading to fly to destination.
As to the discussion about the reference features used, I think that BEagle concerns about the reference features used are possibly a bit over the top.
I'm not at all surprised at the standard of the students preparation and potentially the standard of the instruction that he has received. This is a generalisation, but in my opinion the standard of PPL training in the UK isn't exactly brilliant at the moment. Why is this? I don't know for sure. Possible answers are part-timers who are just playing at being instructors, hour builders who really don't want to be instructing, or disheartened instructors who are being paid very little for their services...?