I've taught, and been taught, at big and little schools. I got my UK BCPL and AFI (I guess equivalent to an Oz G3, but I'll not put money on that) at a little school, got all first time passes, and then had to change very little to get the CAA to approve me for CAP509 instruction. For the moment (only a week or so left, possibly) I teach at a major school, and generally the standards are very high, but there is a very definite "within 4 walls" problem; not so much a quality thing as a blind spot.
None of our aircraft are allowed to land on, or take off from, grass runways. The school still teaches short- and rough-field takeoffs and landings, and relies heavily (it would prefer exclusively) on in-house instructors. Thus, you have students learning rough-field techniques from instructors who have never landed on a rough field, and who learned it from instructors who never did it, and in turn learned it from instructors who...
Is it just me, or is there a safety issue there? I've landed on concrete, ashphalt, grass, sand and snow- I can appreciate the need to learn the techniques on a good surface before you try it for real, but I have reservations about teaching something without ever experiencing it. OK, so we do that with emergencies, but with a routine flying practice?
I'll get off my soapbox now (incidentally, the little school where I got my early training was Tayside Aviation, in Dundee, Scotland, and no, I don't own shares).