Diesel8,
I also agree with apache. I was in a 250 knot machine only a couple of hours ago and we followed a Tomahawk and 152 around the circuit very successfully. If you had of run a piece of string to illustrate the aircraft's flight path then we all would have flown through it!
You seem to think that you can widen a circuit to give your students time to think! Crazy! Aircraft manufacturers were very mindful of the fact that students would need to move into bigger aircraft and they built aeroplanes with that type of progression in mind.
PA38 -> PA28 -> PA28R -> Saratoga etc...
C152 -> C172 -> C182 -> C182RG -> C210 etc
It's your responsibility to ensure that they aren't flying aeroplanes that they aren't really up to flying. Make them take baby steps until they find themselves in an aircraft that they are comfortable with.
Circumstances often dictate that you fly a Shonky circuit (such as wind on base? or a fellow flying a crazy wide or slow circuit) so it's not like they are never going to see a non-standard circuit - it's pretty obvious that they will see many of them during their training. It seems to me that YOU are one of those shonks that has the rest of us working hard to follow you. It's up to you to teach a consistent circuit that is nothing but perfect so they can recognise those patterns that are not.
It's all part of being a professional.
[This message has been edited by Swamp (edited 14 December 1999).]