Like many others here I had it sprung on me.
As my training was spread over several years due to lack of funds caused by not having a steady job for many years.
I found myself repeating a lot of the syllabus at various times.
I got to a point where going solo was mentioned but then got weathered off for a lengthy period.
When I did manage to get back into things I found that my landings had gone from fairly consistent to completely erratic. However after a couple of sessions the instructor told me to taxi in to the club house. I thought at this point he was going to tell me to take up knitting. But no he sent me off solo.
He said that a student that doesn’t make mistakes can’t demonstrate that they can recover when things go wrong.
My recent hamfisted performance had demonstrated more than enough recoveries to convince him that I’d probably survive and possibly leave the aircraft intact as well!