When JAR-FCL first came to the UK, I amended our basic pre-circuit lesson plans into the following 12 lessons. Thus each new student should have no less than 10 hours of basic flying before being introduced to circuit flying:
(Flight times probably longer than at other aerodromes, due to the transit time required in and out of the Class D CTR)
Despite this, we found that certain FIs would short change the students during these essential early exercises, just to start bashing the circuit. This is invariably counter-productive as the student simply hasn't had time to consolidate the esentials of attitude flying and accurate trimming before coping with the demands of the circuit.