Ozzies also have the same nonsense, and we have at least one checkie in our company who will make you do the circling time and time again until it is to his satisfaction. He expects a 600 fpm descent to commence 20 to 30 seconds past the abeam threshold position, even tho you are of course blind at that point (always night in minimum vis)Definitely negative training when done under check conditions as it really gets some pilots up tight to have to keep repeating an un natural act.
One solution could be to fit some sort of visual ground lighting to the sim visuals as a lead-in system. Have a look at the system at Port Vila in Vanuatu and I am sure that there are others around the world. Then it could perhaps be tested rather than trained, but meantime I treat it as training only and would only consider a candidate to have failed if they got outside the circling area or altitude/speed parameters.