foxmoth,
I was going to suggest the same thing.
When I was doing IR training at Calgary (many years ago), we were not given IFR clearances during practice approaches, which were referred to by ATC as "exercises". We operated under VFR and often were told to break off, in order to accommodate IFR traffic.
The only time we were given IFR clearances was for cross-country flights, which on one occasion, resulted in a expedite request, because jet traffic was catching us up. A full-throttle, flaps-up ILS in a 172 was interesting to say the least, particularly the amount of time it took to slow to Vfe!