good on you for being so honest and open
Agreed, a lot of people run into problems, big and small, in early training and even later in their careers ( type changes, command upgrades, etc) , I certainly have in the past and its nothing to be ashamed of. In fact I do wish more would fess up "in this place" to encourage the others, rather than "piece of cake, rose tinted glasses etc". In short you are not alone.
"Sims didn't go quite so well. Mainly consistently in one area.
Have been delayed by two blocks of considerable time and just lots of hanging around waiting for some additional training"
You may not feel able to answer or comment on this but normally if a stude runs into problems the best bet for all involved is to try and get the problem/retraining sorted out ASAP, rather than have them hanging around. Sounds a bit odd and perhaps unfair on you but maybe it is a problem with training capacity.