Is a "Go Around" an unfamiliar manoeuvre to a student pilot?

When I began soloing, my instructor forbade me to engage in any low-
altitude
maneuvering on final approach (e.g. 360s for spacing, which the tower
sometimes called for). He explained clearly that any such request from
ATC
should be met with "Unable, student pilot, going around", followed by
a
standard go-around. I think that's an excellent policy for students
until
they have extensive solo-landing experience.

I would respectfully disagree with this line of reasoning from an
instructor and would never recommend this or condone this procedure from
any instructor within shouting distance of my voice :-)
The entire purpose of teaching people to fly airplanes is to teach them
to operate safely within a constantly changing dynamic. This means both
the aerodynamic AND the ATC dynamic.
Students learning to fly in a controlled traffic environment are not
well served by instructors who encourage them to deny an ATC request as
a routine procedure based on the fact that the pilot is a student.
This should in no way be misconstrued into meaning that a student
shouldn't take whatever action is necessary to maintain flight safety if
contrary to an instruction from ATC. It does mean however that student
pilots are better taught to function in the traffic environment as
PILOTS rather than students right from the gitgo, as in any and all
situations encountered in that environment they will have to act as
pilots and not students.
The only time a student should not follow an instruction from ATC is
when that instruction over rides a flight safety issue that is
immediately apparent to the student. In that case, an "unable to comply"
followed by a brief transmission as to why is the protocol, but doing
this should always be the abnormal situation not the norm!
In the specific instance you have used as an example, there might very
well be a valid reason known to the controller ONLY as to why a specific
instruction was given at a specific moment in time. There could ALSO be
a valid reason why a go around from a present position when the ATC
request was made would be inadvisable due to traffic separation or an
aircraft sequencing on a crossing runway.
The reasons why something can be valid or invalid in the ATC environment
are many and varied.
The bottom line on this is that a student pilot should be trained to
respond to any and all reasonable requests made by ATC when in the
traffic pattern of a controlled field, NOT taught to change or deny an
ATC request based on a student pilot status. If the student is dual, the
instructor is PIC. If the student is solo, that student should know how
to deal with any and all ATC requests and be functioning as a normal
aircraft in the traffic environment. That responsibility is also the
instructor's.
Dudley Henriques
Dudley Henriques