Hi Superpilot,
The exams start on the first Monday of every month, unless that Monday happens to be a bank holiday, in which case they will start on the following Monday.
The timetable is fixed. Usually the same as the one I posted above.
No matter how many exams you take within the same exam week, this will be counted as 1 exam room sitting. So if you take 1, 2 or even 8 exams in the same week then you will have used up 1 sitting at the exam hall.
Why does this matter? Well you are only allowed up to 6 sittings at the exam room in total. So this obviously means you will need to sit more than one exam at a time. Ideally you will be wanting to do 5 or so each time to leave you enough sittings left if you have to resit any.
Talking about resits, these have to be taken within the total of the 6 sittings BUT you are only allowed 4 attempts at each subject.
If you use up all 6 sittings and haven't passed them all, or if you fail one or more of the subjects 4 times then its back to school as you'll have to start the ATPL exams all over again, from scratch. Although I believe the CGI at the school can wave the requirement of the study time required in this case.
Most schools have organised their courses into two or three modules. Bristol has two modules, the first one with 8 subjects/exams and the second module containing 6 exams. If you pass the exams first time and take them all in the same relevant sitting for the module then you'll take two sittings in total. This would leave you 4 sittings left in case you did fail any.
The school I am with (NAC) have 7 subjects/exams in each module, so giving me two modules.
Cabair, Cranfield Aviation etc have three modules, with I believe 5 subjects/exams in the first two modules and 4 in the last module (although I might be wrong). Leaving one with 3 sittings left for any resits.
Hope this answers your question.
Charlie Zulu.