Ivor -
Yes, I believe it would. The requirement is a certain amount of residential hours (a percentage of total study hours) at the groundschool itself. Bristol does this in 2 x two week stints.
The 8 and 6 system at BGS seems to work well for most and their brush ups are excellent - I went in to mod 1 having recurrent nightmares about certain subjects (gen.nav, instruments etc) and then sat 6 of them the very next week and sat two more the month after (so not the normal 8 in one week) I passed all of them and averaged 92%. Big thumbs up for BGS!
I am about to sit the second set of exams (6) but have deferred Principles of Flight until Jan as on day one of round two there are THREE exams in a day (PoF, Performance and AGK) There are only four days to sit the 6, so 3 in day one, and then one exam per day for the last three days. WHERE is the sense in that? (well done CAA - just about as much common sense as some of the ATPL questions!) PoF is my nemesis a bit like GNAV was in mod 1.
So yeah, use the sittings to your advantage. Most people do fine on the standard BGS 8/6, but I felt that in mod 1 my average pass was raised by devoting more time to less subjects in one sitting.