BCFT's ground school is as far as I'm concerned very good. It is well structured and most importantly well taught. However remember that lecturers can and do come and go and any school is only ever as good as its employees. I would recommend the ground school for residential, and this is "somewhat" objective as I have a fair amount of education behind me and have experienced a range of teaching styles and methods and I consider BCFT very good. I have of course not experienced any other ATPL ground school so cannot give a comparison to other providers.
With regard to the flying side of things, I believe this may be a slightly different matter (I have gone elsewhere) and in my opinion perhaps does not complement the high quality of the ground school as well as it should. Pass rates do not seem to be quite as good as some others at Bournemouth, but whether this is down to the teaching or perhaps just a different calibre of student recently is impossible to say. This is something worth noting with any school, and the only way to get a decent opinion is to back seat at as many as you can, chat to students, chat to the ops staff and chat to the instructors who will teach you, not just the sales people/heads of training.
I have first hand experience of “sales technique” from BCFT which contained some misleading and factually incorrect information. I am also led to believe that they have increased their class sizes from the 10-15 they advertise on their website (not sure about their paper literature), that’s not to say it’s a squeeze as I’m sure there are Fire Regs etc they should abide by, just a bit sneaky in my opinion.
I would also be aware that some opinions and posts on pprune are at the request of some of the staff at BCFT. However I'm sure many ex/students on here are writing exactly as they found.
At the end of the day there is no holy grail of school, and what is right for one is not necessarily the same for others, after all while the above is my opinion, I’m sure if you visited and chatted to students you would find plenty of good stuff. I just believe there are a few issues which if ironed out would turn BCFT into something very good indeed. (for example little things such as encouraging students to dispose of the fuel samples in a way that does not damage the aprons, or leaving headsets next to the magnetic compass, it’s the small things in my opinion which set aside a Professional pilot from a really excellent Professional pilot).
Apologise that this has turned into a long post, and remember to make your own opinions from visiting as many schools as possible.