Rob,
I was similar to you In that I first flew at 14, went down the modular route and slowly built hours. Went solo at 17, onto PPL and now CPL. But whilst these are nice achievements I certainly had to fork out for the privilige.
School can hold you back when at that age, but dont for one minuite think about leaving before A levels. (I was this close to doing that too!)
The decision to make is will your parents pay for everything or a little here and there, say over the course of a few years? Because if you can make the decision to do your training in one go and especially abroad... you could save alot of money!
Check you PM
MADY