As someone that has fairly recently done ATPL's who is not a good self-motivator I would recommend going to a school if possible. I tried distance learning for6 months getting virtually nowhere. My teachers at Cabair were pretty good and I got through the course with reasonable 1st time passes in all subjects, some being completely irrelevent to a helicopter pilot like me. I found it invaluable to have certain subjects thoroughly taught and i very much doubt that I could have passed the Nav papers without having an expert explain them to me. The course lasted 6 months with roughly 5 modules learnt at a time with 3 exam sittings. I would guess, however that if you are very motivated and able to self study, you will do equally well at home although knowing someone that could give you 1 to 1 tuition on topics that you find hard would be a great help. Databases are also helpful and are available but they are not a substitute for knowledge of a subject and there will always be new questions added to trip you up.