Suggest that if you are intent on going the Studly Loan route that you visit:
The list of Nelson Malborough Institute of Technology
Associated Aviation Providers.
All of these places essentially offer the same course via NMIT. Your choice then comes down to which provider of flight training you wish to use.
All the appropriate contact details are there, I would call them up, ask to speak to the CFI and ask them what it is that you want to know.
Starting threads asking "Is ABC Flying Academy any good?" here will not make anything any clearer... because for all the responses that say "yeah, they're OK", you will get just as many saying "nah, they're ****house." and probably even more saying "Forget ABC, goto XYZ"...
Given that you are located in Auckland and are wanting info on AFS, I would suggest visiting them in person and checking it out... hang around for an hour or so, talk to people (not just employees but students etc) and see what actually goes on. Will be far more educational than anything you're likely to glean from this forum
