Balancing study with all the other stuff in your life, like work, family and friends, is a real struggle, but it is possible. I've got a wife and kid and a pretty demanding day job, but I managed, with the Oxford distance learning course, to pass six out of the seven nav papers in February, just missing the seventh by 1%.
Unfortuntately failed three of the tech papers, but that was back in the bad old days of the first JAR exams last year and I hope to get them all in the bag when I finally resit next month.
If the OATS distance learning system wasn't so flexible, I'd never have got anywhere. I've constantly had to change groundschool and exam dates due to work or family commitments, but grim determination to finish is what keeps you going.
Superfly. Personally, I've always needed a few weeks after the groundschool to go over all the material again, but others might find it better going straight into the exams. Think a lot of it depends on how prepared you are before the groundschool. If you know the stuff inside out, then the groundschool should really just be fine tuning ahead of the exams. I wasn't up to speed as much as I'd like to have been before my last groundschool at OATS, so decided to wait a month before doing the exam. That give me the opportunity to take full advantage of the excellent exam feedback we got whilst at OATS and work on any problem areas. You can never be fully prepared for these damn exams, but you'll probably know yourself if you're ready.
Best of luck to any other long suffering distance learners!