approved schools

[fatboyslimfast]

What is the difference between an approved and a non approved school?

Secondly, who approves schools, and what is the point of the exercise?

What will going to an approved school do for me (apart from emptying my wallet faster ) that another school offering the same courses will do?

[Send Clowns]

Some courses require approvals, you can only do them at approved flying training organisation (FTO), others don't. All the commercial courses (flight and ground), plus instructor, multi-engine and IR courses require approval. An FTO can run all courses that they have been approved for (each course is a separate approval) plus non-approved courses which should not cost more due to the approval of other courses. A registered training facility (RTF) cannot teach the courses that require approval.

[smith]

Try Glenochle Young Offenders Unit, it's an approved school lol

[FlyingForFun]

Assuming you are talking about the UK, Send Clowns has pretty much covered it.

The CAA approve schools in the UK. For a complete list of approved schools, and also non-approved schools (aka "registered facilities"), click here.

FFF
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[combineharvester]

"Non Approved" comes from the Pre-JAA era, where if you held an old CAA commercial licence, or a BCPL (now defunct) you could do an Instrument Rating course with no minimum hours training requirements (Like today's 50hr course for CPL holders).
Nice idea, that all went out of the window in 2000 with the advent of JAA