Examinations and qualifications

It's important to decide what examinations your child will be taking. You may base these on your child's future aspirations. For example:

Does your child wish to go onto college and if so what course would they like to do?
What do they want to do beyond statutory school age?

If you can identify what path your child wishes to take, then you'll be able to determine what exams they will need.

If you're still unsure, check out helpyouchoose.org. The service offers information, advice and guidance from Year 8 onwards (ages 13+). Some families choose to stagger exams across years 9, 10 and 11.

Booking the exams

Home educated young people will sit exams as private candidates. You will need to contact an exam centre to register your child as a private candidate to sit their exams. There will be a charge for the examinations, and you may also be charged an admin fee by the exam centre.

The Joint Council for Qualifications has published a searchable directory of examination centres that take private candidates for the summer:

View the directory of examination centres for private candidates (opens in new window) (opens new window).

The centre links in the directory will provide more information. This includes whether they are offering remote assessment.

It's sensible to make enquiries from the autumn before the summer of exam sitting and certainly no later than January.

You should clarify your child's subjects, boards, tiers and any special access requirements at the earliest opportunity.

Be aware that many schools or colleges do not appear to have an affiliation or registration with the Cambridge (CIE and OCR) boards. So they're unable to offer examinations with these boards.

Further information

You may find the links below helpful for support:

Exam specifications and exam boards

Top tips for organising exams:

Find out what exam board/GCSE your child was studying while at school (if applicable)
Work out whether your child should enter the foundation or higher paper:
- Higher tier is for candidates predicted to achieve grades 4-9 ( old style C-A**)
- Foundation is for candidates expected to achieve grades 1-5 ( old style G-C)
Visit individual exam board websites once you have decided which one to use. You'll find lots of free guidance, including subject specifications.

Difference between GCSE and iGCSEs

Many GCSEs taken in schools and colleges include coursework or assessments. Teachers or assesors will mark these.

Many home educating children take iGCSEs (i=international) examinations. This type of GCSE is exam-based only and does not include any coursework. Here are a few exam boards that offer iGCSEs:

Functional Skills

Functional Skills in English and Maths are an alternative to GCSEs. They focus on workplace literacy and numeracy and you can access them from Entry Level up to Level 2.

You can book exams and complete them online at home.

To give an indication of levels, a Level 2 Functional Skills pass is equal to a Grade 4 at GCSE.

The following links offer more information about Functional Skills: