IGCSE and state schools

[jennolan]

My apologies if this has been asked before, but I understand that since 2010 some state schools have started to offer IGCSE courses as an alternative to GCSE. I've looked at the CIE and Edexcel websites but I can't seem to find a list of schools in London that offer it. Can anyone point me in the right direction?

[jennolan]

Sorry to bump this thread again, but we're getting a bit anxious that we can't find any state schools that offer IGCSE subjects in London. We're looking for a small group of basic subjects like English Lit, Maths, Geography, History and Science. Please, any help greatfully received :-)

[JenaiMorris]

Purely because I'm nosey - why are you set on IGCSE rather than GCSE? Is it because GCSEs are being scrapped in England?

[prettydaisies]

My chn attend an independent school so not helpful for you, I'm afraid. However, as Iamfluffy says, they do a mixture of IGCSEs and GCSEs. I guess each department chooses the course they like best. At my children's school English, MFLs, maths and sciences are done as IGCSEs, the others as GCSEs. So I don't know if you could find a school that only does IGCSEs.

[titchy]

You won't find a list. Each school can choose it's own exams and boards, and these may change from one cohort to another. Plus your list isn't a small group - that's pretty much all the core subjects! You'll have to ask individual schools, though I doubt any state school would offer that many iGCSEs, and if they did by the time your dcs are year 10 they may have changed to GCSEs.

[JenaiMorris]

You would have to look on the website of any schools you're interested in - but these things change from year to year so there's not much point in basing a school choice on it really.

ds is about to start Y8 and will be one of the first to do the GCSE replacement. Except we have no idea what that will be! Even if you found somewhere offering IGCSE now, by the time your daughter reaches Y10 a new head, a new government, new exams may have altered the picture completely.

[GrimmaTheNome]

I can't remember now what the details are, but DDs state GS is doing a different board for chemistry to the other subjects, when I looked at it, seemed to be something that's been accredited for use in state schools which is based on IGCSE. If you can find what the heck I'm on about that might be what you need! (will see if I can find the info later)

[HisMum4now]

All exam boards do IGCSEs now including AQA, Edexcel, OCR and of course Cambridge. Different schools would choose different specification.

Grammar schools might use AQA Certificate = IGCSE

[GrimmaTheNome]

Grammar schools might use AQA Certificate = IGCSE

that might be what I was wittering on about.

[jennolan]

IamFluffy, that's right, we're shifting to London soon, but ds will have no time to complete the coursework for regular GCSE courses, so we're looking at the possibility that intensive study and revision could get him over the line in a limited number of IGCSE subjects where most of the mark comes from a final examination. One of the problems we're facing is that no schools are back from holiday yet, so most of our information is coming from here and various Borough admission teams.

[basildonbond]

I can't see that working in a state school to be honest - you'd have to find one that did exclusively IGCSE in the core subjects whereas most do a mix of GCSE and IGCSE depending on which syllabus individual departments prefer. Then you'd have to get them to take your son into Y11 and effectively run a personal timetable for him - I can't think of any state schools that would have the resources that would require, not to mention that your son, already dealing with a complete change of culture, environment and friends would have to hit the ground academically sprinting faster than Usain Bolt in order to have a hope in hell of getting any decent grades ...