GCSE exams procedure - for the home schooled

[Georgiepud]

If a child is home schooled, how do they go about sitting the proper GCSE examinations?
Presumably you have to pay to enter them? Can they just rock.up at the local school on the day?

No they can't just rock up at school on the day! You have to register them and organise a place at an exam centre that takes outside candidates (schools may, but generally not). Both the site where they take the exams and the exam board that publishes and distributes the papers needs to know what papers they are sitting and where they are sitting them. They must by registered with the relevant exam boards JCQ (The Joint Council of Qualifications) has details on how to sort the process.)
https://www.jcq.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/Private_Candidates_FAQs_Summer_2022_v2.pdf

Children will need to be registered for their exams well in advance. If you google gcse exam centres near me, you will find places you could approach

I presume that you are thinking about the 2027 exam entries. The 2026 entries have to be in by 21st Feburary, but private entries are earlier, and vary by board. Some were 30th January.

Nobody can just rock up to a school and take an exam!

You need to find an exam centre that is willing for them them to take their exams there - many won’t as they have no idea if the child is up to it and it will affect their results. Once you’ve found somewhere, there are fees that will need to be paid. Some courses have coursework and practical components that will also need to be organised (sciences, languages, music etc) too.

when does your child plan to sit their GCSE’s? I really hope it’s not 2026

I briefly looked into this. Some cities have exam centres. Possibly the same places that hold the written theory part of the driving test.
It didn't looks like there were many places to take exams privately.

DS sat his at a private school. They were extremely helpful, and supplied teachers for the spoken element of his language exams. I however messed up a bit, DS sat combined science, I thought he would get two marks but was only awarded one. So double check everything. He is now in college doing his a levels.

Tutors and exams have a lot of centres in various different places.

External candidates don’t affect the centres stats as they’re not on roll there.

OP you’d be very unlikely to find a centre to host your child for this summer’s exams as the entries have to be in by the 21st February and there are many, many checks to do.

My mistake. That must just be an excuse that a local school used then!

I think they use a separate centre reference number for external candidates (and sometimes some of their weaker candidates if private).

Combined science is 2 GCSEs. They are either two of the same grade or two next to each other

assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/5ab4bc2040f0b67d64e214b2/Combined_science_grading.pdf

And depending on subject and board there may be Controlled Assessments and/or coursework to be marked and moderated.

Home educated students usually sit iGCSEs instead of GCSEs for subjects where the GCSE includes a controlled assessment or course work.

OP your local secondary school may cater for private candidates (and charge) or you may have to find a private exam centre.

This site is very thorough with info about choosing and sitting exams https://he-exams.fandom.com/wiki/HE_Exams_Wiki

Normally private schools / private exam centres with fees paid etc and registered far in advance.

A couple of local authorities will find GCSE exams for home educators at a local school, but that's rare. We're lucky to be in one of those, so the GCSEs are free.

Thats what I thought too (i posted on here about it) but he was only awarded 'A'.

Great, that all helps. Seems like quite a bit of planning and checking out logistics will be needed. My son is year 9 age and we are quite rural so I'm thinking exam centers might be limited too.

As he is in Y9, I would work backwoods, find an exam centre, look into the igcses/gcses they offer then select the subjects to study. Like others mention any subjects that have a coursework, teacher assessment or practicals are generally not accessible to home educating families. Exams locally to me start at £200 per subject, the fees have to be paid at time of booking, there is no refund if you change your mind or don’t take the exam. There is only two private schools locally that offer exam places to private candidates , the next is a big exam centre in next county no high schools offer exams. Some home educating families stagger exams and therefore fees over a few years. When finding centre consider travel to it as most subjects have minimum of 2 exams

That’s odd then- was he not allocated two numbers as they don’t do As anymore? What did the exam board say?

We still have letter grades in Wales, or from centres that use WJEC

There used to be a combined single award science GCSE. There still is a combined single award science IGCSE. Was it that? Rather than combined double award.