Pembrokeshire online college

[ThankYouAgainAgain]

Hi,

I wondered if anybody has had experience using Pembrokeshire online college for iGCSE distance learning? https://online.pembrokeshire.ac.uk/

I am looking for distance learning with no online component, just paper tests and textbooks for a highly able ASD PDA profile child.

I like Wolsey Hall's model but we don't want to use the Cambridge curriculum. We very much prefer Pearson Edexcel for both the textbooks and the exam papers.

I see that Pembrokeshire use the Pearson curriculum and I just wondered if anybody has used them and would be able to give a recommendation?

Thanks!

What subjects is he wanting to study?

Do you mean self study so he can learn at his own pace by himself? Not in an online classroom with other children. If self paced igcse study is what you’re after I’d recommend breaking it up

southwest science for all sciences.

humanatees for humanities

absolute maths for maths

learntec for computer science

We’ve used all the above and they were great. We also used homemade education for English.

Thanks for this.

He wants to do:

Maths (Higher)
English language
iGCSE Chemistry
iGCSE Physics
Economics
French
Computer science
Geography

I'm competent to teach Maths, Physics, Chemistry and computer science myself. We have a tutor for English and Geography, and another in the pipeline for French. Family member is helping us with economics.

All I want from an external school is to have paper tests set and marked, so that we are getting in to the habit of writing test answers in the right form of words to fit the GCSE marking scheme requirements.

We already have all the books, and don't want online or screen-based lessons.

I would be grateful to know what you think about the best options.

Thanks!

Pembrokeshire doesn't seem to get very good reviews online:
https://www.thestudentroom.co.uk/showthread.php?t=7078986

tbh, DS and I are struggling to find anything that we can't do with just a text book and a handful of past papers, and the marking scheme. It's a bit perpexing that. It seems like there should be more to it.

I'm not at all knowledgeable about the subject - one of my kids sat two IGCSEs and the other zero - but you say you just want practice exams set and marked? You can download past papers yourself from the exam board and use a service such as Markmypapers on an ad hoc basis. In addition to marking, they give suggestions on what to focus on to pick up some extra points. For a lesser charge, you can ask them to mark just certain sections rather than an entire exam if you want to concentrate on improving performance in those areas.

Join the subject-specific home ed exam groups on Facebook (e.g. English language IGCSE) for all the nitty gritty such as if you can't find the past papers you are after, or how to tweak older past papers to align them with the current spec in cases where the format has changed recently and there aren't any/many past papers exactly matching what you need.

Are you reasonably confident of having found exam centres for the specific exams your child wants to do? Depending how far you want to travel and how much you want to pay, he may not be able to do the exact exam board and spec he prefers.

Also someone on my local group just recommended the Mathsgenie resource.

@Saracen thanks, this sounds like exactly what we need. Thank you so much for taking the time to post.

You're welcome! If I remember right, Markmypapers say that they are super busy at certain times of year in the runup to exam season - details might be on their website - so allow for that. The one time we used their service was not at a busy time, and turnaround was amazingly fast. My kid found it really helpful to have confirmation that they were on track to easily get the result they wanted, so for us it was money well spent.

That's fantastic. Thank you very much.