GCSE and International GCSE Courses

You can enrol and start any time you like, the earlier the better. The important thing to think about is when you wish to sit your exam so you can give yourself plenty of time to work through your materials and revise successfully.

The examinations for most GCSEs are held in May/June time but there are also Maths and English exams in November. IGCSEs are held twice a year, once in the Summer and once in November. Our cut-off for enrolment for the Summer sittings is mid-November the previous year and, for the November series, mid-March in the same year.  Students who start the course from scratch usually give themselves much more time than this to study but they do not usually take the full two years required in school.

Once you have enrolled, you will get access to your course online immediately and your printed course materials will arrive a few days later.

Not really as there is no difference in the way they are seen in the world of education. We offer both GCSE and IGCSE in some subjects but this is mainly historical and these days you will find the most choice in IGCSEs.

When we talk about them, the terms GCSE or IGCSE are interchangeable. The topics required and the standards expected for different grades are often indistinguishable.

This very much depends on the maturity of your child and, of course, Oxford Home Schooling is very flexible.

There are Maths geniuses who can pass a GCSE at the age of 11 but that same child may not have the emotional maturity needed to cope with some of the arts subjects.

In school, children begin studying for GCSE in year 10 at the age of 14 or 15 and they normally take two years to complete. There is no flexibility for those children who may not be quite ready or for those who are so far ahead they could complete straight away.

If you have followed our Key Stage 3 programme,  you can be confident that your child is ready for GCSE. If you have not but you have been home schooling, you have given the student a broad base of knowledge and they feel ready, then they probably are. This is something that home schooling parents are in a position to judge and we can advise.

We have many children who come to us because, for a huge variety of reasons, school is no longer an option.

Many will have already started their GCSE years and hope to carry over their work from school. Whether this is possible or not depends on a lot of things and our experienced advisers will be able to help you decide.

It is an inconvenience that there are several different exam boards offering choices of specification and although Maths and to an extent some sciences have the same general content, the order that they are studied can vary significantly. It is even more complex with Humanities as subject content and books studied may vary a great deal.

For these reasons and especially if they have been troubled at school, in most cases, your child will probably benefit from starting the course again.

No, anyone can start a GCSE course from as young as 11 to any age at all.

No tests are necessary to start a GCSE course, but if you are not fluent in reading and writing English, you will find the courses demanding.

For their own sake we also prefer our students to be at least 13 years old when they start, but our admissions department does have some discretion in exceptional cases.

This very much depends on which type of exam centre you choose and also, where you live.

Every centre has to charge the exam board entry fee for each subject. In 2024 this was £48 for a GCSE and £50 to £54 for an IGCSE but on top of this, all centres will add an administration fee.

If you are lucky enough to locate a helpful local school then they may only charge you a nominal admin fee of £25 to £50. If you live in London or have to use a commercial private exam centre then the admin fee can be anything up to another £300 per subject; quite a difference!

Some of our competitors who are tied to an associated exam centre can also charge for exams by the paper rather than by subject. This can leave you with a very hefty bill, especially for exams like Maths GCSE or Science where there are three papers.

There is no denying that getting the best deal requires time and effort, but luckily while we cannot book exams for you, we have agreements with some centres that will give discounts to our students and we are on hand to help and advise as much as possible.

You can sit exams as a Private or External candidate at numerous centres throughout the UK, either local schools or colleges or at a private centre. How far you have to travel to sit an exam is actually a matter of luck. There may be a helpful centre in your local neighbourhood or you might have to go to your nearest big city. Certain subjects, particularly foreign languages, are tricky because of the oral element and you do need to be prepared to travel.

Unlike many of our competitors we do not restrict our students to an associated exam centre. We can give you information on around 30 centres around the UK where you will certainly find an exam place for any subject and booking is quick and easy, often with a discount for our students. If you are prepared to search and you find a helpful local school or college, you may get a better deal.

We have an exam centre map in the Student Hub on our web site which shows you our “guaranteed centres” and also those centres who have helped our students in the past. Please remember that circumstances change all the time and if you are looking for a bargain you will need to devote some time and effort to shopping around. Our knowledgeable advisers have lots of useful tips.

This is an important question for all home schooling organisations and you should look into what everyone is offering very carefully; in the world of on-line education not all is at it seems, or as parents can sometimes be led to assume.

We are not just a website. Our office is staffed by real and friendly people and our tutors are the same.

We provide our GCSE students with an individual tutor, fully qualified to teach their subject and who will remain with their students throughout the study period. Those tutors alone will provide support, answer questions and mark your work. You will be able to build a relationship with them, email them and work out mutually agreed contact times for when you need to speak.

Our system relies on self-study and individual motivation, combined with the aid of a tutor for when you hit a problem. We do not claim that your child will be taught all their lessons by their tutor, either remotely or otherwise, but our “additional service” can provide longer periods of individual tuition when you need it. If you are looking for a tutor to teach every lesson individually, you will be looking at another realm of expense.

What we provide is unique to your child because our structured framework of lessons covering all aspects of a specification is delivered at home within your own time-frame. We do not believe that educating a youngster can successfully be given over to a laptop and a remote teacher, so if your child takes on one or more of our GCSE courses someone at home will also need to be available to encourage them. Our parents tell us that they often end up learning as much as their child and what a surprisingly enjoyable experience it is!

Many of our students have some form of special educational need or other problem which affects their daily lives and it is often why they are no longer in school. We understand the problems this can cause and we try our best to help but we cannot claim to be specialists in this field.  If your child has a SEN diagnosis, our tutors will do their best to accommodate them but they are not generally special needs teachers and therefore, to get an understanding of what we can and cannot offer, you should discuss your requirements with the student adviser before enrolling.

When it comes to sitting exams, the easiest option is to book with one of the private exam centres who have the ability to offer access arrangements. Tutors and Exams for example have centres around the country and a specialist SEN team who can get exam board permission for most arrangements.

If you believe that your child will be entitled to special arrangements in exams but you do not have a formal diagnosis, please be aware that most access arrangements will not be available without one. Many private exam centres can offer help and we also have an assessor available who can advise students who live in the Midlands. Julie Jones –  jcjassessmentservices@outlook.com.

It cannot be denied that if asked, most children would initially opt to study online. However, in an age of Instagram, YouTube, Tik Tok and all the other online diversions, we still have a paper-based exam system which requires skills that are not are not necessarily developed by digital learning.

Unlike much screen-based learning, our courses require students to fully engage by actually reading the materials. This in itself is a skill which requires concentration and comprehension and both are extremely useful habits to develop for future exams!

Parental feedback tells us that OHS courses have the twin advantages of preparing students to cope when put in a room with a paper-based exam and our method of study actually reduces the amount of time their children spend looking at a screen.

Many of our courses also do have some digital content and of course there is a wealth of additional online material which is freely available and can be used to supplement all subjects. Extensive links to the best free content are given in each course.