The reading is in the Russian alphabet. I go to a state catholic school. I learnt it at home, and wow, it was the hardest thing I have ever done as I did not have a tutor and am not Russian or know any Russians or even been there. I simply just asked the school if I could sit the paper and they paid. I already could read cyrillic before I started to learn the language and knew it for about 6 months. So I guess this would be my advice, Its not ideal but if you don`t want to pay for a tutor, like myself, and have limited resources it works.
Knowing Cyrillic before. This really helps and makes the reading paper much easier.
For a good start I would recommend the russian world videos. They are a bit simple but it works, It depends how much you know if you were like me and knew nothing these are great. However they require worksheets but you can manage without, they also teach you Cyrillic. However this is only to a very basic level but it sets you off.
Here is the link.
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLB306DSmXL1aXdzgIt2mJkm4YfNqsOv-rThen after that I started going through the Colloquial Russian book, This takes you up to GCSE and a little past, there is also a second book which gets you close to AS level. I don`t know how much these are, I have a pdf version for free if you want, I can send it to you. However this is for the old specification but not that much has changed.
Its then just preperation for the exam
For the coursework the school should send an examiner to the school in about March where she/he will discuss the topics you want to talk about, then once you agree on a day between April and June she records your coursework.