Anyone taken iGCSE's in November or January?

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Accepting private candidates is a sellers' market as not many centres will and they can charge what they like. If you look around, prices to take a bog-standard GCSE vary from £30 to £150. The more unusual your choice, the more it is likely to cost. As soon as you mention CIE that knocks out most of the state schools in the country (they effectively used to be banned from taking IGCSEs and even now only about 8 are allowed in state schools. Many state schools are not registered to administer exams with CIE) and the prices go up further.

You have to realise that the centre will genuinely spend a fair amount of time sorting your entry out, particularly if you are doing a subject they don't normally do, and that it is entirely fair that they charge you for their time and add on some profit for the inconvenience - you wouldn't expect a shop to sell something without taking into account their overheads and profit. Then if they have to put on an exam session with an invigilator just for you it is fair they pass on the costs. I really don't know what sort of prices you are likely to be quoted. If you have to use a mix of centres then double check you won't have any exam clashes as, if you do, it may prove impossible to get one of the centres to escort you to the other one to take the second exam.

Good advice yeah. Thanks for all that.

May I ask you, I don't know if you heard but I remember reading that 2 Pakistani boys achieved 23 A Levels. Would they actually have paid to enter for each exam, especially since they were doing so many. Without being enrolled at the college/school is there no way the entry could be cheaper..

I will quote centres that I could commute too and see what they say. But basically do only private/grammar/boarding schools and the top state schools offer iGCSE's? With this, half of these centres probably do not even accept private candidates..

Reply 21

Damien_Dalgaard

Original post by danconway

Edexcel IGCSE Further Pure Maths is offered in January. The content looks pretty advanced; there's differentiation of e and stuff!
The AQA Level 2 Certificate Further Maths is also offered in January. The OCR FSMQ is only offered in June.

The AQA paper looks really fun to do!

http://www.aqa.org.uk/subjects/mathematics/aqa-certificate/further-mathematics-8360/updates/january-series

But it looks like they don't do it in January anymore :/

Reply 22

Compost

Original post by Damien_Dalgaard

May I ask you, I don't know if you heard but I remember reading that 2 Pakistani boys achieved 23 A Levels. Would they actually have paid to enter for each exam, especially since they were doing so many. Without being enrolled at the college/school is there no way the entry could be cheaper.

Original post by Damien_Dalgaard

I will quote centres that I could commute too and see what they say. But basically do only private/grammar/boarding schools and the top state schools offer iGCSE's? With this, half of these centres probably do not even accept private candidates..

Quite a lot of centres are now registered with CIE as it's a way of double entering students in maths and English (GCSE and IGCSE) and then using the better of the 2 results. (You can't do 2 GCSE boards as the exams will be at the same time). It's a murky business playing Gove's rules to maximise a school's allowable results. However, these schools only use CIE for Maths and English and your chances of getting them to enter you for other subjects is slight.

Reply 23

Damien_Dalgaard

Original post by Compost

Maybe they were enrolled. There is a homeschooling Yahoo group for finding exams - HE-Exams-GCSE-A_AS_Levels-OU-Others I think that has a lot of advice on finding centres that might be helpful. I think they campaigned to get home-schooled exam costs funded and some local authorities did pay up - try asking them.

Quite a lot of centres are now registered with CIE as it's a way of double entering students in maths and English (GCSE and IGCSE) and then using the better of the 2 results. (You can't do 2 GCSE boards as the exams will be at the same time). It's a murky business playing Gove's rules to maximise a school's allowable results. However, these schools only use CIE for Maths and English and your chances of getting them to enter you for other subjects is slight.

I think they were yeah. I will definitely look that up, thanks for that.

Yeah of course, that seems plausible I guess. Thinking about it, rarely anyone would do igcses especially in November, since they probably wouldn't have learnt the content by then.

Reply 24

Damien_Dalgaard

Original post by Compost

May I ask why state school were initially banned from offering them, is it to do with elitism or something?

Reply 25

Compost

Original post by Damien_Dalgaard

May I ask why state school were initially banned from offering them, is it to do with elitism or something?

Only qualifications approved for use by OFQUAl count in school league tables.
OFQUAL decide what should go in a particular subject GCSE - i.e. what split there should be of external exam and coursework and the broad content and exam boards had to comply with that. IGCSEs were developed without reference to OFQUAL for the overseas market (hence I for international) and so didn't have the specified content, or most importantly any coursework.

Private schools gradually drifted over to IGCSEs as they avoided the hours spent on coursework and were generally a better prep for A level (starting with Maths where the coursework element was a complete waste of time), the Sciences (coursework almost as pointless and very time consuming) and then on from there. The current government allowed IGCSEs almost as soon as they were elected, but only in certain subjects. It looks like the next generation of GCSEs will be almost coursework-free.

Reply 26

carpe.noctem

Original post by Damien_Dalgaard

Did you do them as private candidates.

Which exam board did you do, afaik CIE and Edexcel are the only ones?

Do CIE do exams in Jan and Edexcel do exams in Nov?

How much did it cost you to enter for them privately?

Skill gap between gcse's/igcse's/as levels?

How long in advance did you study?

Could anyone please tell me the centre at which they took these exams at, finding difficultly in finding centres to sit the exams at - for local schools.

hi , i did an IGCSE in human biology with edexcel in january in which i got an A* what i found was that there was similar questions and topics that came up every year. I self taught the course to my self by going throught the edexcel book and doing past papers untile i got an A/A* on all of them, i only did 2 months of preperation. Past papers were the best help.

i took the 2 exams in best tutors also known a s unique sixth form which i entered privately for and paid around £100.

Reply 27

salah22

why can't you do a gcse exam in january anymore?

Reply 28

Compost

Original post by salah22

why can't you do a gcse exam in january anymore?

As part of Michael Gove's exam reforms when he was secretary of state for education, he banned January exams for GCSE and GCE in England in January.

Reply 29

salah22

Original post by Compost

As part of Michael Gove's exam reforms when he was secretary of state for education, he banned January exams for GCSE and GCE in England in January.

That is the worst decision ever made but it is still possible to take international igcse, gcs exams at cie in november or march

(edited 7 years ago)

Reply 30

Rocco123

I did edexcel igcse maths January last year, and got an A*. I really liked taking it early because it gave me one less exam to worry about in June. I also did CIE as level critical thinking last October/November, and got an A. For maths, I started revising properly (as in at least an hour a day) about two weeks before the exam, and did all the past papers since 2004! But I had made sure I understood all the concepts before that, and had revised previously for my mock exams.

Spoiler

Reply 31

salah22

You cant do it in January anymore, but is the CIE still available .