GCSE Adult Edgehill university

Hi!

I am a little bit puzzled by all the GCSE equivalency providers, who seem to propose all sorts of different types of exam of varying levels of difficulties, but which still somehow count as a GCSE equivalent. It may well be because I am French, and am used a a high level of standardisation (as in, every exam board is a government-run unit in France, and the same for everyone), and I can't help but feel a little lost in all the contradictory information about to the content of the examination. I received two guidebooks from the Edgehill university, the awarding body I ultimately choose. However, the exams (English and Mathematics) will only be 2 hours and a half long, and this strikes me as short. I struggle to find precise information as to how long students typically get when sitting their GCSE exam, the programmes on the brochures seem a bit light (I don't want to have a bad surprise on the exam day and find out that I haven't revised some subjects because the brochure wasn't accurate). Is anyone else taking GCSE examinations as an adult? How clear was the information you received, and were the test typically simpler than those Secondary School students have to sit?

Sorry about the long paragraph, it's actually a lot harder than I thought to understand all the intricacies of the British educational system, as there are so many awarding bodies and so many different versions of the GCSE exam!

Any help would be much welcome!

Reply 1

Compost

Edgehill don't provide GCSEs themselves so they are either an exam centre for one of the GCSE exam boards (AQA, Edexcel/Pearson, OCR or WJEC) or they are providing equivalent qualifications.
The length of exams varies a little between boards but Edexcel Maths has 3 exams which are each 1h 30 mins long and OCR English Language has 2 exams which are each 2hours long, plus the speaking and listening endorsement. The others will be roughly the same.