How to Self Study Computer Science?

1.

Pick a textbook for GCSE computer science tailored to the specific exam board that you are doing this with

2.

Do an online GCSE course for a specific exam board (all the UK exam boards do this course: OCR, AQA, EdExcel)

1.

Go to the exam board's website for the specific GCSE and find the private candidate section

2.

Under the private candidate section, look for their list of approved exam centres

3.

Liaise with the exam officers of these exam centres to book for your exams and pay the appropriate fees (admin + exam, I haven't bothered to looked these up)

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A number of exam officers won't get back to you, so you would need to liaise with them ahead of time and a good number of them (e.g. 5-6)

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Prioritise exam centres closest to where you live (unless you enjoy a very early start and drive for miles before reaching the exam centre)

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Booking for exams start from November of the academic year that you want to take the exams, and sort of ends in February before late fees come into effect. Your last chance of booking for an exam is sort of around late April (any later and any reasonable person will complain, and that's if you're lucky to still get it booked).

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There shouldn't be any clashes with your computer science exams with your other exams, but it always pay to check.

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There are no entry requirements for A Level Computer Science according to the exam boards i.e. you don't need GCSE computer science to do it, not that you need anything at all

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If there are any entry requirements set for A Level, they would be specifically set by the college that you want to do the course at, so only do the GCSE if and only if you really want to do A Level Computer Science and your scummy 6th form college mandates that you have it at the specific grade

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Computer Science degrees only really ask for A Level Maths if anything (the more high end universities might ask for A Level Further Maths, but that's a stretch).

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Some master's degrees in computer science (mostly the conversion courses) will only ask for a bachelor's degree in any subject so long you have a high enough grade. The other computer science degrees build on the knowledge you got from your bachelor's computer science degree

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You do not need qualifications of any kind to work in computer science in industry (you will need degrees if you want to go into computer science research).

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If any, professional IT certificates will get you further if you want a job in the tech industry. These usually have 0 entry requirements i.e. you can do them now if you wanted to, so long you meet the age requirements for some of them