In addition to catering for our own part-time and full-time candidates we accept private candidates who wish to enter for GCSE/IGCSE, GCE AS and GCE A2 examinations.
As a private candidate you may be studying completely independently, you may be having some instruction privately or by correspondence course, or be in some other situation. If you are receiving help with your studies, your tutor should be able to help you with course requirements, controlled tests, exam codes and other administrative arrangements.
We do help private candidates as much as possible, but it is your responsibility, not ours, to see that all administrative and coursework requirements are met. Courses and examination boards differ in their requirements and you know your own personal requirements better than we do.
School/college candidates have a lot of the exam administration carried out for them. Private candidates must find out about controlled tests, ISAs, oral tests, pre-release material, exam timetables, dates for submission of coursework, candidate authentication forms and so on. The exam boards’ websites have a lot of useful information which you are strongly advised to read. For example:
http://www.aqa.org.uk/student-support/private-candidates
Please refer to the section Exam Procedures for more information about examination arrangements.
Some obvious (and not so obvious) hints!
- make sure that you know the starting date for new specifications and when old specifications cease to be available.
- make sure that the exam you want to take (including practicals and coursework units) is available to private candidates.
- make sure that the exam you want to take is available at the time you want to take it.
- make sure that you are able to satisfy the regulations for the supervision of controlled assessment tests and practicals.
- make sure that you are following the new 40% rule for GCSE examinations – see the Exam Procedures page.