Advice on finding an exam centre, lists of exam centres, and sample emails for making contact. You will find a separate page for each region of the UK .
When you've found a centre, see Making exam entries for what you need to tell them. It's best to make your enquiries by email, or to confirm any conversations you've had by sending a follow-up email, just to make sure there are no misunderstandings about what the exam centre can do for you.
If you've read this page but still have questions - Join the HE Exams community to get support from fellow home-educators.
This page lists exam centres that did exam predications for their students when the exams were cancelled in summer 2020 due to COVID-19.
When Do I Need To Find An Exam Centre?
It's usually advised that you should find an exam centre before you start to study. This is so you can be sure to use specifications that you can arrange exams in. In reality this isn't always feasible. But if you are able/prepared to travel and stick to 'safe' options for home educators (see IGCSEs and Exam boards) then chances of finding a centre, offering the syllabus, are much higher. However, if you are planning to do any subjects which have practicals, coursework or speaking components, do ask about these in plenty of time. Fewer exam centres can facilitate these components.
If you may require Access Arrangements then it is best to contact exam centres at least a year ahead to get the ball rolling.
Booking dates for exams vary by exam centre but are generally -
Oct-late Jan/Early Feb - for Summer exams
July-early Sep - for CAIE Autumn exams
Sept - for Edexcel IGCSE January exams
What should I ask on my initial enquiry?
Please be aware that home-ed candidates and their parents may be seen as representatives of the whole home-ed community, and we need to be professional in our dealings with exam officers. Sadly, every year some exam centres decide that the hassle is no longer worth it and close the doors to HE families. We all need to be mindful about the demands we put on exam centres and how we communicate with them.
Please don’t have unrealistic expectations of exam centre officers about giving you support and guidance. Exams officers are not there to give advice about which syllabuses or subjects you should study or what resources to buy. That isn’t their role. This Wiki is aimed at helping you research the information you need and male use of the support available from home educators.
Here are things you might ask/expect of your exams officer.
- Do you accept external candidates?
- What awarding bodies (exam boards) are you registered for?
- Are there any restrictions on subjects/options?
- How much are the exams?
- When is the deadline for registering?
- Do you do autumn or winter sittings, as well as summer ones?
It's often easiest to approach an exam centre by email rather than phoning, as then you can be sure that your message will be passed to the examinations officer. Examinations officers often work part-time and you may not be popular if you phone during a busy period!
Sample email to exam centre
An example email could be sent to the school's main enquiry address, and could say something like:
Subject: FAO Examinations Officer re External Candidates for exams
Dear examinations officer,
My son is home-educated and is working towards taking some exams as an external candidates. Please could you let me know if you would accept him as an external candidate for exams at your centre? If you might, could you tell me which exam boards you are registered with, and if you will accept candidates for any subjects, or only certain subjects? My son is well-behaved and responsible, and just wants the opportunity to show what he has learned.
I am a member of the online support network for home-educators and therefore have access to all the information I need regarding available syllabuses and materials.
Yours, Mx Nice.
Exam Boards (often referred to as Awarding Bodies or Awarding Organisations)
Each exam board keeps its own list of centres which theoretically accept external candidates, but these are often inaccurate. This isn't the exam board's fault - they ask schools to notify them of changes, but schools don't always remember to do so. A school's policy on accepting external candidates can vary from year to year as it usually requires a community-minded Head , and an Exams Officer who is prepared to put in extra work. People often resort to phoning round all the schools and colleges in their area to find out if they will take external candidates. Do check the list of exam centres recommended by other home educators on this site first, as the centres for all boards are displayed on one page (which you won't find on the exam board sites), and we often have additional information which you may find useful.
- AQA: information for private candidates, including a list of exam centres
- Edexcel: information for private candidates and Registering and paying as a private candidate. Note that you should try centres which are listed for GCSEs as well as IGCSEs as, currently, any school registered as an Edexcel GCSE exam centre can also accept candidates for IGCSE. List of exam centres: http://qualifications.pearson.com/en/support/support-topics/understanding-our-qualifications/where-can-i-take-edexcel-exams.html/student
- CIE: information for private candidates, and 'Find a Centre' search function. Note that you may need to search by multiple towns, eg 'Kent' does not bring up the results for schools in each town in Kent. You need to go through and select each town you might possibly be able to reach from the drop-down list.
The Oxford Open Learning site has a list of all the schools on their books that have accepted private candidates to sit GCSEs in the past. This was out-of-date when last checked.
The Examination Officers' Association offers a free service to help you find an exam centre. This organisation has been very supportive of home educators in the past and has done much to help increase our access to qualifications. If you fill in their external candidates form, giving as much detail as possible, they will see if any of their members in your area can host you for exams. However, not all examinations officers are members of the association, so you may still need to contact schools individually.
If these approaches do not bear fruit, you will have to put in some legwork.
Please read up on FAQs from Exams Officers. Being well-prepared can make all the difference between being rejected out of hand, or being accepted. Check the lists of centres available to private candidates on the exam board sites. It doesn't mean that they will accept private candidates generally - it can just mean that they have in the past, or may have allowed a current student to take an extra qualification - but it does mean that it is worth asking. It is also worth asking local schools, even if they are not listed as having taken private candidates before. Independent schools are often more willing to accept private candidates.
If you're aiming for Edexcel IGCSEs then the school does not need to be one which offers IGCSEs to its own students in order to take private candidates. If the school is registered with Edexcel for GCSEs then they can accept candidates for IGCSEs too. It is possible that the school might not be aware of this, but you can ask them to contact Edexcel, who will confirm it for them.
If the school does not have any other students sitting the same IGCSE you want to sit, they may have candidates sitting another exam at the same time, eg a GCSE in another subject. In that case, the private candidate can usually sit in the same room and share an invigilator. If the exam centre does not have anybody else taking an exam on that day then you would normally be asked to pay for an invigilator (or can offer to do so if they just look lost and say "But nobody else is sitting one that day...").
Sometimes home educators have provided an invigilator from their group to do this, and one enterprising group of parents volunteered to be regular invigilators for the school's own exams. Schools often struggle to find reliable invigilators during exam season, so this is one way to develop a good relationship with the exam centre.
It can take some legwork and speaking to quite a few schools to track down a centre, but people generally do find somewhere.... very occasionally people have travelled and stayed near the centre for the exam period, but this is rare.
Exam centres are under no obligation to accept private candidates; it creates extra work for them and may involve some disruption to their schedule or difficulties for the school. They are entitled to charge an admin fee which compensates for this to some degree, and that fee varies hugely - from £15 per subject at some schools to over £150 at others.
List of Exam Centres accepting External Candidates
These exam centres have either taken external candidates in the recent past, or have indicated that they would consider it.
In 2021, Pearson (Edexcel) and the Welsh Government put together a list of centres that were willing to accept private candidates for Teacher Assessed Grades. Being on this list does not guarantee that a centre will take private candidates in future but it might be a good place to start if you are looking for a centre in your area. Links to the Pearson and Welsh government lists lists can be found here, the JCQ list can be found here and the Cambridge International list can be found here.
Please feel free to add or edit information - we rely on the home-ed community to keep this up to date. It's easiest to edit if you create a Wikia account first, but you could also just leave a comment below and we'll add any centres mentioned to the main list.
England
- South-West England - Cornwall, Devon, Dorset, Somerset, Bristol, Gloucestershire.
Wales
Scotland
Scottish exam options and centres.
Northern Ireland and Eire
Guernsey and Jersey
Guernsey and Jersey Exam centres
Other Overseas (non-UK) exam centres
Overseas (non-UK) exam centres
For further recommendations please ask on your local home education group or forum or on the Home Education UK Exams and Alternatives Facebook group
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