If you are a home educator or other private student, wishing to sit exams in 2023, you should start to contact exam centres and look into your options, as early as possible in the academic year. You need to know which boards they offer, how much they charge and when their deadlines are. Prices increase if the deadlines are missed and you become a "late entry" and if you leave it too late you may find they are already full.
I have included links to different specifications below followed by some of the main differences. If you want to look in more detail, go to the specifications I link in this section for each board and in particular find the assessment overviews which give a summary of the different papers.
Eduqas GCSE French Specification
Cambridge IGCSE Specification
Pearson Edexcel IGCSE Specification
Edexcel IGCSE
Edexcel IGCSE seems to be the most popular option for home educators, but the other boards are acceptable choices too. It's not like Science GCSEs where you can opt in or out of the practicals. For Modern Languages, you have to do an oral, whichever board you choose. This bumps up the price slightly, but leaves more options open.
The Edexcel iGCSE consists of just 3 papers -Speaking, Listening, Reading and Writing. It covers all levels so you don't have to choose between Higher or Foundation. There is no role play for the oral, and you are allowed to prepare your photo card in advance, answering fairly specific but quite detailed questions.
The Reading and Writing paper is 1 hour 45 minutes. It gets the job done in one go, but if you have problems focusing it can be a long paper. For the shorter essay you have to include certain words that guide you to specific tenses. You have a choice of three questions for the longer essay, but the wording is slightly more complicated than for the GCSE questions.
Eduqas, Edexcel and AQA GCSE are also possible options, but you have to choose between Foundation and Higher. There also seem to be only a few private centres that offer these options.
However, as many state schools in the UK use AQA and Edexcel, if you have a local school or community learning centre that accepts private candidates, it's worth approaching them. They are often cheaper too. There are several reasons why it is wise to keep your entries in one reliable, trustworthy centre. If you have the choice of AQA or Edexcel GCSE, then AQA is slightly more manageable. Quite a few schools changed from Edexcel GCSE, to start following the AQA syllabus, after the exam reforms a few years ago.
GCSEs
Cambridge IGCSE
One reason why home educators have been turning to Cambridge recently is that, within reason, they can make their own rules. Unlike the other boards, they had very clear, specific guidelines for gradings during Covid and published their exam timetables ahead of the others.
But for private language students they are not the easiest option. Cambridge IGCSE involve internal assessment from the school or centre, and then a sample of these marks is moderated by the board, to check they have been done fairly and accurately.
If you are wondering about the differences on the papers, there are one or two things with Cambridge. The Listening exam is slightly longer, there are three parts to the Writing exam. Recently the speaking exam has changed, leaving little room for preparation or for flexibility of questions from the examiner who has a list of specific questions to ask students, regardless of their level.
