This is quite a big one and there are lots of ways of figuring this out but I am going to try and explain what WE thought about when we came to selecting the exam boards for our IGCSE subjects.

First things first. When your kid is writing their GCSE / IGCSE subjects as an external candidate you can basically choose which ever subjects you want and which ever exam board you want. You can choose to write subjects from different exam boards. You can choose to stagger the subjects and not write them all at once (we did this). This is a lot more choice but because there is a lot more choice it can also become more confusing and challenging as you never know which is the best option. And you probably worry a lot more, because you wonder if you have made the correct choices or not.

So let me say this please remember as an external candidate if something has gone wrong your kid can always choose to reset the exam at another time.

Okay so GCSE vs IGCSE as external candidates. Most external candidates choose to write IGCSE exams for the simple reason that they are more geared to external students whereas GCSE content is more geared towards school students (e.g. English exams may including speaking or being able to just do an English exam as a written exam). If kids started their GCSE subjects in a school and then part way through choose to home educate then they often stick (not always) with what they were already doing at school.

Okay one of the first things you need to consider is – are there exam centers near you and if so what exam boards and subjects do they offer (you can also find out if the local schools allow external candidates we ignored the schools option as I have heard some bad stories about this option). You might be like me and not really care about the distance that you need to travel. I just went with the thinking that if we need to get in our car and drive for an hour to get to an exam center that allows us to write the subjects we want with the exam board we want then I will do that. But for some people who live more remotely this can become a big issue. So think of possible exam center venues and find out which exam boards they cater for (and which subjects for those exam boards).

Some people use multiple exam centers. From the beginning I knew that I wanted to find one exam center that my daughter could write all her exams at, even if it meant traveling a bit. So I found an exam center that offered all the subjects we wanted, with both of our potential exam boards and even offers IGCSE and A Level subjects. I did this because I knew she would feel more settled if we stuck to one venue and at this point I feel like that has worked, she knows the venue, she knows their routine and she even knows a few of the staff. This was a personal preference that suited my kid, and honestly by selected just one center it took some pressure off me but I want to stress there is no rule that you need to write all your exams at the same center.

Based on my own reading and understanding I knew we would go the IGCSE route for everything (honestly doing GCSE subjects as an external candidate just sounding like more of a headache). And that we would write either Edexcel International GCSE subjects or Cambridge IGCSE subjects (there is a difference between the subjects offered by these 2 exam boards). Okay so I narrowed it down to 2 exam boards for ALL the subjects and ONLY IGCSE. If you get to this stage you have already made progress.

Then my kids selected their subjects and we went subject by subject and thought of the exam board (some subjects are only offered by one Exam board e.g. in the beginning my daughter wanted to do Ancient History which would automatically have been with Cambridge IGCSE). For the subjects that could be with either exam board I looked at the subject specification (specs) from each exam board (you can download this from the exam board websites). For some subjects it was an easy decision – for History we selected Edexcel because they offered the history topics that she wanted to study, that was an easy one. For some subjects it is not that different – Biology I really thought we could have gone with either exam board, we went with Edexcel for this subject really because of the study materials that I found.

If after looking at the specs you are not sure I would suggest downloading a past paper from each exam board and compare the questions (I did this for English Language). If you have a look at the style of questions and how they differ between the exam boards you might get a better idea of which one will suit your kid better. (For past papers look on the exam boards website they have them under each subject).

If after looking at the subjects specs and past papers and you still have no idea then I suggest looking at resources available. Can you find more resources and support for one of the exam boards? Finding resources to use is going to be important, I found with my daughter’s History, one of the topics that she choose to study did not have as many supporting resources so I ended up making quite a bit for her. Learning resources are important.

I am not sure if this helps at all but this was how I thought about it – which exam boards do the exam centers use, look at the subject specs, compare past papers and check to make sure you can find resources to use.