How to make an Examination Entry
EXAMINATION ENTRY INFORMATION
Oxford Home Schooling will give whatever help we can with examination information, finding an exam centre and authenticating coursework, but entering examinations is entirely the responsibility of the student and the student's guardian. The contract for sitting examinations is between the student and exam centre. We are not an exam centre and therefore although we can give information and guidance we cannot either make your entry for you or change an incorrect entry.
Oxford Home Schooling will take no responsibility for late, wrong or missing entries. Nor do we have any influence over the charges made by exam centres. The notes below are intended to give an overview of the process. They are for guidance only and all candidates should make their own enquiries with examinations boards and individual exam centres. Please read the AQA or Edexcel Guides for Private Candidates, which can be obtained from their Publications Departments (telephone numbers at the end of this web page) or can be downloaded from the relevant web sites—see `Links'. It is important that you read these documents carefully before making your entry. You will also find all the necessary exam/coursework forms in these publications.
The information below relates to examinations administered by the AQA. Arrangements for examinations administered by other boards may be different and you should contact them directly.
Examination Officers accept Private Candidates at their own discretion and it is our experience that an Examination Officer will usually look more favourably on well organised candidates. We therefore strongly recommend that students read the introduction to their coursepack very carefully before contacting an exam centre. This will provide essential information about the syllabus, entry level and units to be entered. Our feedback from exam officers is that they like to help but they are extremely busy and one bad experience with a candidate can mean that no others are ever accepted again in future. Please do not spoil the chances of other students in your area by upsetting an exam officer who has attempted to help you. The guidelines below will be useful.
Very Important Guidelines for keeping your Exams Officer happy:
- Make sure that you know your syllabus/specification number and unit codes, do not go along with no information or the wrong information.
- Once you have found a centre, please do not keep pestering your exam officer with questions which can be answered by reading your coursepack, this web page, the exam board web pages or the letters we send to guide you through the exam process. If in doubt contact your Oxford Home Schooling Student Adviser or your Tutor first.
- Make sure that you provide a reliable contact phone number and address. Exams officers who spend hours trying to contact a candidate get very cross. Always give them Oxford Home Schooling's phone number 01865 304856 as well as your own, so that they have a reliable contact during office hours.
- Do not be late for exams or fail to turn up without telling anyone. If you are withdrawing from an exam or are unable to get there on the day, please always tell your exam centre asap. Exam Officers get extremely stressed if they have to delay an exam for their own students while they try to make contact with a missing private candidate.
- Always pay your fees even if you do not sit the exam. The exam officer will often have had to do as much work for candidates who have withdraw as for those who actually sit.
- Please treat your exam officer with courtesy and respect. They are not obliged to help you and if they do they are trusting that you will not take up a disproportionate amount of their time.
- Please say thank you.
Oxford Home Schooling attempt to guide all their students through the labyrinth of the exam system using a series of simple steps, beginning in December and aimed at those people sitting the following June . We send out letters and various forms during January, February and March, but if you ignore or lose them we cannot help you. Students sitting for exams at any other time than May or June should be aware that they will have to be responsible for obtaining deadline dates and meeting exam board requirements without our step by step instructions, although we will of course do all we can to help with arrangements.
PRIVATE AND EXTERNAL CANDIDATES
When Oxford Home Schooling students sit their exams they are referred to as Private Candidates. This is also known as being an External Candidate. However, if you are enrolled on a school or college course you will sit exams with them as an Internal Candidate.
IMPORTANT: A candidate may not enter as both a private AQA candidate and an internal AQA candidate at the same centre in the same examination series.
CLOSING DATES FOR SUMMER EXAMINATIONS
The closing date for GCSE examination
entries is 21 February .
The closing date for AS and A2 level examination entries is 21 March
Note: These are the dates by which AQA must have received notification of your entry, not the dates by which you should have applied to the examination centre. Please ensure you contact your chosen centre well before the end of January.
There is a link to the exam timetable on this page.
The closing date for entry at New College Swindon is early February, please contact then directly. Please note that the examinations office in Swindon is always extremely busy with exam administration during January and would therefore prefer to take telephone queries (01793 732876) during December. The best way to contact Swindon's examination department is by email. The address is shirley.westall@newcollege.ac.uk.
FINDING AN EXAMINATION CENTRE
Private candidates may enter for examinations through any AQA registered school, college or centre willing to accept them. Both AQA and Edexcel publish lists of these centres by region and they are usually sent out with the Information for Private Candidate Guidelines or can be accessed from the link on this page. You may also feel free to contact them on 01483 506506 (AQA) or 0870 2409800 (Edexcel) and ask for details.
Oxford Open Learning will send a letter to students in December explaining the usual way to find an exam centre. There are many ways to do this and the best ones are detailed below. Expect to have to make several calls before you find a place.
You can use the exam board lists but remember these are only places which may take external students. No centre is obliged to assist and there are many perfectly valid reasons why they may refuse.
You could look in the Yellow Pages under `Further Education' or `Tutors and Tutoring' and then ring schools and colleges that are convenient for you, explaining which exam(s) you want to sit as an External or Private Candidate.
Often you will find Independent or Private Schools and especially Private Tutorial Colleges the most helpful.
If you have any contact with a local school, especially if your child used to attend that school, they will often be prepared to help.
Faith schools, especially if you are a member of that particular faith are often very helpful.
We also keep a data base of every exam centre that has taken our students in the past and although we cannot guarantee that there will be a centre in your neighbourhood, we can usually help you to locate the closest. Please see the post code map in the link section and then if you are still having difficulty, please contact your student adviser.
Note: Please read the guidelines for keeping your exam officer happy before contacting centres. Not every centre will offer every examination. Be prepared to make quite a lot of phone calls to different centres. You should check that your chosen centre offers the examination(s) that you wish to sit and if they cannot accept you it may well be because they do not have students of their own sitting your particular exam. They are under no obligation and there is nothing you can do but try elsewhere.
EXAMINATIONS WITH NO COURSEWORK
Exams with no coursework or oral components are the easiest to arrange. You will only need to submit an exam entry form, satisfy the exam centre of your identity and provide your address and contact details. There are no other forms required.
Language exams with an oral component do not usually have coursework but they can be the most difficult to organise and the number of centres willing to help is severely restricted.
EXAMINATIONS WITH A COURSEWORK COMPONENT
Students sitting examinations with an optional coursework component are always expected to choose the written examination paper and not the coursework option. For examination purposes, it is always easier for Private Candidates to avoid coursework if possible. If coursework is compulsory this will be made clear in the introduction to your OOL coursepack.
There are various ways of examining coursework, depending on your learning provider, and this can cause confusion at exam centres. Please inform your exam officer that any coursework submitted by Oxford Open Learning students is marked by AQA moderators. It is not marked by Oxford Open Learning tutors or anyone at your exam centre. Your exam officer will therefore be asked only to post your coursework on to the same AQA moderator as used for their own students. Oxford Open Learning will deal with all other aspects of your coursework, i.e authenticating, providing the correct paperwork and collecting it in time to meet deadlines. We follow the procedure detailed below. Please read it carefully.
STAGE 1: INITIAL ENTRY
Students should complete the exam entry forms provided by their exam centre before the deadline set by each individual centre. This usually involves going to the centre in person in January to establish your identity.
When coursework is compulsory, students must submit a ` Private Candidate Coursework Information Form' at the same time as they make their exam entry. This can be downloaded from the web (at the back of the "Supplementary Guidance for Private Candidates"), but if you are sitting your examination in June, Oxford Open Learning will send you a copy of this form in early January. It must be given to your exam centre when you fill in your examination entry forms and your centre should send it to AQA. If you do not receive this form please inform your Student Adviser before the end of January. A separate `Private Candidate Coursework Information Form ' is needed for each subject and should be sent to AQA by your exam centre. Please note, sometimes exam officers are not clear about what to do with this form, if this is the case, please send it yourself to; Coursework Processing, AQA, Devas Street, Manchester, M15 6EX. DO NOT attach or send the PC Coursework Information form to your final coursework, this will cause problems later and with results.
Completing the Private Candidate Coursework Information Form
Sections 1 and 2: complete and check your subject entry code/ Component code carefully. We will send you an information sheet with this on it in January.
Section 3: tick "3"
Section 4
Name: Insert the name of
your tutor (he is your authenticator)
Address: Insert your tutor's home address and phone number
Authenticator's Occupation: Oxford Open Learning Tutor
Relationship to Candidate: Tutor
Arrangements made: please write something along the following lines;
I have had regular contact with my tutor since
(*date you began your course) and I am following the guidelines relating
to coursework as set out in my OOL materials. Prior to beginning
my coursework, I discussed/ will discuss* the suitability of my chosen topics
with my tutor. A draft of my coursework was/ will be* submitted to my tutor
for general feedback.
* Insert as applicable
Section 5: complete
Section 6: signature and date
Note: AQA reserves the right to confirm with your tutor that the arrangements
described above have been strictly adhered to.
Providing you have had sufficient contact with your tutor over several months, have submitted at least 4 Tutor Marked Assignments, have followed the guidelines in your course materials and completed your coursework in time for our deadline, your coursework will be authenticated ( i.e confirmed as having been produced by you and not anyone else) by your tutor and then marked by the exam board in due course. If you have not followed these guidlines, then your tutor has the right to return coursework to you without authenticating it. Please note that Oxford Open Learning tutors reserve the right to refuse to authenticate any coursework at their own discretion. Any student who is considered to be using unacknowledged material from the internet will be automatically refused authentication.
Exam boards are getting very strict about coursework so it is very important to follow these rules.
Coursework is marked by an AQA appointed moderator, not your tutor. This means that coursework has to be submitted much earlier than your written exam (by the 30th March) and that, unlike internal students, your mark will not be available until the August results.
STAGE 2: SUBMITTING COURSEWORK;
FORMS AND PROCEDURE
In late January or early February, Oxford Open Learning will be sending you a letter asking for details of your examination centre and candidate number, this will be called the Permission Form. This form is extremely important. With your signature on this form we can make enquiries on your behalf with your exam centre or the board, should you encounter any problems at a later date. Without this form, we cannot help you.
Once we have received the Permission Form we will then send you a ` Private Candidate Record Form'. This can also be downloaded from the AQA website, see `Links'. This form should be read extremely carefully and has to be signed by both the student and then your tutor. DO NOT FORGET to attach a signed Private Candidate Record form to your final coursework. Without this form correctly filled in and signed you cannot submit your coursework for marking. The Boards are not flexible over incorrect forms or missed deadlines and you are likely to invalidate your entry if you do not follow the rules and meet the deadlines.
The final version of your COURSEWORK and SIGNED FORM should be sent by special, registered or recorded post to your tutor. THIS MUST OCCUR PRIOR TO THE 30th MARCH TO ALLOW TIME FOR AUTHENTICATION AND POSTING.
KEEP A COPY.
Oxford Open Learning will NOT accept responsibility for coursework received after this date.
If you have met all the requirements, your tutor will authenticate the coursework, complete the relevant sections of the form and send everything to Oxford Open Learning. We will then post your coursework to your examination centre who will pass it onto a board appointed moderator for marking.
Note: Please ensure that you always keep a copy of your coursework as Oxford Open Learning cannot be held responsible for any loss of materials and unfortunately every year someone, somewhere has a postal scare. Do not let it be you.
Rules Relating to Coursework
The work you submit for assessment must be your own unaided work.
Any materials (e.g. books, leaflets or information from the Internet) used in the completion of your coursework should be acknowledged in the work itself and on the Private Candidate Record form. To present material copied from any source without acknowledgement will be regarded as deliberate deception and may result in your disqualification.
In order to authenticate your coursework your tutor must have had sufficien regular contact with you over the whole period of your studies. He must also have received other material comparable to your coursework, which usually means at least four TMAs. This is very important, Exam Boards are becoming increasingly concerned about coursework and will be doing more and more checking up. Submitting 4 TMAs all together just prior to your coursework is not acceptable.You should also have discussed your chosen topic(s) with your tutor prior to starting your coursework and, subsequently, submitted a draft of your coursework for comment.
Note: Be prepared to answer questions from your tutor about your work and if your tutor has any concerns regarding the authenticity of your coursework, he or she is obliged to disclose them to the Board.
Coursework should be presented on A4 PAPER and bound in the top left hand corner with a TREASURY TAG. Do not use any PLASTIC or other type of folder or binding, we only have to remove them. Your coursework may be typed or handwritten but please check with your tutor in case there are any specific rules for your subject, particularly English and Science GCSE.
FEES
Current entry fees are shown within the Information for Private Candidates booklet.
As a guideline only, you should pay approximately £25 to the board for most GCSE exam papers and £12 for each single A level module or unit. English GCSE however will cost around £45 and Maths GCSE £30.
Note: In addition to the above, your centre will also ask for an administration fee which is entirely at their own discretion and can be quite substantial.
PAST PAPERS AND OTHER SUPPORT MATERIAL
All students should ensure they have a copy of the board published Specification (syllabus) for their course/s. The specification sets out the subject content and assessment criteria for each course, it also provides useful clues about what the examiners will be looking for in your exam.
Specifications can be ordered through the Publications Department or downloaded free of charge from AQA's website (A similar service is offered by Edexcel).
Past papers are only available from the exam boards. Completing past papers will give you valuable exam practice and we highly recommend you do at least one and preferably several examples of past papers. Accompanying mark schemes are also available, enabling you to mark your own work.
If you are completing past papers, you might also like to read the Examiner's Reports on previous exams. These often identify common errors which can easily be avoided if you are aware of them.
All good bookshops have a selection of revision guides, many of these are excellent.
RESULTS
Unlike students taking internally assessed exams, Private Candidates will not know their coursework marks before they take their written exams. Exam centres will, however, be able to give you a separate mark for your coursework component when your results are published in August. We advise all our students to ask for this breakdown of marks because it allows you to check that your coursework mark has been included in your final grade. It is not uncommon for it to be accidentally missed out for external candidates. If you see a # sign, please ask your exam officer to check this carefully as it usually indicates no mark has been included.
Your results will be sent to your examination centre, not to Oxford Open Learning, on the Thursday of the 3rd week in August ( A Levels) or the Thursday of the 4th week in August (GCSE). You may either collect them in person from your centre or they will post the results to you the next day, if they have a correct and current address (they may also require a stamped addressed envelope) . Centres are prohibited from giving examination results over the phone. Please remember that Oxford Open Learning do not automatically receive your results and so we are always grateful if you can ring them in to us on 01865 798022.
If you wish to query or contest a mark, you must do so within a week, via your centre's exam officer. The rules regarding this are very strict and you only have a few days in which to lodge your query.
CONTACT ADDRESSES
AQA Edexcel
Guildford Office
Stewart House
Stag Hill House
32 Russell Square
Guildford London
Surrey
WC1B 5DN
GU2 XJ
01483 506506
0870 2409800
Manchester Office
www.edexcel.org
Devas Street
Manchester
M15 6EX
0161 953 1180
