Elective Home Education Welcome Pack for Parents

Part 3 – Examinations, revision and marking

Elective Home Education Information Pack

As previously stated, home educators are not required to follow a set curriculum. In addition to this, it is not necessary for children who are home educated to take any exams or undergo testing.

It is important that parent/carers consider their child's future prospects, as often employers require readily recognisable qualifications from applicants.

In addition to this, colleges and universities often have set entry requirements. However, they are often flexible about this for those who are home educated and many home educated children go on to university.

Local Authorities are not able to help home educators with the cost or arrangements associated with examinations. This does not mean that your child cannot take exams. Parent/carers can arrange for home educated children to take exams as external candidates at various exam centres for example colleges of further education. You can find more information in the links in this pack. Some schools will allow your child to sit as a private candidate even when they have off rolled and you will usually pay about £40- 50 per subject but if you go to an external exam centre it is usually around £180 -£200 per subject but sometimes you may pay additional admin costs.

It is important that a parent/carer contacts a college as soon as possible to make enquires if they want to follow this route as in schools the two-year course work for GCSEs starts in Year 10. Also, registration for exams has to be made several months before exams are sat and there are usually only two rounds of exams dates where GCSE’s can be sat.
Halesowen College currently delivers INSPIRE, a course for home educated learners from 14-16, to study and sit GCSEs in English, Maths, Science and it also offers vocational courses odf study in areas like Animal Care and Performing Arts. Functional skills courses are also available.

Walsall College also delivers 14-16-year-old programmes for Home Educated children wishing to study for GCSE and functional skill programmes this is called the Achieving Together Programme. If you wish to access either of these courses at Halesowen or Walsall please be aware the course providers will verify your child is home educated through the Local Authority so they will contact the EHE Advisory Teachers who can support the referral by helping you with the forma and also providing information to the provider that often encourages a place being offered.

Sandwell Valley School offers private candidates the opportunity to sit some GCSE qualifications

Registration documents must be submitted to examination boards in good time to enable a young person to sit an exam as an external candidate; there are usually only two rounds of exams dates where GCSE’s can be sat.

If you want to know where you can register as a private candidate you first need to know the awarding body for each subject you wish to take an exam in e.g. is is AQA, OCR, Edexcel and then you can contact this awarding body direct and ask which exam centres are in your area where your child can register as a private candidate in order to sit an exam but be aware not all exam centres will be allowed to take under 16’s. Most colleges if they deliver 14-16 year old provision can usually.

For further information:

OCR
All general enquiries about OCR qualifications and services should be directed to the Customer Contact Centre
General qualifications - Tel: 01223 553998 / general.qualifications@ocr.org.uk

Assessment and Qualifications Alliance (AQA) City & Guilds
Tel: 0800 197 7162
E mail - eos@aqa.org.uk

Halesowen INSPIRE Programme
This is a programme dedicated to Home Educated children and only accessible from age 14 when the child would be in year 10 and it would support learning at home not replace it. Plus, it would enable children to take exams at the end of the programme in up to 5 subjects including maths and English. They also offer a 1 year programme for year 11 learners wishing to take GCSE’s in predominantly Maths and English.
Contact – Sarah Dobson
Sarah Dobson on 0121 602 7693 Email: Sarah Dobson sdobson@halesowen.ac.uk

Walsall College 01922 657000
Walsall College also delivers a programme very similar to Halesowen for 14-16 years old and it can be accessed by any elective home educators even if they do not live in Walsall again all that is needed is a referral from the Elective Home Education Department to verify EHE status to the college so they can draw down the funding for a child to be on the course.

Fern Education and Training
Offering provision for EHE pupils and External Candidates as well as training in a variety of education related accredited courses. They have a base in Pure Offices in Oldbury and have two training rooms there. They are a JCQ approved exam centre for Pearson Edexcel providing external candidates the opportunity to sit GCSE and A Level examinations. They can also offer tuition to EHE students in English Language and Literature, Maths, Science, Psychology and History up to A Level. They will be offering GCSE and A Level programmes to Post 16 and EHE candidates on one year and Fast Track Programmes. They offer exam tuition at £30 an hour and each exam costs £180. They can deliver bespoke workshops for the home education community as well as delivering horticulture and childcare qualifications.

Revision Resources

Get Revising
Get Revising can help you study for your exams - GCSE, AS, A2, International Baccalaureate. Features include a unique revision timetable creator, interactive revision cards, games, and a shared resource library created by our members. Covers all subjects at all levels.

Maths Genie - 1-9 GCSE Specification Revision
Maths Genie is a free GCSE and A Level revision site. This page has revision notes, videos and past exam questions arranged by topic. This page has revision notes, videos and past exam questions arranged by topic

OnMaths | The home of GCSE Maths
Prepare for your Maths GCSE with their free help. Get started straight away with: predicted papers for the upcoming maths GCSE, topic busters to help you revise specific topics, demon questions to try harder GCSE questions, mini mocks for quick GCSE exam practise. Sign up for a free account to save all your progress and identify topics to improve your grade.

Maths Explained video tutorials
Why Maths Explained? Devised and delivered by an internationally regarded expert in the field of maths learning difficulties. Each video uses carefully designed visual images, matched to the relevant maths vocabulary and concepts in order to enhance understanding

Youtube channels for exam paper practice

Primrose Kitten. Tutorials for Science and Maths
Has the largest FREE collection of GCSE and A-Level videos on YouTube. The aim of this site is to make GCSE Science and Maths video tutorials easily searchable by exam board and topic.

Simon Deacon
This channel is aimed at keeping maths simple just Simon a boardmarker and a whiteboard and occasionally helped by paper and pen. Also, try the free quick tests mathswrap. Real maths, tips and techniques.

WrightMaths - YouTube
Very experienced teacher, who likes to share information. There are a range of resources covering a number of topic areas. The YouTube channel is dedicated to the NEW SPEC (9-1)GCSE for Edexcel.

English Through Experience – YouTube
English Through Experience – Website
Featuring ETETutor & Pip the Papillon dog! The English Through Experience YouTube channel provides: – resources for GCSE English Language students

Links for Exam Practice Papers

Exam centres currently in use by Home Educators

Please note these are centres we have been told about by other home educators but we cannot recommend them and you need to ensure that all the correct things are in place before proceeding to ensure your child’s needs are met. (see the sections on tuition centres and tutors and college provisions for more information and guidance)

Al-Burhan Grammar School 0121 440 5454
They are a registered centre for AQA, Edexcel, OCR and Cambridge International. To find out more details check out the website
or make enquiries to the exams officer for individual costs exams@alburhan.org.uk

Al-Noor College 0121 777 8666. GCSE’S in Maths, English, Science and Arabic and Urdu, for more details contact exam officer, Gill Hesketh gill@alfurqancc.org.uk

Sparkhill Tuition Centre 0121 771 1298
This centre delivers Edexcel programmes of study and accepts private candidates for Edexcel IGCSE’s in English, Maths, Science, History, Geography, R.E. and they will take under 16’s. You will need to make contact for individual costs.

Sandwell Valley School
This centre is much more local being in West Bromwich. It is a JCQ approved examination centre. It offers assessments for GCSE’s and functional skills (English, Maths and IT). To discuss further please contact Jen Hall on 0121 679 7522 email her jhall@sandwellcct.org.uk

Tutors and Exams Ltd
This organisation has exam centres in Bolton, Coventry, Leatherhead and London as well as having a science laboratory in Birmingham for carrying out science practicals. They deliver GCSE and IGCSE as well as Functional Skills qualifications. If you are looking to find a tutor so simply find somewhere to sit an exam as a private candidate then why not check them out. 02476 221008.

Halesowen College
Halesowen College offers exams across all subjects and all exam boards at £90 a paper so expect to pay £200 for a full maths or English GCSE. If you are enrol on another course the price will be reduced to about £40-50 per paper but do give them a call for exact prices and ask to speak to the exams officer.
0121 602 7777

Marking and Assessment Service

Mark My Papers
This is a marking and assessment service. They help home educating children by intermittently marking school work. They can mark weekly, monthly or just occasionally. So, if your child is working on past papers, essays and other assignments you can submit them to them to be marked to check if they are ready for sitting the real exam. This is done for a small fee starting from just £6. It is a service that has been set up by a home educating mother who guided her own boys through public exams.

General online website resources
Online Learning Packages

IXL – Online Maths and English courses costs from £7.99 a month or £59 annual fee. Enables access to online modules of learning covering all key stages with tests and progress checks along the way.

EdPlace – Online Maths, English and Science course, costing from £99 per year per child or £15 a month. Programmes are a modular approach covering all key stages, with progress tests and checks along the way. Before subscribing you can take free maths assessment for
personalised study recommendations.

Exemplar Education
This is an online maths and english website that covers from year 1 through to GCSE learning and aligned to the National Curriculum. It has over 2,00 video tutorials, freephone helpline with UK qualified teachers and offers an automated personal study programme. Costs start at £12 per week per family. 0800 1777 999

Echo Education
This is a KS3 GCSE and IGCSE online resource that offers tutoring for home educators by home educators. It offers courses in the following subjects: Biology, Physics, Chemistry, or combined sciences, History, Geography Maths and English. Prices start at £100 per subject or £160 with tutor support.

CloudLearn
Provides online GCSE and A level course providing course materials, tutor support and exam centre access. Prices start from £285 and subjects covered include Biology, Business, Physics, Chemistry, English, geography, history, sociology, travel and tourism, maths, science

IGCSE – Oxford Home Schooling 0800 011 1024
This website covers Key Stage 3 programmes of study as well as a wide range of GCSE subjects. Example costs are 1 subject is £350, 3 subjects cost £535 and 5 subjects cost £1550. These costs cover all on line materials, access to tutor support, course workbooks and exam fees.

InterHigh
InterHigh School is a complete independent online Secondary School and Sixth Form learning platform. Pupils from UK and around the world study online at home, with great results.
Cost of study in Year 7, 8 and 9 £2,520/annum
Cost of study in Year 10 and 11 inclusive of core GCSEs £2,700/annum
Cost of study GCSE in 1 year £1,500/subject
Additional Year 10 and Year 11 subject studies beyond core 8 IGCSE programme £400/subject per annum

TLC Live 01279 657193
Online tutoring service. This is a personalised online tutoring service, delivering maths, English, science and EAL lessons for children 6 to 17 years of age. The cost is £36 per hour. They offer a free trial and you can watch a free demo of how it works on their website.

Dreaming Spires
Dreaming Spires is particularly aimed at secondary students (aged 12 to 18). In the UK, that would translate into KS3 and KS4, depending on the course and the level of involvement. It's an excellent choice for two kinds of parents:

those who are thinking of putting their children back in school because they think they can't teach at secondary level;
those who want much more than an exam syllabus, desiring excellence beyond the limits of the National Curriculum.

It is an online learning and tuition platform where classes are limited to no more than 15 learners at a time. The emphasis is on exam coaching with a vast array of subjects on offer. It is run by home edding parents. Check out the site to learn more about what’s on offer and the costs.

NET School
This site offers a high-quality education based on the English National Curriculum for students aged between 9 and 16 years. Internet teaching and study following IGCSE’s. For more details check out the website

Study.com
Take online courses on Study.com that are fun and engaging. Pass exams to earn real college credit. Research schools and degrees to further your education. This has a free trail available but not sure the cost after this I think it depends on what subjects you choose to do and to what level.

Online Cross Curricular Learning Resources

Kerboodle: The digital teaching and learning service
Kerboodle works alongside your course textbooks and is packed with customisable learning content, assessment materials and reporting tools. It covers Primary right through to Secondary covering most subject covered in schools and some vocational subjects too. It covers the following: -

Teacher notes, planning materials and on-screen lesson presentations.
A range of assessment materials including auto-marked tests, self-assessment checklists and a variety of support materials.
In-depth reporting functionality to monitor homework and track progress.
An extensive bank of learning resources including videos, animations, podcasts, worksheets and digital versions of the textbooks.
A wealth of help and support

You do have to subscribe to use it but to find out costs check out the website for more details.

Teachit
This is a thriving community of teachers contributing resources covering English, Maths, Science, languages, geography and history and a dedicated section for Primary. Resources cover from Early years right through to A level and there are lots of free resources. Check it out now by either clicking on link below or typing address and substituting English for one of other subjects.

Seneca
This is a free online platform for homework and revision that covers most of the subjects taught across KS3, GCSE and A level exams. Join over 1,000,000 students revising 2x faster across 250+ exam board specific A Level, GCSE & KS3 Courses. It states it is aimed at teachers to track progress of their students but it is being used by home schoolers. Check out the link below.

Oak National Academy
Free online lessons across a variety of UK school curriculum subjects. It provides teachers with free lessons and resources for pupils aged from 4 to 16, from reception to year 11. Oak also includes a specialist curriculum for supporting pupils who normally attend specialist settings. It has been developed by over 40 teachers across the UK all specialising in different subjects and provides up to 4 hours learning each day. It is currently free for all to access due to extended funding from the government due to the lockdown that occurred in March so may remain available throughout 2020-2021 academic year.

BBC Bitesize

TES Resources
Website for teachers and home educators with resources, schemes of work, lesson plans and teaching ideas for early years and key stage 1,2,3 and 4 (3-16 years old) which follows National Curriculum frameworks. Most of the resources are free while some have a small cost.

Twinkl
Teacher created planning and assessment materials and teaching resources. Covers all key stages and follows National Curriculum. There are many resources that are free but lots require you to have a membership in place, for which fees vary.

Khan Academy
Learn for free about maths, art, computer programming, economics, physics, chemistry, biology, medicine, finance, history, and more.

KM Tuition
KM TUITION offers KS2, KS3 and KS4 students to learn and enrich their skills in Maths, English and Science at their own pace. The site offers access to free worksheets for KS1, 2, 3 and 4 Maths and English, past SATS papers for KS2. They also have centres where you can access tuition either in centre or coming out to your home.

English Resources

Literacy Planet
Literacy Planet teaches children aged 5-15 the fundamentals of reading, spelling, comprehension, grammar and phonics. Check out the website for more details.

Read Theory
Online reading activities for all levels. Improve your reading ability using this fun, interactive, educational tool in school or at home. Free reading comprehension and writing exercises. Just log in and start using.

Writing resources

Scribeasy
This is an online story writing platform that boosts fun, creativity and vocabulary. Scribeasy's packed with inspiring resources and tools. It is an inspiring and enjoyable method that's suitable for all types of learners (the website likes to recommend ages 7 to 99+), and can be used for writing independently or co-creating with carers, parents or a coach. Scribeasy is free to try and ideal for home and classroom learning. Find the right plan for you on the family or school page. There is a free 7 day trail and they have subscriptions available from monthly family subscription costing £6 to a yearly family subscription costing £30.

SparkNotes
This is a free on-line resource that has access to all a range of literature texts and Shakespeare texts and books that are suitable for Key Stage 3 and GCSE study. The site will help with line by line translation of texts so you can achieve a greater understanding of texts.

Maths

GCSE MATHS Quizzes

MATR
Online 1:1 maths tutoring programmes which is National curriculum based. Prices star from £9.99 a week.

10 Ticks Maths
Help pupils through the National Numeracy Strategy with a help area, also featuring math games and puzzles Suitable for age 5 right through to GCSE. Starts at monthly cost of £12.24 for up to 5 users, 6 months £61.15 for up to 5 users or 12 months for £99.98

Mathletics – Mathletics switches kids on to maths. It’s engaging, supportive and targeted to the various National Curricula of the UK, from Foundation Stage to Key Stage 5. There are various cost options for this site such as annual membership for £39.

Maths Watch
MathsWatch is a set of mathematics resources (videos and worksheets) available to schools/colleges via an online subscription service or via the purchase of individual discs (playable on any Windows® PC). Subscriptions are available for £100 a year and accessible for parents.

3 Minute Maths
Website is free and offers revision of maths topics and areas including videos and quizzes. Covers up to GCSE level study.

Bland.in
A website that specialises in free booklets for students practising towards GCSE exams with Edexcel, AQA questions. All you have to do is download them.

Corbett Maths
This site is free and developed by an experienced maths teacher. It helps students to understand mathematical topics by providing free Video Tutorials, reinforces their learning by providing free Practice Questions, 5-a-day and solutions to each, stretches and challenges students by providing free puzzles and activities, helps teachers by providing all these resources for free so that they can use them within their lessons and as resources for homework or revision. It covers resources and topics primary through to A level study.

Absolute Maths
Absolute Maths. Online Courses and Self Study . Online Courses IGCSE/GCSE Self Study. IGCSE/GCSE Maths Tutor led Courses. Our online tutor led courses for IGCSE/GCSE in Maths can be taken over one or two years.

DrFrostMaths.com
DrFrostMaths provides an online learning platform, teaching resources, videos and a bank of exam questions, all for free

The Education Brothers
This website delivers free live maths classes for the home education community. You can join the live classes at any stage. You do not need to catch up, just join anytime and get into the flow, and take a break whenever you like. You can if you like to start at the new topic. When the course finishes, it will just repeat the whole thing all over again for FREE! The plan is to keep repeating the course and allow students to jump from KS2 to KS3/GCSE foundation/Functional skills, then if they like, to GCSE higher. This programme is designed to go around your home ed style, not for you to adjust to the websites routine. There is also an option to subscribe in order to get extra support such as papers marked for you, 1-1 tuition and ad hoc support. At present the website is just maths but is going to move into science as well. Subscriptions start from £4.99 check it out.

Science

Femtinos
Femtinos provide creative, educational, fun and interactive STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts and Mathematics) workshops for children aged 3 to 16 years old in the Birmingham and West Bromwich region. Activities are aimed at primary through to GCSE and they provide practical activities and lab settings to enable the practical study of science towards exams. There is a cost for the workshops but you will need to enquire direct for these costs as these are not stated on their website If you want to find out more check out their website or their Facebook page (you will need to join and log in to see it properly

BP Educational Services
This site offers STEM resources that can be downloadable free of charge for 5-19 year olds. Resources all cover National Curriculum syllabus for Key Stage 1- Key Stage 4 and are banded into these as well as topics. Subjects covered are primarily Science but also cover geography, design and technology and business studies. Resources that you can access are videos, pdf documents, PowerPoints and even interactive learning resources.

Brilliant.org
Math and science done right. Master key ideas in math, science, and computer science through problem solving. Learn through interactive problem solving. Enjoy interactive explorations written by award-winning teachers, researchers, and professionals. Gain timeless knowledge and flex problem solving skills in bite-sized sessions, made for ages 10 to 110. This is a site that is free to sign up.

BBC Terrific Science
Links to National curriculum with lots of investigations and experiments.

Science Subscription Boxes (science experiments in a box)

Cellfie Education
At Cellfie Education, you can receive monthly subscription boxes based around science, it’s a lesson in a box! Perfect to keep your young kids happy for hours! Boxes start at £10.95 for Key Stage 2 and 3 and £15.95 for GCSE. There are at least 3 experiments on each box.

Kiwi Boxes
Hands-on science and art projects delivered for ages 0-16+. You can pick a line, with projects for every age and interest! Tadpole 9Explore and Discover) 0-2 years, Koala (Play and Learn) 3-4 years, Kiwi
(Science Art and more) 5-8 years, Atlas (Geography and Culture) 6-11 years, Doodle (Art and Design) 9-16+ years, Tinker (Science and Engineering) 9-16+ years and Eureka (Engineering and Design)14 – 104 years.
Delivered Monthly, choose your plan and the first crate ships in 2 days. Pause or cancel anytime. Serious Fun! Their science and art projects inspire kids to become creative problem solvers.

Languages

Linguascope
Interactive Language Learning Platform for Schools –
Learn French, Spanish, German, Italian, Russian, Mandarin Chinese, English.

Duolingo
Duolingo is the world's most popular way to learn a language. It's 100% free, fun and science-based. Practice online on duolingo.com or on the apps!

Art

Masterpiece Society
Masterpiece Society helps you with both art expression and art appreciation. By utilizing their rich, multi-media art lessons and open-and-go art appreciation curriculum, you will create meaningful art experiences with your kids and teens. They offer a free lesson so you can trial what it has to offer.

Creating a Masterpiece
Online fine art lessons for students of all ages. Build creativity and confidence with easy to follow step-by-step video instruction from Sharon Hofer. This offers a free sample project to try so can trial what it has to offer.

Deep Space Sparkle
Offers podcasts to explore art, art projects that will work at your child’s age and ability and offers all types of art techniques. There is a mixture of resources free to use and others to purchase.

Art for kids. hub
YouTube channel of family doing art activities

Artventure
Artventure provides everything you’ll need to grow your children's skills and confidence in art.
Simply choose an artwork, watch how it’s created and then follow along step-by-step or use the lesson as inspiration to create your own artwork! There is a free trail if it for 48 hours and then if you wish to subscribe it costs $39 for 3 months (Approx £22), $59 for 6 months (Approx £33.50), $89 for 12 months (Approx. £53). These are Australian dollars, please take into account the current conversion rate for the UK.

Technology

Jam.Com
Great for ages 8 and up. Skills you can't get in school. Minecraft, Illustration, Animation, Engineering, Cooking. Learn what you love and love what you learn.

DIY.org
DIY is a U.S.-based website and app on which members younger than 18 can upload, share and view pictures and videos of projects they make. The most creative community for kids in the galaxy. Use DIY to learn new skills and keep a portfolio. It is also linked to the Jam.com website

James Dyson Foundation
The James Dyson Foundation is dedicated to encouraging young people to think differently, make mistakes, invent and realize their engineering potential.

IT and Coding

ZU3D Stop Motion Animation
Create amazing movies using easy to use, powerful stop-motion animation software. Create stop-motion animations on PC, Mac or iPad
Use a webcam, smartphone or tablet as a wireless camera. Fully featured software with green screen, unlimited video tracks & audio tracks and more. Costs 324.99 for the home licence.

Learn Tec
This is an online tutoring service for Information Technology learning covering subjects such as computer science, Python, Scratch and raspberry Pi. It offers 3 main options for learning:
OPTION 1: Self-paced courses (Recorded) so if your child enjoys learning at their own pace there is a full range of self-paced online courses, these cover individual modules, or entire curriculum
OPTION 2: Live Classes (Online) so if your child prefers to directly interact with a tutor and enjoys learning alongside other students this offers live classes in KS3, IGCSE and International AS/A level Computer Science
OPTION 3: Individual Tuition (Online) so if your child prefers individual tuition or needs help with one or two aspect of a course, then they also offer one to one tuition for IGCSE and A Level with any exam board. For details of prices check out the website.

Code.org
Learn computer science online

Code Academy
Learn the technical skills you need for the job you want

Scratch
Scratch is a free programming language and online community where you can create your own interactive stories, games, and animations.

Grok Learning
Grok Learning is an online interactive platform that offers coding classes in programming languages like Python and Logo. Grok Learning has a focus on educating high school students, but also has content targeted specifically for professionals. Grok Learning provides courses suitable for use in a classroom setting where a computing trained teacher may or may not be present. The site teachers students through a combination of notes and accompanying coding problems to solve. Prices appear to be £2 a year for a primary aged child and £10.00 for a secondary age child and free for teachers and this may include home schoolers

Music

Yousician
Yousician is a fun way to learn the guitar, piano, bass, ukulele or singing. Enjoy thousands of songs with Yousician as your personal music teacher!