GCSE Online Courses through Home Education – What requirements must you adhere to if you are home schooling your child? GCSEs are on the national curriculum but is there some flexibility?
What is the GCSE?
GCSE stands for General Certificate of Education. Students within England and Wales study GCSEs in the last two years of secondary school (Key Stage 4) when they are aged between 14-16.
Within school, students will need to study the GCSE core subjects but they will also have some options with regards to other subjects studied depending on the school’s criteria.
The general government guidelines to schools are as follows:
The compulsory national curriculum subjects are the ‘core’ and ‘foundation’ subjects.
Core subjects are:
- english
- maths
- science
Foundation subjects are:
- computing
- physical education
- citizenship
Schools must also offer at least one subject from each of these areas:
- arts
- design and technology
- humanities
- modern foreign languages
At the end of Key Stage 3, students are normally given their choices and must choose their optional subjects on top of the compulsory ones.
Homeschool GCSE
If you are homeschooling your child within the UK or to the UK curriculum what would my options be? The government website (2025) states:
There is no definition of ‘suitable’ education in statute law, although as stated in s.7 as quoted above, it must be suitable to the age, ability and aptitudes of the child, and any special educational needs. This means that it must be age-appropriate, enable the child to make progress according to his or her particular level of ability, and should take account of any specific aptitudes (for example if a child is very good at mathematics, it might focus more on that than some other subjects).
Therefore, you could keep the GCSE / IGCSE strict to what the national curriculum is above or, you could tailor it more to your child’s needs.
English, Maths and Science subjects are generally important for future progression, however if your child struggles with humanities or modern foreign languages, would it not be more helpful to look at subjects that they will enjoy?
Alternatively, your child may love modern foreign languages and want to learn French, Spanish and German all at once. Again, if this is something that really interests them, it seems that this would be more important than following the national curriculum which may not be to everyone’s tastes.
There is a huge subject choice for GCSEs and students can feel that they are not benefitting from this through their school.
Home School GCSE English and Maths
GCSE English and Maths are the two most important subjects at school and in order to progress after school. However, some students struggle with these subjects.
Algebra can be too much for people to get their head around whilst English requires a good attention span when reading books or passages. If you are homeschooling your child and they are struggling with these subjects, there are a few alternative options available:
Sit exams for these subjects in a different exam series. In order to relieve exam pressure, you could sit exams for these subjects at a different time to the rest of your exams.
Consider functional skills English and maths instead. – Functional Skills doesn’t require algebraic skills or long amounts of reading and writing. They are still highly regarded qualifications and cover more basic life skills around English and Maths.
Consider a foundation/core tier for Maths. You would only be eligible for grades 5-1, however a grade 5 is more achievable with this paper.
GCSE Home Education exams
Exams for the GCSE normally fall in May/June time each year. If you are completing the GCSEs as a private candidate however, you could split the exams over two years to help relieve exam pressure. This is not possible in a mainstream school.
Information on Exam Centres can be found here.
The main awarding bodies for the GCSE are AQA, OCR, Pearson Edexcel and WJEC Eduqas.
Is there an alternative to the GCSE?
Learn Now College offer IGCSE courses to learners worldwide. The qualification is an International GCSE and is recognised globally.
IGCSE vs GCSE
If you want to know the differences between the IGCSE and GCSE, please see our article IGCSE vs GCSE.
Briefly, some differences are listed below:
- IGCSEs have more subject choices to private candidates
- There is normally a choice of two exam sittings – May/June and October/November
- Learners can sit exams worldwide and are not just restricted to the UK
- The IGCSE is an internationally recognised qualification
- There are less non-exam assessments with IGCSEs
- For International GCSE Courses, you get to choose your subjects rather than allowing a mainstream school to choose
When and how do you receive GCSE or IGCSE results?
Results day for GCSEs and IGCSEs falls in August time each year.
You will obtain your results from the centre where you sat your exams in person.
