GCSE Tutors
Our GCSE tutors are all experienced teachers and subject specialists who have experience of delivering GCSE courses within schools. They can provide one to one support across a range of subjects, specifications and many have experience working as examiners. Here you will find useful information about GCSE qualifications, links to informative articles and of course, our tutors. Please use the search bar below to refine your search by subject and specification. Owl Tutors can provide tutors for both home and online tuition.
The GCSE Qualification Explained
The General Certificate of Secondary Education (GCSE) is the most commonly-sat exam in the UK. All students sit GCSE papers in a variety of subjects at the age of 16, with exams traditionally held in the summer of Year 11. Results are normally published on the last Thursday of the following August, making for an anxious wait over the summer! With University applications getting ever more competitive, GCSE results are now often used to help decide between candidates.
Why are GCSEs awarded numbers and not letter grades?
Good question. In 2017 GCSEs moved away from the traditional A*-U grade structure to a 9-1 number based system. The rationale for this was to move away from the commonly held view that "anything less than a C is a fail". The number system was designed to give all students an average points score across their GCSEs as well as awarding the very highest of achievers. A grade 9, is in a sense an A**. Although specifically against the main reason for introducing numbers, many employers and colleges treat grades above a 4 or 5 as a pass.
How does assessment work at GCSE?
All students sit papers in the “core” subjects of Mathematics and English, and then go on to take exams in somewhere between 8 and 10 subjects. Besides the aforementioned core subjects and Science, no other courses are compulsory. Some subjects count for two or more GCSEs.
Most students sit the majority of their assessments in the summer of Year 11. Some subjects retain coursework units which contribute to the overall grade and are submitted some time before the exam. Students receive all of their GCSE grades in the summer after the assessments.
How can I help my child with their GCSEs?
With such a broad range of subjects, it is entirely possible that students may need extra help to get them through. Here at Owl Tutors we only employ qualified teachers. All of our tutors have classroom experience in the subjects they tutor, and have been personally interviewed and vetted by us. The great majority of our tutors have taught GCSEs in schools for a number of years, and will be intimately familiar with things like different exam board requirements, questioning styles and how to do well in coursework. We know how important your child’s education is, and we think it should only be put in the hands of someone who really knows what they’re doing.
Aside from one to one support, it's really important that GCSE students develops good organisational skills, particularly around the management of their own workload. Some students study up to 10 different GCSEs of quite a varied nature over two years. By the time the exams come along, it can be quite demanding to revisit older content. Developing a revision timetable early on can make a huge difference and reduce stress.
It's also a good idea to use lots of the free examination resources out there. It's important your child is aware of what exam board they are studying (they can ask their teacher if they don't know). Each exam board publishes past papers, mark schemes and examiners reports. All of these provide a vital insight into what your child's examiner will be looking for when they mark their work. The examiners reports also provide really handy hints about common pitfalls to avoid and how to make their work stand out. You can find out more about this via the links below
Exam Boards
The five exam boards at GCSE in the UK are AQA, CCEA, Edexcel, OCR and Eduqas (WJEC in Wales). Originally there were many more exam boards, all affiliated with UK Universities. They merged together into these five over the last fifty years. Schools will normally use some or all of these across different subjects, selecting the boards offering the syllabuses that best suit their needs. Please see below for links to each exam board:
