Cornwall Rural Community Council
If you need a village hall contact the CRCC at 9a, River Street, Truro, Cornwall. TR1 2SQ. Telephone 01872 273952.

Legal Guidelines for Elective Home Education
When dealing with your Local Education Authority, in Cornwall this is Cornwall County Council, it is important to know where you stand. This document is the work of a large number of home educators including, but not exclusively, members of ‘Education Otherwise’ and ‘Choice in Education’. It was edited by Neil Taylor, and checked for legal accuracy by a team of home educating lawyers.
Paper copies are available in A4 sheet or A5 booklet form are available from ‘Choice in Education’, an independent publication for home educators, PO Box 20284, London. NW1 3WY. It costs £1 for A4, and 75p for A5 to cover printing, post and packing costs. Send stamps or cheques payable to: Choice in Education. Free copying and distribution of this document, unaltered and in it’s entirety is encouraged. It is also available on-line.

The Children’s Society
The West Cornwall Children’s Project is the first TCS project for Cornwall says:
“We support rurally isolated children and young people in Penwith and Kerrier in travelling communities. We believe in the rights of traveller children to enjoy the travelling lifestyle, to remain travelling and still gain access to health care, education, play facilities and safe and secure sites. We aim to provide play opportunities for children who have limited access to local facilities for whatever reason, and we have a playbus. We are happy to support anyone home educating.”
Telephone 01736 333660, or write to: TCS, 11 Market Place, Penzance. TR18 2JB.

Woodcraft Folk
Crafts and play for children. There is a group in Penzance. Contact Matt on 01736 711378.

GCSE’s In Cornwall

If your home educated child wishes to take GCSE’s, especially if they are under 16, there is a bit of research that needs to be done, as we have found out the hard way! We have produced the GCSE’s in Cornwall Information Sheet here online, which aims to help short cut the amount of repetitive work necessary for each family to go through. We also have the results of the first survey of all examination centres in Cornwall, to find out which ones offer home-educated children the chance to sit their examinations as a private/external candidate, at the discretion of the head-teacher, and how much they charge. The average costs were very reasonable, and there is at least one centre per district.
If you have any experiences of local colleges, schools, open learning centres, adult education/evening classes, long distance learning courses for GCSE’s or other qualifications, in Cornwall, or even West Devon, or any other information, please send it in. Please include the subject, examination board, syllabus number, examination centre, how you coped with coursework requirements, and any tips if you have experience of special dispensations and special considerations.
This should supplement the good general information on this subject from the national support groups.
The Local Education Authority Education Psychologist service has been helpful in assessing whether home-educated children could have any learning difficulties, and can do free assessments if requested by the parents. These may be useful when considering the provision of the child’s education or if you want to consider applying for special dispensation for learning difficulties such as dyslexia for examinations, and the exam boards are also very helpful with special considerations information, for long or short term illness or other difficult circumstances. Do contact Anna for a chat about GCSE’s etc., if you need advice.
The Cornwall Home Educators GCSE Ten Point Plan recognises that there are many ways in which home-educated children can obtain GCSE’s, e.g. self-study, distance learning, a local college. It’s never too soon to start your research so you are well prepared before you begin studying. Do approach the exam centres as individuals, and try schools and colleges for places to sit the exams.

The Ten Point Plan is basically:

1.	Choose Subjects.
2.	Choose style of preparation, e.g. self-study, local tutorial support, correspondence, evening classes or day classes at local colleges, (some colleges accept 14-16 year olds for evening classes), long distance learning, correspondence courses etc.
3.	Research examination centres.
4.	Telephone or write examination boards and ask for publications order forms, then send off for publications, e.g. past papers, syllabuses etc.
5.	Decide what your best options are, including coursework or no coursework.
6.	Write if necessary to exam centre to confirm your place, check fees, conditions and dates of exam entry.
7.	Acquire materials and, if necessary, equipment.
8.	Book with exam boards and centres for exams.
9.	Research special dispensations or considerations.
10.	Study for the exams!!!

Many home educated children study and pass GCSE’s every year. It means knowing a bit more about the system works than most school children and their parents, but where there is a will, there is a way! If you have any questions, or helpful hints to pass on, do contact Anna by e-mail.

Detailed GCSE 10 Point Plan

1. Choose your subjects. We have found that single and double award sciences, computing and other Art, Craft, Design and Technology (CDT) courses are difficult to study as private/external candidates, but some colleges accept 14 year olds for evening classes. We had better luck with the single sciences, (Physics, Chemistry and Biology), self study, sitting the exams at a school as a private candidate, and the AQA board. Colleges do Human Physiology and Health, rather than Biology, and some do not use single sciences, so schools seem your best yet here, for an exam centre, at the moment.

2. Choose style of preparation, and 'phone or write off information.

(a)	Self Study
(b)	Local Tutor Assistance (try Cornwall Tutors on 01326 378378), or your local skills exchange system, such as LETS, contact your local library for details.
(c)	Evening Classes
(d)	Day Classes
(e)	Long Distance Learning
(f)	Education Out of School Services (EOOS) for children still in the system, who have Special Educational Needs, Learning, or Emotional or Behavioural Difficulties, or who are 'school refusers', contact EOOS at the Cornwall Local Education Authority (LEA), Manager Mr. Bill Henthorn, 01872 322000, for details on how the LEA decides if your child qualifies for EOOS. You may decide to try another way.

3. Research Examination Centres

(a)	Schools, state or private
(b)	Colleges
(c)	Independent Centres
(d)	Open Learning Centres
(e)	Adult Education Centres

Ask to speak to the exam officer, and ask them what subjects, examination boards, syllabus numbers, costs, recommended text books, coursework marking if necessary, and they may offer you as a private/external candidate for self study or long distance learning. Long distance learning centres often require you to find your own exam centre, but all boards can send a list of current exam centres for their subjects, so you can check with those centres for the year in which you wish to take the exam subjects, or try centres that offered the subject the previous year. If you do not want to sit the exam at a school you have left, shop around for others that suit you better. CHEERSS GCSE Survey 2000 discovered 11 centres, with at least one in each district of Cornwall.

4. 'Phone or write to examination boards and ask for publications, order forms and booklets, information for private candidates, costs, dates and conditions of coursework subsistence, dates for exam entry, any special considerations or special dispensions, arrangements for sickness or learning difficulties. When publication stuff arrives, send off for other publications, such as syllabuses, past papers, and if you like, specimen papers, specimen coursework, Anthology for English Language exam, (NEAB private candidate info for English includes the National Curriculum reading list of recommended authors), examiner's reports, marking schemes etc., and ask for any special information for private candidates / long distance learning for each subject. The exam boards have a subject officer for each subject. The boards can also give you a list of centres from the previous year.

5. Decide what your best options are, which subjects, levels, boards and centres suit you. To help you decide, go for a general education, or maybe drop into your local careers office, do a computer questionnaire, chat to an adviser, look at their literature, phone call colleges, they will send you prospecti for full and part time courses, and find out their entry requirements for different courses. Many further education courses and A-Levels require a few GCSE's rather than a lot, and some, none at all!
Check if the colleges require a certain number of exams to all be taken in the same year. Schools in particular may offer you exams which are for internal candidates, i.e., may have a coursework option (projects) instead of a third (Private candidate) exam paper, so that they only have to produce an extra chair, table and paper, and mark coursework alongside the others. You could try and neogociate this depending on what you prefer, as many centres in Cornwall are unused to dealing with private candidates. You may decide it is an advantage to you to try the coursework option, or at least practice the practical options if you do the third (coursework replacement) exam. The international GCSE (IGCSE) allow study for science and other subjects with no coursework, just exams. Check that your range of choices of further education colleges will accept the IGCSE.

6. Write if necessary to the exam centre to confirm they will take on an external/private or long distance learning candidate, and phone to arrange chat with any helpful staff who may mark coursework, give advice and support, arrange Speaking and Listening part of English Language if necessary, Foriegn Language and Mathematics Oral and Aural exams, suggest science practicals, text books etc.
For the IGCSE, there is an independant school on the Isles of Scilly run by a home educating parent, which offers an exam centre for IGCSEs and IGCSE packs of support material to children and parents, and optional "get you started" and/or tutor sessions with IGCSE accredited teachers, contact Jenny Morton, at Little Arthur Independant School, St. Martins, Isles of Scilly, Cornwall, TR25 0QL. Tel: 01720 422457 for details. For other exam centres, ask the IGCSE board at the address below.

7. Acquire by begging, buying or borrowing any materials and, if necessary, equipment. Borrow or purchase relevant textbooks. Most boards do not recommend specific books, as schools cannot afford to update regularly, (EDEXCEL do recommend GCSE Mathematics, Heinemann, which is tailored to their course). Many general GCSE books are designed for any board, and even give you which chapters are for which board's syllabus in the front of the book. Many science equipment can be found around the home, at car boot sales, lent by or shared with other home educating families, supplimented by small purchases at local chemists, chemistry kits (for presents?), there are good catalogues for these - (send for the Cornwall Home Educators resource list and details of the resource service), borrow foreign language support materials free from libraries.

8. Book with exam boards and centres for exams, usually in year of exams. If you have come out of a certain school, and do not wish to use it as an exam centre, there should be other exam centres near enough for you to use instead. It may be sensible to contact schools as early as possible, especially if you need coursework marked at the centre rather than by the exam board.

9. If you want to find out about how to qualify for learning difficulty or sickness or other problems, known as special dispensations or considerations, check with the exam boards, and you can ask the Special Education Section of the Cornwall LEA for a free learning difficulty assessment, or ask for a letter from your GP or medical specialist, for health or other problems, and check with each board if a copy of this needs to go to the board or the centre, whether this is a long term situation, or if it occurs at exam time. Check which papers for which you can and cannot use a calculator.

10. Now armed with all the information regarding exam subjects, boards, centres, textbooks, past papers etc., all that there is left to do is study for the exams!!! We have found that playing the exam game is different to our usual style of learning, i.e. being told what to learn, how to learn - it will be tested in a different way, at a particular time, but we are adapting, chopping the work into bite size portions, to quote the BBC! There are lots of GCSE aids out there, CDROMS, videos, books, and foreign language tapes at your local library or bookshop, BBC revision programmes, possibly other home educated children doing the same subjects as you, teachers or lecturers you may know, school children, relatives, the Internet...

Hopefully, this ten point plan will help you on your way. The contact details for the Examination Boards are below. Some may amalgamate soon.

Examination Boards Contact Details

EDEXCEL (formerly ULEAC)
London Examinations - EDEXCEL Foundation
Stewart House,
32 Russel Square, London. WC1B 5DN
Tel: 0171 331 4000

AQA
Devas Street,
Manchester. M15 6EX
Tel: 0161 953 1180

Stag Hill House,
Guildford. GU2 5XJ
Tel: 01483 506506

OCR and IGCSE
1 Hills Road,
Cambridge. CB1 2EU
Tel: 01223 553311

Results of GCSE Survey

In February 2000, the contact for Cornwall for the national charity, Education Otherwise, conducted the first annual survey of all possible examination centres in Cornwall, to determine which ones will offer home educated children, of compulsory school age, places to sit their GCSE examinations as external candidates, at the discretion of the head teacher/principal/examinations officer, and, if so, which subjects are available, and the costs involved.

The children are electively home educated by their parents and so their examinations can be attained by various methods, including self study, with or without tutors, sat as external candidates at local examination centres, and paid for by their parents. Until we are all offered free open learning for all children of compulsory 'school age', i.e. from five to sixteen years of age, home educating parents are asked to pay towards the examination costs.

Many GCSEs have 25% or more of the work marked as coursework. Some examination boards set no-coursework options, others mark the coursework themselves and some teachers mark the coursework for external candidates for a fee. Distance learning GCSE packages also require the candidates to find their own examination centre.

At the principal's discretion, some post 16 colleges accept home-educated candidates for GCSEs at a low rate per hour tutor fees (about 80p per hour for part time students or £1.60 per hour for full time students, coursework marking included), plus exam entry fees (approximately £17 per subject) payable in three installments over the year, and some even offer concessionary rates as low as £10 for Maths and English GCSEs, so give them a ring to set up an interview for parent and child.

Due to their style of learning, most home educated children benefit from good motivation and self-discipline and one-to-one tutoring (parents, relatives, friends, LETS scheme, private tutors, CDROMs, Internet, videos), they have chosen to study subjects of interest and of use to themselves, and they also tend to do less examinations in any one session, all of which helps them achieve good grades, and by law the results are not entered alongside the rest of the school children's results tables. Special dispensations and considerations are available for health problems or learning difficulties. Many further education courses only require 4 GCSE passes, so contact your local college for advice.

The results of the first survey in February 2000 are below. Costs are on average, £15 to £21.50 per exam, £20 for marking any coursework and £5 - £10 administration costs. By publishing the results we hope to round down the costs and make them fair across the country. Most centres enter their candidates by the February (later entries are accepted but the exam boards charge late fees) and need the coursework in by the April before the June in which the exam is to be taken. If you are interested in pursuing this route, telephone the centre and ask to speak to the examinations officer for your chosen centre(s).

For other GCSE information, for example attending a post 16 college in Cornwall for GCSEs, the Education Otherwise Contact for Cornwall is Anna Wheeler.

Local College Entrance
Home educated children can be offered an informal interview, try telephoning the college to arrange one. It is up to the discretion of the college as to whether it accepts any under sixteen year olds. School students are asked to take along their ‘Record of Achievement’ (ROA) file and a careers plan. Home educated children are treated as individuals, but if you want, the colleges can supply us with entrance forms, we can obtain free careers advice (see Careers Service entry), and it has been suggested that the Local Education Authority could provide home educated children with the Record of Achievement file, in which they could put any certificates etc. they have from hobbies, sport etc. or home educated children could make their own file. Home educated children under 16 have been offered places in Cornwall after an informal interview, and the ROA was not necessary. We have had our children attending part-time and full-time. They have also had a dyslexia co-ordinator.

Cornwall Dyslexia Association
You can join the CDA, or ask for advice. Helpline Telephone 01872 274827.