Exams: the website for parents

The guide is a good entry to the complicated subject of what is taught in schools, especially at the convoluted GCSE end. Different levels of expectation determine which exam should be sat. One exam doesn’t fit all.

On one visit to the Key Stage 3 button, I found a very useful document called Which Way Now? It advises students on their choices for GCSE subjects, but it proved impossible to track the booklet down, except through the homepage search facility, and the url. It’s well worth the hunt.

The Assessment area lists all examinations, dates, syllabuses and examining boards with links to their homepages. You will need to know which examining board is appropriate, since the syllabuses differ.

The Out of School section has a lot of government bumf in between the more down to earth stuff. There’s a lot on choosing a school, and what to do if the school you choose turns down your children.

The learning at home section is disappointing, with no real content of its own. It only offers a search facility for ‘Learning on the Internet’. But there’s a link to the excellent Discover, and access to the BBC’s Bitesize Revision site.

You’ll also find information on pre-school learning, careers and higher education and adult learning. The basic details of what is available in all of these sections are given in the menus and it’s possible to move on from there to more personalized searches. The Health and Welfare details from the In School section are also repeated.

On the homepage of Parents.dfee.gov.uk is a direct link to the DfEE homepage – which has a link at the top called Parents. This opens to a site called Parents’ Gateway, and it’s well worth a look for the news and topical features on education.

http://www.parents.dfee.gov.uk