finding yourself an examination centre

home education is wonderful in primary years. it is fun, enthusiastic, no pressure and full of adventure. But at some point it is likely that one of your children will either want to, or need to do some exams. SB [see MS 2014] wants to go to university. she is otherwise not particularly clear what to do, but this will needs some planning. Quite a lot of home ed kids go to university with traditional exams to back them up before, and some go with not so much, but with good talking. SO it isn’t a done thing that exams are definitely needed. for a number of reasons, we are doing the exam route, and decided to get some out of the way this year. Spreading is good [apparently]. However, in our area there isn;t a home ed exam centre, and the LA is currently not that interested in getting it going. SO I have been emailing schools. 28 to be precise! So far I have 10 definite NO, and 6 variably YES -  2 quite likely possible to cover, 2 not really able to accommodate us this year, but prob would another [but v expensive] and 2 with so many ifs and buts and not able to accommodate us at all. our problem is that the schools don’t really want the hassle of an external candidate – they can charge what they like though, and 2 in partic seem to be doing that. in particular, accommodating things other than the final writtens is a nuisance, and we have a french oral and a classical civ controlled assessment to juggle. My main 2 schools aren’t entirely definite, but it seems probable that one, or other or both will accommodate us with some accommodations on our part – we might need to do the classical civ controlled assessment elsewhere,  but it looks like that might be possible to do, and we might need to provide our own french teacher for the oral at one place, and pay for a half day supply/bank at another place – pricy but also I think possible. So I am starting to breathe again about the whole thing. for those that do home ed, I am putting the details on the local group when they are all back, and also the national exams group – will make it easier for others!