IGCSE

The International General Certificate of Education (IGCSE) is a UK based qualification administered by the Cambridge Local Examining Board.  It is an international variant on the UK GCSE exams which are sat by students in the UK at age 16, or at the end of our year 11.  The international variation has a course programme in all subjects that draws on the whole world for its programme rather than emphasising the UK.

We offer these exams in all subject areas in our year 10 and 11 courses.  The qualifications can be useful for students transferring to UK schools and, if the results are good, for entry to UK universities.  However, they are not indispensable for UK universities and it is quite possible to gain entry without doing them.

Possibly the main benefit of taking IGCSEs is the preparation for an external exam and an exam period which is similar to the IB exam period and can be considered as preparation for it.  However, poor results must still be declared on any UK university application and so they can represent a risk.  Students choose whether to follow IGCSE courses when choosing options for years 10 and 11.  About 60% to 70% of our students choose to do so. The rest opt for equally demanding pre-IB courses without external certification.  The cost of the exam is around 120 SFr per subject and so about 1,000 SFr for a full set.