IGCSE explained, for parents

Cambridge International Education - called Cambridge Assessment International Education until October 2023, and University of Cambridge International Examinations before that - is a division of Cambridge University Press & Assessment, which is itself part of the University of Cambridge. Its own "About us" page describes it as a not-for-profit organisation. It is not a UK government department, and it holds no jurisdiction over any school beyond the direct relationship it builds with that specific school.

What it runs is a pathway a school can opt into: Cambridge Primary, then Cambridge Lower Secondary, then Cambridge Upper Secondary - where the IGCSE sits - and Cambridge Advanced (AS and A Level) for those who continue further. A school earns the right to call itself a "Cambridge School" only after going through Cambridge's own registration and approval process. It is not a label a school can adopt on its own, and a school can be registered for some Cambridge programmes and not others.

Cambridge is also not the only body awarding an "International GCSE". Pearson Edexcel and OxfordAQA - a joint venture between Oxford University Press and AQA - both award their own International GCSE qualifications, mostly through British-curriculum schools abroad. In practice, when an Indian school advertises "IGCSE", it is almost always describing Cambridge IGCSE specifically, which is what the rest of this page covers.

Cambridge stage	Cambridge's stated age range	Roughly equivalent to
Cambridge Primary (Stages 1-6)	5 to 11	Class 1 to 5/6
Cambridge Lower Secondary (Stages 7-9)	11 to 14	Class 6 to 8
Cambridge Upper Secondary - includes Cambridge IGCSE	14+	Class 9 to 10

Two things about this table matter more than the numbers. First, the boundaries are Cambridge's own "roughly" - a school decides exactly where a given age group sits, so the transition age between Primary and Lower Secondary is a school decision, not a rule Cambridge enforces. Second, IGCSE is only the top slice of a much larger pathway. Many Indian schools that call themselves "IGCSE schools" run Cambridge Primary and Cambridge Lower Secondary for years before a single IGCSE subject is sat - a Class 3 child in one of these schools is not doing anything called "IGCSE" at all. She is in Cambridge Primary.

At the end of Cambridge Primary and Cambridge Lower Secondary, a school may choose to sit Cambridge Primary Checkpoint and Cambridge Lower Secondary Checkpoint. Cambridge is explicit about what these are: diagnostic tools that give a feedback report on strengths and weaknesses across English, Mathematics and Science, not pass-or-fail examinations, and not compulsory. There is no Cambridge board exam before IGCSE, in much the same way there is no CBSE exam before Class 10.

IGCSE is not one exam covering a fixed list of subjects the way an ICSE or CBSE Class 10 board exam is. Cambridge offers more than 70 individual IGCSE subjects, and a school - not Cambridge - decides which of them it teaches and how many a given student sits. Each subject is separately syllabused and separately certificated; there is no single "IGCSE pass" the way there is a single ICSE pass.

For several subjects - Mathematics, the sciences (Biology, Chemistry, Physics and the combined or coordinated science options), and some second-language subjects - Cambridge splits the syllabus into two tiers. Core content targets grades C to G, and a learner entered for Core cannot be awarded above a C, whatever she scores. Extended content contains all of the Core content plus more, and targets grades A* to E. Which tier a child sits is a decision the school makes, and it genuinely changes what she is taught, not just how the same material is graded.

Cambridge also offers an optional broader award, the Cambridge International Certificate of Education (ICE), for students who pass at least seven IGCSE subjects spread across five subject groups. Most students never collect it - they take their individual IGCSE subject certificates and move on to Cambridge International AS & A Level or elsewhere.

None of this comes with a fixed textbook. Cambridge's own guidance to teachers states that no particular book is necessary for a course, and that many syllabuses are supported by a range of different endorsed textbooks precisely so schools have a choice - it has said directly that it does not believe a common prescription is suitable for all countries and contexts. What Cambridge publishes is the syllabus itself, setting out content, assessment objectives and command words, plus, for many subjects, a list of textbooks it has formally endorsed as matching that syllabus. Endorsement is Cambridge checking a book against its syllabus, not Cambridge writing the book. Two Cambridge schools teaching the same IGCSE subject can legitimately be using different endorsed textbooks, a non-endorsed textbook, or the school's own material - so, exactly as with CBSE and ICSE, what matters is the syllabus code and book your specific school has chosen, not a generic "IGCSE Maths" template.

This earns its own section because the mix-up is so common and so understandable. IGCSE and ICSE are not different versions of the same thing - they are two different qualifications from two unrelated organisations in two different countries, and the overlap in their names is close to coincidental.

ICSE is the Class 10 examination of CISCE, a private Indian board headquartered in Delhi and formally established in 1958. IGCSE - Cambridge IGCSE specifically - is the age-14-to-16 upper-secondary qualification of Cambridge International Education, based in the UK. There is a genuine historical thread between them: CISCE's own history traces back through the Anglo-Indian examination system to the Cambridge examinations Anglo-Indian schools sat in the 1940s, which is presumably where the family resemblance in the name comes from. But since 1958, the two have been run by unrelated organisations, with unrelated syllabuses, unrelated books and unrelated exams.

A few concrete differences worth knowing if you are choosing between them: ICSE is a single Class 10 board examination with a broadly fixed subject list; IGCSE is a collection of more than 70 separately certificated subjects a school selects from, several of them tiered into Core and Extended. CISCE publishes a compulsory primary curriculum while leaving textbook choice to the school; Cambridge publishes a syllabus that starts prescribing structure later, from Cambridge Lower Secondary onward, with Cambridge Primary being the least prescriptive stage of all. Neither is "better" in any sourceable sense - they are built for different systems.

Three things we are explicit about before a single class is planned.

• We are not a Cambridge School and do not claim Cambridge accreditation. Only a school itself goes through Cambridge's registration and approval process - a tutor cannot be "Cambridge-authorised" in any sense Cambridge itself recognises. What we offer is subject-level teaching aligned to your child's own school syllabus and books.
• Cambridge Primary and Lower Secondary-age children get oral, low-pressure teaching with no exam pressure attached, matching the fact that Checkpoint at this stage is diagnostic, not pass or fail.
• For IGCSE, Core or Extended is settled first. A child sitting Core is preparing for a different ceiling than one sitting Extended in the same subject, and teaching them identically wastes her time either way.
• Books and syllabus codes come from your school, not from us, since Cambridge prescribes neither - send the syllabus code (the four digits on the front of the syllabus document, such as 0580 for Mathematics) or a photo of the contents page, and classes are planned around it.

Rates for group and one-to-one classes are on the fees page, with a free assessment before you commit to anything. See one-to-one online tuition for IGCSE-specific subject support, since a child juggling Core and Extended decisions across several subjects often benefits from that format.