IGCSE and A level Fees for June 2011

Dear all


Time to get your cash ready.  Hope you have not invested (saved!) all your excess in gold and property because you might need around SR5,000 very soon.


IGCSEs


Fees for IGCSEs are SR 535/ plus SR75 per subject and SR 290/- per oral exam.  That means that if you are taking e.g. 8 subjects, you will have to pay SR610 * 8 = SR4,880.  If one of those subjects is Second Language English, there will be an additional charge of SR290 for the oral, making a total of SR5,170 . Wallahu al Mustaan, I can hear you saying!  If your son/daughter is taking English First Language, there is no oral and you do not need to add in SR290.


A/AS Levels


For A Levels,  the subject fee is SR 565/- plus SR75 = SR640.  There is an additional entry fee of SR265 (regardless of number of subjects).  That means for a student taking 4 A levels or 4 AS levels, the fee will be SR640 * 4 = SR2,560 plus SR265 = SR2,825.


There will also be a nominal administration charge for all students; IGCSE and A level.


An announcement will be made shortly, God willing, about when to bring the monies in to the school.

June 2011 Registration

Dear all

Asalam

Now the moment you have all been waiting for!  I intend to post the registration form on a Yahoo group that I have set up.  There will be a link to that site on this Blog.  If you have problems locating and/or downloading it, you can collect a hard copy from me at school and from Ms Hanifa at the girls' school.

June 2010 exams

The CIE Outstanding Awards Ceremony for last summer's exams will be held in Riyadh  on Mon, 17th January 2011, God willing.  The list of high achievers is due to be announced early in December, 2010.  We had quite a few last year and let's hope we have more this year.

June 2010 registration

Dear all
Some have been asking me about registration for June 2011 exams.  Mashallah. You guys plan ahead when it comes to study.  I wish you planned ahead in other things as well!  The BC have told me that dates are not yet fixed but we can expect it to take place early on in the month of January, 2011.  Watch this blog site for further updates.

Visit of UK universities

A group of UK universities is on a visit to Riyadh this week where they will make major presentations at the Marriott Hotel Monday and Tuesday evenings (males only).  On Tuesday, 2^nd November, a delegation from the group is scheduled to visit our (boys) school to address grades 11/12/AS/A2.  A special assembly will be held for this during periods 3 and 4 in the upstairs meeting (prayer) room.

June 2010 exams

The final certificates for the June exams have now arrived at the British Council.  Hopefully we'll find a driver Saturday morning and have them ready for distribution on Saturday or Sunday, God willing.  Once in, I should like them collected as soon as possible.  Girls school certificates to be collected from their school, not the boys' school.

June 2010 exams

Some students requested a re-mark of their June 2010 papers and the results for most have arrived.  There was only one small change and I cannot post the information (confidential).  If you filed an EAR request (Enquiry About Results), please contact me at the school next week.

Applications to UK universities

Applying to the UK for university

The application deadline is fast approaching for some subjects.  Applications are not made directly to the university.  They are made through a clearing house called UCAS at http://www.ucas.ac.uk  The site is very user-friendly and you do not have to complete the application in one shot.  You can enter some information, save it and return to complete it some other time.

Application deadline

15 October - application deadline for the receipt at UCAS of applications for all medicine, dentistry, veterinary medicine and veterinary science courses and for all courses at the universities of Oxford and Cambridge. 15 January - application deadline for all other courses.

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What to fill in

There are several sections to fill in including sections called Registration, Personal Details, Choices, Education (Manarat!), Employment (paid  only),  Personal Statement, References and Declaration.  OK and the money of course –nothing is free, especially in the UK!  UK candidates can also fill in an additional section, called (rather obviously) 'Additional Information'.

Choices

Make sure you include a range of universities, based on your expected grades.  Even if you expect  straight As, include one or two that accept As and Bs to cover yourself.

Make your choices based  on ranking of the faculty, costs of fees (Cambridge and Oxford are very expensive owing to College and Faculty fees), costs of living (very high in London) and proximity to Muslim communities (London, Manchester, Birmingham…?). 

For information on ranking of faculties, click on the following link:  http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/universityguide

Personal Statement

This is arguably one of the most important parts of the application: in some cases as important as the grades.  Believe it or not!  It has to be well written in formal English, presented well and should not contain grammatical mistakes. The web site has some good guidance on this.

November 2010 Statement of Entry forms

All students sitting exams in October and November are required to bring a photo to the school secretary and have it stamped and signed.  Oral exams due to take place this Thursday and students will not be allowed in without this.  Photos should be recent and a good likeness (please don't bring in photos from 3 years ago - they're not so expensive!).

November 2010 Statement of Entry forms

The BC have let us know that all forms are ready for collection.  Our ever diligent driver is now on his way to collect them.  I hope to distribute from today at the boys school and to pass all forms on to the girls school before the end of the school day.  Please check the entry details and make sure that if you want to do e.g. Mechanics, you are not down for Stats!  My stats is OK but not up to standard to teach you (it's been a long time)!

Nov oral and practical dates

Oh no, back to exams...!


1.  Dates for the ICT practical at school


Date             Paper No Starting time  
20/10/10        0417/02 9 AM   
25/10/10        0417/03 9 AM   


2.  Date for English Second Language oral exam 


07/10/2010  Starting time to be announced (likely from 9 am onwards)


3.  Dates for science practicals (AS) to be announced very shortly

November exams 2010

The Statement of Entry forms for the November exams should be at the British Council by the end of this week, insha'Allah.  I would expect to have them by early next week at the school and then give them out to you all.   There is no need for anyone who registered with the school to go to the British Council. Girls school forms to be passed to the UK Curriculum Coordinator at the girls school. Watch out for further updates on this.  

Once issued, please check them very carefully for spelling of name, subject and option codes.  If in any doubt about subject and option codes, please consult me or your subject teacher immediately.

New grade 9

I should like to welcome the grade 9A students to the IGCSE section.  Right now all you have to do is study hard.  Do not worry about registration for exams yet – the time will come, insha’Allah.  Please also do not ask me for syllabi.  That’s the teacher’s job!

It may also be too early to buy past papers but if you really wish, you may do so from Mr. A Hadi, one of the lab technicians.

You may also want to save a link to  the Cambridge exams web site cie.org.uk.  This is a very useful site for you.  It does contain specimen past papers and for most subjects a sample of actual past papers.

November 2010 exam registration

Many of you registered for the November exams, either as re-sits or first time entry.  We handed over the file and entries are now with Cambridge.  Cambridge will issue Statements of Entry sometime in late September/October and send over here for distribution.  There is no need for any of you to go to the BC to collect hem, as they are due to come to MARS.

There may be some who did not know about deadlines - that’s exactly why I set up this blog!  The good news is that you can still apply for exams in November and you have until approximately 26^th September.  The bad news (qaddar’Allahu) is that you have to pay a third level penalty (for those who are wondering, there was no second level penalty)!  Fees are SR1,370 plus SR75 for IGCSE and SR1,650 plus SR75 for AS/A2.  Ouch!

If you wish to apply (after hearing that, I am not so sure…). contact me immediately.  There is no fourth level penalty and if there was, it would cost an arm and a leg (sorry, British humour).

June 2010 exams

June exams

For all students who took exams in June, your results certificates are with Mr. Salman, the upper school secretary, if you have not already collected them.    Please collect them as soon as possible.  Some students/ parents come after 3 or 4 years and I cannot guarantee that we will keep archives for such a long time.

Introduction to blog site

Assalamu a’laikum,

The idea of this blog is to improve communication between the UK Curriculum Coordinator at Manarat al Riyadh ( international boys section ) and students of both boys and girls sections.

Information provided will be relevant to IGCSE and A-level students.

You have probably all received your results by now, so congratulations to those who did well. Some of you have entered for the re-sits in October/November and you need to start revising in the holiday.

If you have any questions or comments, please post them anonymously.

UK Curriculum Coordinator

Mr. Yusuf Ashworth.