Well, at school I generally fucked around, didn't give a shit and therefore got deservedly awful GCSE grades.

I was too into gaming and just plain lazy. I do not have legitimate excuses.

Anyhow, roll forward to today - I want to fix my GCSE English for a start. This is a occasionally a prerequisite for jobs in my sector.

I can enroll in September, 28 week course, afterhours and it costs £200.

I do not think that GCSEs are that well recognised, I already have 7 years of I.T experience - so this is more for "me" than for prospective employers.

It might be a good place to meet women. However, I suppose my preconception of adults retaking GCSE's, is losers? Ha

In theory, anything between an A-G is a pass. I could list all my GCSE's as passes and not list specific grades on my CV - but that is a bit cheeky. I would be aiming for an "A" this time around.

I know I would have to do public speaking again, which was always difficult for me. Being forced to do it for academic reasons would be another positive reason in pushing my comfort zone boundaries.

Has anyone here gone back to school after becoming full-on adults? What was your experience like?

You're also quite likely to just get asked in interview if you don't list them, it's a bit of a red flag.

Don't set yourself up to fail with this mindset. If you project a negative view that's what people will have. Those that go and sort out their grades are NOT losers and anyone having a negative opinion of them is a fucking idiot. That's the kind of viewpoint you want to adopt. Be proud of everything you do, take pride in wanting to sort it out. If you're candid with people about your reasons why in the same way you have been with us about being a dosser as a kid I'm pretty sure they'll have a lot of respect for you being there.

Loads of fit chicks ended up dossers at school and fluffing their GCSEs

Get yourself a GCSE revision guide from the shop and read through everything beforehand -- that way you will feel a bit more confident in the lessons.

I work in IT, have for 15 years and knowones ever asked at interview what my GCSE grades where, in your case i would just Lie and say they were A-C passes
if i were going for a 40k IT job and was asked to produce evidence of my GCSE passes i would spit my coffee at the interviewer/ laugh and then give them a dressing down at the irrelivence of it. (i did ok at school btw)

I totally wasn't bothered back then, but looking at my CV, my grades are an incredibly unfair reflection of my intelligence - it's actually embarrassing.

Hopefully, as these people are actually paying to be there, we will all make a more thorough effort this time around.

Jay - My comment about the students being losers was tongue in cheek. I too am of the opinion if someone wants to better themselves in any way, then power to them.

Reflex - Yeah, I'll buy a guide too. This is usually done by 16 year olds, so it's likely not terribly advanced. I hope there are at least a handful of girls in the class.

When i was coming up against a lot of Psychometric testing for job interviews i wanted to refresh my maths skills as i literally done nothing maths related for 10 years!
bought a GCSE maths revision guide and i was like OMG THIS IS ROCKET SCIENCE.
then i got a grip-- but its harder than you think

have you any other qualifications since leaving school?. on my new cv i'm putting together i am not even going to put gcses on it just qualifications obtained relevant to my job.

i have to interview people and what i look for on cvs are qualifications relevent to the job,experience and roles and responsibilities in previous employement.

At the interview i would probably only ask about gcses if they were a 16 year old new starter.
This may be different for IT but doubt it.

If you feel the english gcse would develop you because your lacking in this area then do it

If not i would do a night course relevant to your job that could improve/expand what you do at work.
plus when asked when you did the course and you said night course of your own back to develop yourself. i would imagine most employers would like this.

I got terrible G.C.S.E results and went back into education as a mature student and took a 9 month access course to get into Uni, average age was about 27, was some hot girls there too. Found the people in the class wanted to learn and it a was pretty enjoyable experience, got to Uni and found students to be a lot lazier and care a lot less about their education. I'd lie about my original results on my application forms (put 11 a-c's inc math, eng, science), even if someone wanted to check it, I don't have any certificates ect so bar checking with my old school doubt they could anyway and I would expect them to be more likely to check my degree, if anything. My uncle says he has a degree from LSE when in fact he dropped out and has worked for a well known prestigous company for many years without it ever being questioned.