Ari's right. Since this is an international board and most people are from around Asia and Africa, it's a long shot to know how many schools would be in any way relevant to yours. Still, I would've done this too,
since I get excited at little things. If you're like me then
Here's my school's scenario:
1) I used to have from 6 periods to 9 periods, sometimes less (and sometimes more due to staying back for extra classes). Each period was of 35-40 minutes.
2) I used to go home earlier than my previous school, most of the while.
3) We didn't have holidays for a January session, but usually holidays for our Mid-terms/Pre-mocks were...before the Mid-terms and Pre-mocks. Being an Islamic state, the holidays center around the religious holidays, so last year there were two weeks of vacations in end December before the mocks. Probably a little behind this year. For May/June, holidays were marked with our Mocks (17th April for me) though I kept going to school for practical preparation till May 3rd (my first exam was on May 12th). Other schools had been off since end February too.
4) Ari answered.
5) Ditto above.
6) It's much, much, much harder. If IGCSE was skydiving then AS-Level is...diving from Venus towards Earth. BUT, if you keep yourself at it and never give up, you can emerge with good results.