The complete parent's guide to the 11+ exam

The 11+ is a selective entrance exam taken in Year 6, used by grammar schools and many independent schools to decide who gets a place. It usually tests maths, English, verbal reasoning and non-verbal reasoning, though the exact mix depends on the school and exam board. This guide walks you through the whole journey, from understanding the exam to registering, preparing, sitting it, and choosing a school, calmly and without letting it take over family life. Every section links to a deeper guide if you want more detail.

What is the 11+?

The 11+ is an entrance exam used to select pupils for grammar schools and many independent schools, taken at the end of primary school in Year 6. Children are usually 10 or 11 when they sit it, hence the name. It is voluntary: you opt in by applying to a school that uses it, rather than every child taking it automatically.

It is not the same everywhere. Each school or local authority sets its own format, subjects and thresholds, and some areas run a shared test across a group of schools. That variation is the single most important thing to grasp early, because it shapes everything from what your child practises to how you apply. For the full picture of who sits it and how it fits the school calendar, start with our overview of what the 11+ exam is.

Grammar schools are concentrated in particular areas of England, with others in Northern Ireland, so the 11+ is a bigger part of life in some regions than others. If selective schools are common where you live, the exam is well worth understanding properly rather than picking up in fragments.

To put some numbers on it, there are roughly 163 grammar schools in England and around 63 in Northern Ireland, and well over 200,000 children sit some form of the 11+ each year. They cluster in particular areas, including Kent, Buckinghamshire, Lincolnshire, Essex, Hertfordshire, Trafford, Birmingham, Gloucestershire and parts of Greater London, so whether the exam is even on your radar can come down to your postcode. Where grammar places are scarce relative to demand, competition is fierce; where they are more plentiful, a larger share of children win a place.

It is also worth saying clearly what the 11+ is not. It is not compulsory, it is not a verdict on how clever your child is, and it is not the same as the SATs every child sits in Year 6. It is one route into one type of school, taken by families who choose to opt in. Holding that perspective from the very start keeps the whole process in proportion, which matters more than any single tip in this guide.

Why do families take it on at all? Usually because a nearby grammar or independent school offers something they want for their child, whether that is a particular academic environment, smaller classes, or simply a strong local option. That is a perfectly good reason. The key is to go in with eyes open about what the exam involves and what the odds are, so the choice is deliberate rather than driven by what other parents are doing.

The four subjects

The 11+ usually covers four areas: maths, English, verbal reasoning and non-verbal reasoning. Not every school tests all four, so the first job is to confirm which ones your target schools actually use. Our guide to the subjects tested in the 11+ breaks down each one.

Two of these will feel familiar. Maths and English build on what your child already does at school, then push further and faster. The two reasoning papers are the surprise, because they are not taught in the national curriculum and need their own practice.

Underpinning all of it is reading. Children who read widely score better in comprehension and vocabulary, and walk into verbal reasoning with a real head start, which is why reading is the most powerful foundation of all. For the subjects themselves, our guides cover how to practise maths (fluency first, then reasoning), how to prepare for verbal reasoning (vocabulary plus the question types), and how to prepare for non-verbal reasoning (patterns and shapes, the most learnable paper of the lot).

It helps to know what sits inside each paper. Maths covers number and place value, the four operations, fractions, decimals, percentages, ratio, sequences, measures and plenty of multi-step word problems, with marks won as much on reading the question correctly as on the arithmetic. English covers reading comprehension, spelling, punctuation, grammar and vocabulary, usually built around a passage to interpret. Verbal reasoning is problem solving with words and letters, such as codes, analogies, hidden words and letter sequences, with around 21 recognisable question types in the GL style. Non-verbal reasoning uses shapes instead of words, asking children to continue sequences, find the odd one out, and work out rotations, reflections and matrices.

The two reasoning papers are the part most families underestimate, precisely because school never teaches them. The reassuring news is that they are finite and learnable. Once a child has met each question type a handful of times, the mystery fades and the patterns start to feel familiar, which is why a little regular exposure turns "I have no idea" into "oh, I see it" surprisingly quickly.

Exam boards: GL, CEM and others

Most 11+ exams are set by one of a small number of providers, and the board your school uses changes how you prepare. GL Assessment is the most widely used, with clearly defined, subject-by-subject papers you can practise directly. CEM was designed to be harder to coach for, using broader, mixed-style papers, and other regional providers exist too.

The practical upshot is that you should find out which board each target school uses before you go deep on preparation. A child preparing for GL-style papers focuses on recognisable question types; a child facing a broader paper leans more on wide reading and flexible skills. Our guide to the difference between GL and CEM explains exactly what changes and how to aim your practice.

For context, GL Assessment has historically held the largest share of the 11+ market, with CEM and CSSE making up much of the rest, and CEM is now part of Cambridge University Press. CEM was designed deliberately to be harder to coach for, blending comprehension, spelling, vocabulary and numerical questions into broader papers, and at times using adaptive online testing where the questions adjust to a child's answers. GL, by contrast, publishes separate papers in clearly defined formats, which is why past papers and practice books map onto it so neatly.

None of this should send you down a rabbit hole. The single action that matters is to check each target school's admissions page, or ask its office, which board it uses, then weight your practice accordingly. One reassuring point: the core skills overlap heavily whatever the board. Strong reading, fluent maths and familiarity with reasoning serve your child well across all of them, so you are never starting from scratch when you confirm the format.

Formats and length

Papers come in a few different shapes. Some are traditional, with written answers; many are multiple-choice, marked by computer; and some are sat online. The format affects how your child records answers, so it is worth a quick check, as our guide to the formats 11+ papers come in sets out.

Length varies too. GL papers tend to be shorter per subject, often 30 to 45 minutes each, while broader mixed papers can run longer. A few schools, particularly independents, spread several papers across a whole exam day. Knowing roughly how long the 11+ exam is for your schools helps you build the right stamina in practice.

Most 11+ exams also have no negative marking, which is a small detail with a big strategic consequence: your child should attempt every question, because a guess never costs more than a blank. That single fact shapes good exam technique, which we return to later.

If your school uses an online or adaptive paper, let your child practise on screen as well as on paper, so the interface itself is not a surprise on the day. For written papers, neat answer recording, and careful transfer onto any separate answer sheet, become small but real skills worth rehearsing. And for any format, working steadily to time is the habit that separates a child who finishes the paper from one who runs out of questions with easy marks still on the page.

How the 11+ is scored

Marking happens in two stages. First your child gets a raw score, the number of questions answered correctly. That raw score is then converted into a standardised score that adjusts for your child's exact age, so younger children in the year are not disadvantaged. Schools use the standardised score, not the raw mark, to compare children. Our guide to how the 11+ is scored and marked walks through the process, and what a standardised score means explains the numbers, which usually run from about 69 to 141 with 100 as the average.

There is no national pass mark. Each school sets its own threshold every year, and it moves with the number of places and how that year's cohort scored. A standardised score of around 110 or above is often competitive, but the real cut-off is simply the score of the last child offered a place, as our guide to the 11+ pass mark explains.

It also helps to keep the odds in perspective. Nationally, only a minority of children who sit the 11+ secure a grammar place, with estimates commonly ranging from about 11% to 16% depending on the year and how sitters are counted, and varying widely by area, as our guide tohow many children pass the 11+ shows. And crucially, passing is not the same as a place: a child can clear the threshold and still miss out at an oversubscribed school, which our guide on how you can pass the 11+ but not get a place covers in full.

A few terms are worth knowing, because they explain a great deal. A qualifying school sets a threshold and treats everyone above it as eligible, then allocates places by other rules. A super-selective school instead ranks every child by score and offers places from the top down, which makes its effective bar much higher and far more competitive. Pass rates reflect this local reality, ranging from well under a fifth in areas with few grammar places to around a third or more in high-provision counties such as Kent. At the most oversubscribed individual schools, competition can run to several applicants for every place. The national average hides enormous variation.

The practical takeaway is to read your own area's numbers, not just the headline figure, and to aim comfortably above any qualifying mark rather than scraping over it. A larger margin is the best insurance against a strong cohort or an oversubscribed school, and it is exactly what steady preparation can build.

It also helps to understand why the threshold moves at all. Because places are limited, the effective cut-off lands at the score of the last child offered a seat, so it drifts up in a strong year and down in a weaker one. That is why last year's number is only ever a clue, never a target you can bank on, and why aiming for a comfortable margin beats chasing one exact figure.

Registration and eligibility

Almost any child in Year 6 can sit the 11+, as long as a parent applies to a participating school. For most schools there is no national restriction based on where you live, and children with special educational needs can sit too, with access arrangements available. Our guide to who is eligible to sit the 11+ covers age, SEN access and resits.

The step that catches families out is registration. You apply directly to the school or admissions authority within a window that usually opens between April and June and closes between June and September, varying by school. Miss it and your child generally cannot sit that year, so read our guide to when 11+ registration opens and closes and diarise every date. State grammar schools generally do not charge, though some independents do, as our note on whether there is a fee to register explains.

You can usually apply to more than one school, either through a shared consortium test or separate entries, which is a sensible way to widen your child's chances. See sitting the 11+ for multiple schools for how that works, and whether you need to live in the catchment area, since location often affects who gets a place rather than who can sit.

Two further details are worth flagging. First, access arrangements such as extra time or a reader may be available for children with special educational needs, but they are not automatic, so contact the admissions team early with any supporting evidence. Second, most children get only one attempt at the 11+ in Year 6, although some areas run a later 12+ or 13+ transfer test, which we come to further down. Where fees apply at independent schools they vary widely, and one school might charge around £75 while a neighbouring one charges nothing at all, so always check rather than assume.

When and how to prepare

Year 4, around age eight to nine, is widely seen as the ideal time to start, with practice stepping up in Year 5. Starting early and gently lets reasoning and vocabulary grow the way they actually grow, slowly and through repeated exposure, rather than in a last-minute rush. Our guide to when to start preparing sets out a calm year-by-year plan.

Consistency beats volume. For most children, 15 to 20 minutes of focused practice on most days does more than occasional long sessions, and it protects against burnout, as our guide to how much your child should study explains. Little and often is the whole secret.

As the exam nears, add full mock exams under timed conditions. They build stamina, reveal weak spots while there is time to fix them, and make the real day feel familiar rather than frightening. Pair that with the subject-by-subject practice above, and you have a complete, low-stress routine.

A common mistake is reaching for full practice papers too soon. Papers are for once your child is comfortable with the content, not for teaching it, so build knowledge topic by topic first and bring timed papers in later. Plenty of strong, low-cost resources exist alongside an adaptive app, and several providers offer free familiarisation materials, so you can begin without spending much at all.

If you are starting later than Year 4, there is no need to panic. A focused start in Year 5, or even a well-organised year in Year 6, can still work. You simply lean harder on consistency, target the weakest areas first, and keep sessions daily so progress compounds, rather than relying on occasional marathon sessions that exhaust everyone and teach little.

Underneath any plan, make daily reading the non-negotiable habit. Children who read widely, across both fiction and non-fiction, build the vocabulary and comprehension that quietly lift maths word problems, English and verbal reasoning all at once. It is the highest-value fifteen minutes in the day, and the one part of preparation that never feels like a test. For a reluctant reader, choice and enjoyment matter more than reading level, so comics, magazines, audiobooks and books they genuinely love all count.

Do you need a tutor?

Not necessarily. Tuition is not required to pass, and plenty of children do well without it. A tutor helps most for children with specific learning needs or those who find it hard to study independently. Many families succeed with good resources, an adaptive app and a steady routine, as our honest guide to whether your child needs a tutor explains.

If you do consider tutoring, go in informed. One-to-one tutoring in the UK typically runs from about £30 to £80 or more an hour, with group sessions cheaper, so weigh the total over months rather than the hourly rate. Our guide to how much 11+ tutoring costs covers the figures and cheaper alternatives, and whether group or one-to-one is better helps you choose the format.

Many parents tutor their own children successfully. The main challenges are staying current on formats, keeping motivation, and protecting the parent-child relationship, all covered in our guide to tutoring your child yourself. If you use a tutor, Year 4 to 5 is the usual time to start, as when to start tutoring explains, and whatever you choose, daily practice between sessions is where most progress happens.

Whichever route you take, watch for the trap of simply hardwiring answers to specific question types. It can feel productive, and may even lift scores on familiar papers, but it collapses the moment a question is worded differently, and it is precisely what broader, coaching-resistant papers are designed to defeat. Aim instead for genuine understanding, so your child can tackle a problem they have never seen before. A strong tutor builds that understanding and tracks progress carefully; a weak one just drills.

It is also worth weighing how the hours actually stack up. A single weekly tutor session is one hour, and the other six days are where progress is really made, which is why even families who use a tutor still need a daily home habit. For a child who can work fairly independently, a good adaptive platform can deliver far more practice time than one lesson a week, and group tuition can be a cost-effective, motivating middle ground. Many families end up combining approaches rather than choosing just one.

On exam day

Exam day is more predictable than it feels. Most exams need only a pen, pencil and ruler, with comfortable casual clothes rather than uniform, though always follow the school's own instructions, as our guide to what to bring to the 11+ exam sets out. Your child checks in, parents leave, and the papers run to a timetable, which our guide to what happens on exam day describes in full.

Good time management comes down to three habits: attempt every question, move on from a hard one and come back later, and keep a rough eye on the clock. Because most papers carry no negative marking, a sensible guess always beats a blank. Our guide to managing time in the exam turns these into a simple routine your child can rehearse.

The day before and the morning of matter too. A calm routine, a good breakfast, a good night's sleep and a confident goodbye do more than any last-minute cramming, as our guide to the morning of the exam explains. And if your child feels unwell or panics, our guide on what to do if your child is unwell or panics has practical, reassuring steps.

If your school runs a full exam day, prepare your child for the length of it: several papers spread across the day, with breaks and sometimes lunch provided. Knowing the shape of the day in advance helps them pace their energy as well as their answers. Parents do not stay during the exam, so the calm, confident handover at drop-off, and a relaxed reunion afterwards, are the bookends that matter most. Resist the urge to debrief every question on the way home, especially if more papers are still to come.

The time-management technique itself is simple enough to remember under pressure. Sweep through the paper answering everything that is straightforward, mark anything hard and move on, then loop back with whatever time remains. Every question is worth the same, so an easy mark later in the paper is always better value than minutes lost battling one stubborn question early on. Rehearsed in mock conditions, this becomes an instinct rather than a plan your child has to recall on the day.

Results and what happens next

Results are usually released in October, a few weeks after the exam and before the 31 October secondary application deadline, as our guide to when 11+ results are released explains. You will normally see a standardised score rather than a simple pass or fail.

If your child passes, the next step is completing the Common Application Form and waiting for offers, which our guide to what happens after your child passes covers, including waiting lists. If your child does not pass, it is genuinely not the end of the road: a strong comprehensive can offer excellent outcomes, and there are other routes, all set out in what happens if your child does not pass.

Those other routes include an appeal, though appeals are rarely successful and need genuine grounds, as our guide on appealing an 11+ result explains honestly. Some areas also run a later 12+ or 13+ transfer test, and many families set up an independent school as a backup, since 11+ preparation overlaps with private entrance exams.

It is worth being realistic about appeals in particular. Success rates are low, with one recent Buckinghamshire figure showing around 91% of appeals from unqualified children turned down, and panels look for concrete grounds such as a marking error or genuine illness on the day, rather than simply being close to the mark. Treat an appeal as a long shot, secure a place through your application regardless, and keep the other routes in view. Waiting lists are also worth staying on, since positions shift between offer day and the start of term as families decline the places they do not take up.

It helps to hold the timeline in mind so the wait does not feel like limbo. The exam falls in the autumn of Year 6, results usually arrive in October, you submit the Common Application Form by 31 October, and offers land together on National Offer Day around 1 March. Several quiet months sit between application and offer, which is a good stretch to ease off the pressure and let your child simply be a child while the process runs its course.

Choosing the right school

Choosing schools is about more than league tables. The factors that really matter are the exam board, the school's culture, travel distance, admissions criteria and, above all, the fit for your child. Our guide to choosing which grammar schools to apply to walks through how to weigh them, and an open day is the best way to judge what a ranking cannot show, so take the questions in our guide to what to ask at a grammar school open day.

The application itself runs through the Common Application Form, submitted to your local authority by 31 October, listing up to six schools in order of preference, as our guide to the Common Application Form explains. Offers then arrive together on National Offer Day, usually 1 March, covered in our guide to National Offer Day.

Finally, a question many families wrestle with: is a grammar school actually better? Not necessarily. An outstanding comprehensive can match or beat a grammar for the right child, because fit matters more than the label, as our guide on whether grammar schools are better than comprehensives sets out.

When you compare schools, dig into the oversubscription criteria, because they decide who gets in among children who all passed. Distance tiebreaks and sibling priority are common, and they can disadvantage out-of-area applicants at the most popular schools, so a school that looks within reach on score may be harder to secure on geography. Use open days to test the things a website cannot show: ask about the typical standardised score of children who are offered places, whether there is a second-stage interview, how the appeals process works, and what pastoral support exists once your child is enrolled.

Finally, apply to more than one school where you are eligible. Because a pass is not a guaranteed place, a single application is a gamble, and naming several schools in genuine order of preference spreads the risk without harming your chances at the top one. Balance an ambitious first choice with realistic options further down, weigh the daily journey honestly, and remember that the best school is the one your particular child will be happy and stretched in, not simply the one highest in a table.

Wellbeing: keeping it calm

The 11+ should never cost your child's wellbeing, and protecting it actually improves performance. Watch for signs of too much stress, such as avoiding practice, lost confidence, withdrawal or physical symptoms, which our guide on whether your child is too stressed about the 11+ helps you spot. They are a cue to ease off, not push harder.

Most anxiety comes from the unknown and from pressure, and both respond to gentle steps: realistic mock practice, a calm home, and praising effort over results, as our guide to reducing exam anxiety explains. It is also worth asking honestly whether the pressure is coming from home, since children absorb even unspoken parental worry.

Keeping a child motivated relies on small targets, celebrating progress and practice pitched at the right level, all covered in keeping your child motivated. And the foundation under all of it is good sleep, exercise and balance, which our guide to supporting wellbeing during prep sets out. A rested, happy child learns faster than a tired, pressured one, every time.

One quietly powerful move is to involve your child in the decision rather than imposing it. Explaining what the 11+ is and why you are considering it tends to lower anxiety and lift motivation, compared with a top-down approach a child does not really understand. And if your child genuinely does not want to do it, treat that as information worth listening to, not defiance to override. A reluctant, exhausted child rarely performs well, and their wellbeing matters more than any school place ever could.

Common misconceptions

A few myths cause families a lot of unnecessary worry, so it is worth clearing them up. The 11+ is not the same as SATs: SATs are statutory national assessments taken by all children and do not affect secondary placement, while the 11+ is a separate, voluntary selective exam. Strong SATs results are encouraging, but they do not guarantee 11+ success, because the 11+ adds verbal and non-verbal reasoning that sit outside the school curriculum.

No child is simply too young to do well, because scores are adjusted for age, so a summer-born child is compared fairly with older classmates. Passing does not guarantee a grammar place, since oversubscribed schools allocate by distance, siblings and other criteria. And expensive tutoring is not automatically better than free resources: a well-structured routine and an adaptive app can be just as effective for a child who can self-direct.

Two more myths cause needless stress. The first is that your child must be a "natural" to stand a chance, when in fact the reasoning papers are learnable and steady, well-aimed practice closes most gaps. The second is that starting earlier always means doing more, when the opposite is true: an early start exists precisely so practice can stay light and gentle, spread across years rather than crammed into months. Early and easy beats late and frantic.

Finally, more is not always better. A child can over-prepare, and drilling for hours tends to cause burnout and diminishing returns rather than higher marks. A balanced schedule with rest, activity and social time is part of doing well, not a distraction from it. Hold these truths in mind and the whole process gets calmer and clearer.

A calm term-by-term plan

Pulling it together, here is a simple shape for the journey. In Year 3 and earlier, keep it light: read widely, talk about words, and build number confidence in everyday life, with no formal 11+ work at all. This groundwork makes everything later far easier.

In Year 4, add gentle structure. Introduce the question types through short, positive sessions, confirm which subjects and board your target schools use, and settle into a daily habit of around 15 minutes. In Year 5, step up to regular practice papers and timed work, and start introducing mock exams so the experience becomes familiar.

Year 6 is consolidation, not new learning. The exam usually falls in the autumn term, so the goal is steady revision, full mocks, and managing nerves, while you handle registration and, later, the application. Throughout, protect sleep, play and downtime, and keep the tone calm. Starting early and gently is what makes this plan feel manageable rather than relentless.

Within that arc, a simple weekly rhythm works well: a short daily session of mixed practice on most days, one slightly longer slot for a timed paper as the exam approaches, and protected time for reading every single day. Keep reviewing as you go, too. Every few weeks, glance at where your child is finding things hard and aim the next sessions there, rather than redoing what they already know. Targeted practice on weak spots is worth far more than sheer volume, and it keeps motivation up because progress stays visible. If a stretch starts to feel heavy, scale back before your child burns out, because a calm plan that runs steadily for two years beats an intense one that collapses after three months.

How Pip fits in

Pip is built to make the daily habit easy. It generates fresh 11+ style questions across maths, English, verbal reasoning and non-verbal reasoning, with difficulty that adapts as your child improves, so practice stays at the right stretch and never turns into memorising answers.

Everyday practice is free, with no ads and no sign-up, which makes it a genuine alternative to costly tutoring for self-directed children, or the perfect partner to a tutor for the days in between. Streaks and short sessions keep motivation high, and for the final stretch there are timed mock tests to rehearse the real thing. You can get Pip free and build the five-minute daily habit that quietly does most of the work.

However you prepare, the principles in this guide hold: start early and gently, read widely, practise little and often, confirm your school's format, and keep your child calm and confident. Do that, and the 11+ becomes a manageable project rather than a year of dread.