11+ readiness assessment. Score your child across 10 skill areas to get a readiness score, a skill-by-skill breakdown and a start date worked out from your child's real exam year. Results show immediately.
11+ readiness assessment
How ready is your child for the 11+?
Score your child across 10 skill areas, 1 to 5, based on how they perform right now rather than on a good day. You get a readiness score split by subject, the things to fix first, and how your child's real exam date compares to the runway they need.
Not every skill is tested on every 11+ paper. Exam boards (GL, CEM, ISEB, bespoke) weight these differently. This assessment covers the core ground that shows up across most exams. Groups A, B and C are our own banding, not an official standard, and the score is your assessment of your child rather than a test of them.
Step 1 of 2
What school year is your child in right now?
This sets the real exam date, so the timeline you get is your child's actual runway rather than a generic average.
If you are in the summer holidays, pick the year they have just finished. The 11+ is normally sat in the September at the start of Year 6.
11+ Preparation
Frequently asked questions
The 11+ is an entrance exam sat in Year 6, used by grammar schools and some independent schools in the UK to select pupils. Children typically take the exam in September of Year 6, which means preparation usually begins in Year 4 or Year 5 depending on where they are starting from. The exam covers some combination of English, maths, verbal reasoning and non-verbal reasoning, with the exact format varying by region and school.
It depends on where your child is now, not when their friends started. Children with strong foundations can start formal 11+ preparation in September of Year 5, around 12 to 15 months before the exam. Children who need to firm up arithmetic, reading or core skills first should start earlier, sometimes as early as the end of Year 3, to give those foundations time to settle before 11+ content lands on top. This quiz asks for your child's school year, works out their real exam date, and shows you whether the time you have left is more or less than the runway their current level needs.
The quiz is based on the same assessment framework we use with families in our tutoring practice, covering the ten skill areas that consistently predict 11+ performance across different exam boards. It takes three minutes and scores your child across arithmetic, reasoning, reading, vocabulary and working habits. The areas are weighted, so times tables and multi-step word problems count for more than the skills that vary most between boards. It is a starting point for a conversation, not a formal diagnostic. For a full breakdown, book a free consultation.
Yes, and it happens every year. Group C is a starting point, not a ceiling. What matters is how long you have before the exam and whether the preparation plan matches where your child actually is. Group C children who start early and build foundations properly often end up performing as well as children who started higher, because they have time to build genuine understanding rather than memorising shortcuts. The earlier you start, the more runway you have.
Not necessarily. Some children do well with parent-led preparation using good workbooks and past papers, particularly if the parent has time and the child is self-motivated. A tutor becomes useful when your child has specific gaps, when you want an independent voice holding them accountable, or when you need someone to identify what to work on next. If you are not sure, the focus areas from this quiz are a good place to start, with or without a tutor.
What readiness actually means, and what the score is telling you
This quiz takes about two minutes and gives you a readiness picture across the areas an 11+ test covers. It is a starting point rather than a verdict, and the useful part is which areas came out low rather than the number at the top.
Readiness is four separate things
Parents usually think about 11+ readiness as one quantity. It is not, and the four parts respond to completely different work:
- Content. Does your child know the maths and the English? Fixable with teaching, and the slowest of the four.
- Format familiarity. Do they recognise the question types? Fixable in weeks with past papers.
- Pace. Can they finish? A separate skill from knowing the content, and often the real problem.
- Composure. Do they hold together under test conditions? The slowest to build and the most overlooked.
A child can be strong on content and still score badly, which is the most common and most frustrating pattern. If practice at home goes well and mocks go badly, the gap is almost never content.
What to do with a low score in each area
Content low: go back to the topic properly rather than doing more papers. Fractions, ratio, place value and multi-step problems account for most 11+ maths losses.
Format low: this is the fastest fix on the list. Regular exposure to the question types closes it within weeks.
Pace low: train it separately from the maths. Short timed bursts, ten questions in ten minutes, rather than whole timed papers. Also teach skipping, because primary school teaches children to finish what they start and that instinct costs marks.
Composure low: the slowest and the most worth starting early. Sitting papers alone, at a table, without a parent in the room, is a bigger change than it sounds.
When to take it, and how often
Once at the start of Year 5 to set the plan, once around the January of Year 5, and again in the September of Year 6. More often than that and you are measuring rather than teaching.
Keep the results. The comparison between September of Year 5 and September of Year 6 is far more informative than any single score, and it is the thing to show a child who thinks they have not improved.
What the quiz cannot tell you
It cannot tell you whether your child will pass, because that depends on the specific school, the specific test provider and the cohort they are competing against in that year. Anyone claiming otherwise from a two minute quiz is overselling.
It is also not a replacement for a proper assessment. A teacher or tutor who works through the full range of skills with your child, sets real questions and marks the written work will find things that ten questions answered by a parent never will. Treat this as a very basic overview that gives a rough idea of where your child is right now, and nothing more than that.
What it does do is stop you spending six months on the wrong problem, which is the more common and more expensive mistake. Our complete guide to 11+ maths covers the full timeline from there.
Questions parents ask
When should we start preparing?
Start of Year 5 for the underlying maths and English, around January of Year 5 for test-format practice. Earlier rarely helps and often burns a child out before the test that matters.
Starting later changes the plan from broad coverage to targeting specific gaps, which is exactly what a readiness check is for.
My child scored low. Should we give up on the 11+?
No, and a low score this far out is information rather than a verdict. Most of what it measures responds to work.
The one thing worth being honest about is time. If the test is eight weeks away and the content score is very low, targeting a handful of topics will do more than trying to cover everything.
Which test will my child actually sit?
It depends entirely on the school. There are lots of different types, including FSCE, GL, CEM and independent school papers, and they do not all test the same things in the same way.
Check the admissions page for each school on your list. Our 11+ past papers library is labelled by provider so you can practise the right one.