How ready is your child for the 11+?
Answer a few quick questions about your child and rate 17 skills as they are today. You get three things to do this month, the order to work in, and a timeline to the likely exam date.
- A 30 second check to try with your child on each skill
- Maths, English, reasoning and habits rated separately
- A free practice link for each area to work on
Which school year is your child in?
This sets the likely exam month. In the summer holidays, pick the year just finished.
Year 2 or younger? Start with times tables and reading together, then come back in Year 3. Learn times tables free
Your answers stay on this device. No sign-up to take the check.
Questions parents ask
What is the 11+ and when is it sat?
The 11+ is an entrance test for grammar schools and some independent schools in the UK. Most grammar school tests are sat in September of Year 6. What it covers depends on the school and the test provider: usually some mix of maths, English, verbal reasoning and non-verbal reasoning.
When should my child start preparing?
For most children, the start of Year 4, two years before the test. Children who find maths easy and have strong foundations can start in September of Year 5. If times tables or basic arithmetic still wobble, start on those by the end of Year 3. This check works out your likely exam date from the school year and lays out a timeline from where your child is now.
How accurate is this check?
It is a structured version of the questions we ask parents at the start of tutoring, not a test of your child. The quick checks on each question make your ratings more reliable, but the weightings and groups come from our experience and have not been tested as a way to predict 11+ results. Use it to decide what to work on first.
My child came out in Group C. Should we give up on the 11+?
No. Group C is a starting point, not a ceiling. What matters most is how much time you have and whether the work matches where your child is. With plenty of time, start on the foundations now. With little time, focus on a handful of areas rather than trying to cover everything.
Do I need a tutor?
Not necessarily. Many children do well with parent-led preparation using good practice material and past papers, especially when the parent has time each week. A tutor helps most when there are specific gaps, when you want someone else to keep your child accountable, or when you are not sure what to work on next.
What readiness actually means, and what the score is telling you
This check takes about five 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
Take it once before you start preparing, to set the plan, which for most children means the beginning of Year 4. Take it again at the start of Year 5, around January of Year 5, and in September of Year 6. More often than that and you are measuring rather than teaching.
Keep the results. The comparison between your first result and the one in 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 a parent’s ratings 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?
Most children should start at the beginning of Year 4. The 11+ is normally sat in September of Year 6, so that gives two full school years to build the maths and English before test-format practice begins. Children who find maths easy and have strong foundations can start in September of Year 5. If times tables or basic arithmetic still wobble, start by the end of Year 3 so those are secure before the 11+ work begins.
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.