How to prepare your child to sit the 11 plus (11+)

Getting used to the clock

Hold the timer back at first. While your child is still learning how a question type works, a clock only adds worry to something that is already hard. Once the content feels comfortable, start timing, and from then on make timed practice the normal kind, so the clock is familiar long before the exam.

• Check the timings for your child’s target schools before you start. Length and structure vary between schools and areas, and some papers are split into several sections, each timed on its own. Your target school’s official admissions page will say what your child is preparing for.
• Set the desk up the way the exam will be. Only what the exam allows on the table: pencil, sharpener, rubber, timer.
• Find out whether a calculator is allowed. Don’t assume either way; check, then practise accordingly.
• Time with something your child can see. A phone on the desk is one more thing pulling at their attention, and it isn’t what they’ll have in front of them on the day.

Building stamina

A real 11 plus paper can run to an hour or more, and some schools set two papers back to back. Concentrating for that long is a separate skill from knowing the content, and it grows the same way: gradually, with practice.

• Sit some papers whole, start to finish. Short bursts are right for learning content, but they don’t build the concentration a sixty-minute paper needs; a good routine includes both.
• Rehearse the structure of the real exam. If your child’s paper moves between sections with no break, practise that too, so the switch from one subject to the next is already familiar.
• Save breaks for between papers. Pausing mid-paper for a drink feels kind, and it means your child never finds out what the full length feels like until the real exam.
• Compare the first half of each paper with the second. If the score falls away towards the end, tiredness is usually the problem rather than the topics in the final section, and the fix is more full-length practice rather than re-teaching.

Mock exams and the final weeks

However well practice at home goes, the exam room itself is still new: rows of unfamiliar children, and an invigilator at the front. A mock exam takes most of that newness away in advance. Our sister site, Examberry Mocks, runs invigilated mock exams in the run-up to the real thing, and the experience of the room matters at least as much as the score.

In the final week or two, resist the urge to add more. Keep the sessions your child already knows, protect their sleep, and talk about how they’re feeling as well as what they’re scoring. At this stage an extra paper usually gains little; the aim now is to arrive fresh.

Settle the practical details early too: when you’ll leave, what to bring, what happens straight afterwards. Every small question answered the night before is one less thing occupying your child on the morning.

Top tips

• Start timing papers once the content is secure, and keep timed practice as the normal kind from then on.
• Check your target school’s official admissions page for exact timings and whether the paper is split into sections.
• Make some practices full papers in one sitting, so your child has felt the real length before the day.
• Book a mock exam in good time; home practice covers everything except the room.
• Hold the routine steady through the final week or two, and add nothing new.
• Talk about how your child is feeling, as well as the scores.

How to prepare

One of the most effective ways to prepare for an 11+ entrance exam is to use practice tests written by experts. We publish a full range of 11+ revision resources: area and school-specific practice tests, subject-specific packs, spelling and vocabulary resources, and reading books.

Each of our practice tests:

• is available as a PDF download or in physical format
• familiarises your child with the types of questions they will face in the real exam
• includes answers to every question, with detailed, step-by-step explanations for the maths and reasoning questions
• builds your child’s confidence before the actual exam.

Use the finder below to jump straight to the papers for your child’s school or area.

Find papers for your school or area

Grammar schools and area tests

• Bexley
• Bishop Wordsworth’s
• Buckinghamshire
• CSSE
• Ermysted’s
• Gloucestershire
• Henrietta Barnett
• Kent
• QE Boys
• Redbridge
• Slough Consortium
• St Olave’s
• Sutton
• The Latymer School
• Tiffin School & Tiffin Girls’ School
• Trafford
• West Midlands

Independent schools

• City of London School for Girls
• Hampton
• Latymer Upper
• Merchant Taylors’
• St Paul’s Girls’ School
• St Paul’s Juniors