Verbal reasoning, non-verbal reasoning, maths and English — taught one-to-one, with timed practice built in from the beginning rather than bolted on at the end. Start early enough and the exam stops being frightening.
This catches almost every family out the first time. Verbal and non-verbal reasoning are not on the national curriculum. A child can be top of their Year 5 class and still open a reasoning paper and have genuinely no idea what is being asked, because they have never seen a question of that shape before.
The good news is that reasoning is unusually trainable. The question types are finite — there are perhaps twenty recurring verbal reasoning formats and a dozen non-verbal patterns — and once a child recognises the type on sight, the difficulty drops sharply. Most of the improvement in 11+ preparation comes from pattern recognition and speed, not from raw ability.
The exam is usually sat at the start of Year 6, which in practice means preparation should begin in Year 4 or early Year 5. Families who start in the summer before the exam are working against the clock, and the pressure of that shows up in the child. Starting eighteen months out means an hour a week is comfortably enough.
We will be honest with you about whether the target school is realistic based on what we see in the first few weeks. Pushing a child at a school they have very little chance of getting into costs them a year of their childhood and their confidence with it. If a different school is the better fit, we will say so.
Exact combinations vary by region and school — tell us your target school and we will confirm the format.
| Paper | What it tests | How we prepare for it |
|---|---|---|
| Verbal reasoning | Word codes, letter sequences, analogies, odd-one-out, hidden words, compound words, logic problems | Type-by-type recognition, then heavy vocabulary work — a wide vocabulary is the single biggest advantage here |
| Non-verbal reasoning | Shape sequences, rotations, reflections, matrices, odd-one-out, nets and 3D visualisation | Taught as a fixed set of transformations to check in order, which removes the guesswork |
| Maths | KS2 content at pace — four operations, fractions, percentages, ratio, area, perimeter, multi-step word problems | Speed and accuracy under time pressure, plus the multi-step worded problems that dominate the harder papers |
| English | Reading comprehension, vocabulary in context, SPaG, and creative or persuasive writing at some schools | Comprehension technique, vocabulary building, and timed writing where the target school requires it |
| Exam conditions | Working accurately at speed, managing a strict clock, and recovering from a hard question | Full timed papers from early on, so the format is completely familiar long before the real thing |
Most children who underperform could answer nearly every question with unlimited time. The exam does not give them that, so we train pace deliberately.
Verbal reasoning is capped by vocabulary. Steady, systematic word work over a year beats any amount of last-minute cramming.
Until it is taught as a checklist of transformations to test in a fixed order. Then it becomes one of the most reliably scoring papers.
One question can swallow four minutes and wreck a paper. We teach the skip-and-return habit until it is automatic.
Rushed arithmetic and misread questions. Timed practice with error logging catches the specific pattern for that child.
Largely a familiarity problem. A child who has sat twenty full timed papers at home is not frightened by the twenty-first.
| Plan | Sessions | Price | Best for |
|---|---|---|---|
| Standard | 3 × 1-hour sessions per week | £60 / month | Steady support in one subject alongside school |
| Intensive | 5 × 1-hour sessions per week | £100 / month | Exam years, catch-up, or two subjects at once |
Meet the tutor, watch them teach your child for a full hour, then decide. No payment up front and no contract.