What Is the 11+? A Parent's Guide

If you’ve just started hearing other parents talk about “the 11+” and aren’t sure what it actually involves, you’re not alone — it’s one of those things everyone assumes you already understand. Here’s the plain version.

What the 11+ actually is

The 11+ is an entrance exam some children in England sit at the end of primary school to compete for a place at a grammar school, or at a selective independent school, for secondary entry. It isn’t a national exam every child takes — it only exists in areas that still have grammar schools, and for independent schools that select on academic ability. If neither applies to your family, you can skip it entirely and your child will move to secondary school as normal.

This guide describes the English system. Northern Ireland runs its own separate transfer test (AQE and PPTC, not GL/CEM/ISEB) with its own timeline — if that’s you, check directly with your target school or the relevant testing body rather than using this guide for the specifics.

Who sits it, and when

Most children who sit the 11+ do so in the September or October of Year 6— the school year in which they turn 11 — for entry to secondary school the following September. Preparation typically happens across Year 4 and Year 5, so that a child arrives at the test familiar with the question types rather than seeing them for the first time under exam conditions. Some independent schools test on a slightly different timetable (a handful even earlier, via the ISEB pre-test — see our GL/CEM/ISEB guide) — always check your target school or local authority’s own admissions page for exact dates, because they genuinely vary by area.

What it tests

Exactly which subjects appear depends on the exam board and area, but most 11+ papers draw from four areas:

• Maths — arithmetic, reasoning and problem-solving at (and a little beyond) the Key Stage 2 curriculum.
• English — reading comprehension, vocabulary, spelling, punctuation and grammar.
• Verbal Reasoning — puzzles built from words and letters: codes, sequences, word relationships.
• Non-Verbal Reasoning — puzzles built from shapes and patterns: sequences, rotations, odd-one-out.

Some areas test all four; others focus on two or three. It’s worth checking exactly which subjects your local grammar schools or target independent schools actually examine before you plan a preparation schedule around all four.

Grammar schools vs independent schools

The two routes look similar from a distance but work differently underneath. Grammar school entry is usually organised by the local authority (or a consortium of schools), using a testing board like GL Assessment or a CEM-style paper, mostly multiple-choice, with results and offers coming out in the autumn. Selective independent schoolsmore often set their own entrance exam, or use the ISEB Common Pre-Test — an adaptive, computer-based test increasingly used across independent schools as a shared first stage, sometimes followed by a school-specific interview or written assessment. If you’re considering both routes, it’s worth mapping out each target school’s actual process early, since the timelines and formats don’t always line up.

Is it worth doing?

That’s a genuinely personal decision — it depends on the schools available to your family, whether a selective environment suits your child, and how you feel about the preparation itself. What matters most for the process to be a positive one, whatever you decide, is starting with enough time that practice can stay calm and steady rather than compressed and stressful in the final months. Our guide on preparing without the stress goes into that in more detail, and our guide on when to start lays out a realistic timeline.

Common questions