11+ tips

Short, practical advice for the exam year. We'll add to this over time - time management, reading, revision habits, exam-day nerves.

When is the best time to start?

The ideal window is to start serious preparation in Year 4 (ages 8-9) for tests taken in Year 6. Use Year 3 / early Year 4 for building a reading habit, securing core arithmetic (times tables, fractions, decimals), and gentle exposure to VR/NVR-style questions - not full exam technique. Before Year 4, focus on foundations, not exam technique: too much "test practice" too early can cause burnout and anxiety.

• Year 4: Foundations + light familiarisation.
• Year 5: Structured topic work + regular mocks.
• Final 3-4 months: Exam technique, timed papers, weak-topic focus.

Daily practice: 25-40 minutes on school days, 60-90 minutes on weekends. Full mocks: simulate real conditions (same time of day if known, no phone/snacks/interruptions, strict timing), and spend at least as long reviewing mistakes afterwards as sitting the paper.

Managing time in the exam

Most 11+ papers give roughly 45-60 seconds per question. The single biggest cause of lost marks is not difficulty - it's running out of time and leaving a block of questions blank.

• Do a first pass, answering everything you can quickly. If a question isn't coming in about a minute, put a small mark by it and move on.
• Never leave a multiple-choice answer blank unless the paper has negative marking (most don't - Henrietta Barnett's Stage 2 Maths top block is the exception). A sensible guess is worth more than an empty box.
• Keep an eye on the halfway point. If your child is not roughly halfway through the questions at the halfway time, they need to speed up and stop over-checking.
• Comprehension: read the questions first, then the passage. It tells you what to look for and stops re-reading.
• Come back to the marked questions with whatever time is left - not at the very end in a panic, but as a planned second pass.

Practise this with the timed mock exams - the point of a mock is pacing under pressure, not just accuracy.

Daily reading - and why it matters most

Reading is the highest-return habit in 11+ preparation. Comprehension and vocabulary questions are a large share of every paper, and they are the hardest to "cram" - they reward years of reading, not weeks of worksheets.

• 20-30 minutes a day, every day. Consistency beats long weekend sessions.
• Range matters. Mix modern fiction with some older/classic writing (many schools - QE Boys, St Olave's - use pre-20th-century extracts) and some non-fiction and poetry.
• Talk about it. Ask "why did the character do that?", "how is the writer making you feel tense here?", "what does this word mean from the sentence around it?" - that's exactly what inference and vocabulary-in-context questions test.
• Keep a word list. When your child meets a new word, write it with the sentence it came from. Review it weekly.
• Read aloud sometimes. It slows reading down and builds an ear for sentence structure, which helps with punctuation and grammar questions too.

If you only change one thing this term, make it a fixed daily reading slot.

Comprehension strategy

Before reading, look at the questions first if allowed, so your child knows what to look for - and underline key words in the questions ("main idea", "tone", "suggests", "implies"). While reading, note who is speaking, where and when it's happening, and any clear shift in mood or viewpoint; for non-fiction, identify the main argument and key evidence.

• Always refer back to the text when answering - don't rely on memory.
• For inference questions, ask "what does this make me think/feel, and what words create that effect?"
• For "main idea" / title questions, summarise the passage in one sentence first, then match to the options.
• After marking, re-read any question got wrong, find the exact line(s) that justify the correct answer, and say out loud what to look for or avoid next time.

Common 11+ mistakes (and how to avoid them)

• Not showing working in maths / Stage 2. Writing only the final number loses method marks even when the answer is wrong. Write a line for each step - equation, substitution, calculation.
• Spending too long on hard questions. Getting stuck on an early question and rushing the rest. Set a mental time limit per question; if stuck after 1-2 minutes, move on and return if time allows.
• Guessing without eliminating options. Random guessing in multiple-choice papers. Cross out obviously wrong options first - even eliminating one or two greatly improves the odds.
• Ignoring instructions. Missing "answer all parts", "give your answer as a fraction", "show your working". Underline instruction words in the question and run a checklist: units? fraction? simplest form? working shown?
• Not reviewing mistakes. Doing lots of papers but never learning from errors. Keep an error log by topic, and each week re-attempt 5-10 previously wrong questions - exactly what the mistake book and spaced review are for.

Buckinghamshire (Bucks) 11+ - the Secondary Transfer Test

All 13 Buckinghamshire grammar schools share one test, the Secondary Transfer Test (STT), produced by GL Assessment and run by Buckinghamshire Council. For Year 7 entry there is no Stage 2 - one sitting, then places are allocated by each school's own admissions rules. Always check the official pages: Bucks Council - grammar schools & the STT.

• Schools: Aylesbury Grammar, Aylesbury High, Sir Henry Floyd, John Hampden, Royal Grammar School High Wycombe, Wycombe High, Dr Challoner's Grammar (boys), Dr Challoner's High (girls), Chesham Grammar, Beaconsfield High, Sir William Borlase's, Burnham Grammar and The Royal Latin School.
• Format: two multiple-choice papers, about 45 minutes of testing each (around 60 with instructions), with audio instructions. Paper A is Verbal Skills (English comprehension, technical English, verbal reasoning); Paper B is Maths plus Non-Verbal / spatial reasoning.
• Scoring: marks are age-standardised and weighted - Verbal 50%, Maths 25%, Non-Verbal 25%. A standardised score of 121 or above qualifies a child for a grammar place.
• 121 is not a guaranteed offer. Which school a qualified child gets depends on that school's oversubscription criteria - typically looked-after children, catchment, siblings, then distance. Read each target school's current admissions policy.
• Registration: children at Buckinghamshire state primaries (and partner schools) are normally entered automatically; independent-school and out-of-county children register with the Council by its deadline. Confirm this year's dates on the Council page.
• Late transfer: some Bucks grammars also test for Year 8 / Year 9 entry (English, Maths and a modern language). Check which schools take part in the current cycle - see our Bucks late transfer guide.

Preparing well:

• Verbal is half the score. Prioritise reading, vocabulary, grammar, punctuation, spelling and verbal reasoning - but don't neglect NVR, which is a quarter of the score and a common differentiator.
• Practise the real shape: two timed papers with a break, and answer-sheet bubbles filled neatly. Leave the last two or three minutes to check the answers line up with the questions.
• Eliminate before guessing, flag hard questions and move on after a minute or two.
• Keep an error log by topic and re-attempt 5-10 wrong questions each week; use the final weeks on high-impact weak topics rather than just more full papers.
• Common mistakes: over-focusing on maths, treating 121 as a guaranteed place, never practising two full papers back to back, and not checking each school's catchment or distance rules.

11Plus-Help has a Bucks STT mock for each of the 13 schools - two timed papers in the Secondary Transfer Test shape, original practice rather than an official paper. See the Bucks STT hub.

Habits, not cramming

• Little and often. A short daily practice session keeps skills warm and keeps anxiety low. Long, infrequent sessions do the opposite.
• Review mistakes properly. Getting a question wrong, understanding why, and re-doing a similar one later is worth more than ten new questions. That's what the mistake book and spaced review are for.
• Full mocks sparingly. One every couple of weeks in the run-up is plenty - enough to practise pacing and stamina, not so many that they lose meaning.
• Protect sleep and downtime in the final fortnight. A rested child in the exam beats an extra week of tired revision.