What should we do one month before the 11+ test?

Confirm the invitation and journey

Read the actual test-day instructions, including candidate number, venue, arrival and collection arrangements. A registration receipt is not necessarily the document confirming your child’s sitting.

If an expected invitation has not arrived, check the official dispatch timetable and contact the organiser. Do not turn up at a school simply because it was your preferred venue.

Plan the journey at the relevant time, with a reasonable allowance for disruption. Check where parents should leave and collect children; access to the test site may differ from a normal school visit.

Check equipment and approved support

Use the organiser’s list rather than a generic exam checklist. Confirm stationery, any identification or entry document, food and water arrangements, and restrictions on watches, phones or other items.

Where adjustments have been agreed, keep the written confirmation and query any missing detail before test day. The final month is too late to assume a standard request deadline remains open. If a new need has arisen, contact the team immediately for its process.

Keep the illness and incident-reporting contact accessible. Different organisers have different rules for absence, a child becoming unwell during the test and possible alternative sittings.

Make practice specific and manageable

Check that your child understands the question formats and, where used, how to mark an answer sheet. Practise reading instructions and moving on from a difficult question in line with the test’s rules.

Choose a small number of topics or habits to work on rather than introducing many unfamiliar materials. Official familiarisation can help, but GL Assessment cautions that its samples do not necessarily match every school’s live test in length or timing.

Our practical suggestion is to keep sessions short enough that they leave room for normal schoolwork, rest and activities. Avoid interpreting a commercial practice percentage as a guaranteed standardised score or pass.

Keep the application timetable moving

Record the result date, any second-stage dates and the home council’s CAF deadline. Some open events or application steps happen while the child is preparing for the test.

Parents can use this period to read school policies, try journeys and compare non-selective schools. Those tasks do not need to become extra work for the child.

A calm final conversation about where to go, whom to ask for help and when you will collect them can be more useful than another prediction about the score.