The 11+

the myths, the reality

I was wary about writing about the 11+ because I don’t want to field angry comments about private schools, because I’m so tired y’all. But an Instagram survey revealed that 75% of Spikers actively want an 11+ shakedown and who am I to disagree with statistics?

If you have a child at a state primary school and you are considering a private school in your range of secondary options, I’m going to explain how it works. (Although please note, I am coming at this from London, a reader in the comments has pointed out that outside the capital the system might differ a bit.)

Those of you at a prep school will have this all explained to you. Those of you who are going smoothly from state to state don’t need to read on.

The 11+ testing starts in the Autumn Term of Year 6. So if you have a child currently in Year 5, you need to start thinking about it.

There are two types of test you need to know about.

The first is commonly referred to as “the ISEB”. This is short for the Independent Schools Examination Board. They set the “online adaptive pre-test”, which private school candidates sit at the start of the Autumn Term of Year 6. No-one calls it the “online adaptive pre-test”, everyone calls it “the ISEB”.

The second is the written paper that some schools set rather than using the ISEB.

So, some private schools select candidates via the ISEB and some set their own written papers.

Here is a list of secondary schools that select using the ISEB.

The ISEB looks like an IQ test and is done on a computer. Schools use this as a filter to select students they are interested in seeing more from. One school may only see candidates who score 115+ on the ISEB, another may see candidates who get 90+.

So, you first apply to the school(s) you are interested in - best get this done by the end of Y5 - then if you are coming at this from a state primary, you apply to sit the ISEB.

If you are currently at a prep school, the child will take the test at the prep school. If you are not at a prep school, contact ISEB and they will arrange for you to sit the test in a testing centre. It’s possible that you can sit the ISEB at one of the schools you are applying for.

Once more, just for clarity: you do not need to sit the ISEB for every school. Here’s that list of ISEB schools again.

[NB when applying to schools, you will need to have a good, clear photograph of your child, so have one ready before you start. Also, the best thing I did was to keep a record somewhere of the schools you applied to and when. Keep all school correspondence in a separate folder in your email inbox because it’s just this rolling, unfolding administrative hassle and best to have it all in one place]

But the ISEB is not the end of the story.

If the student gets the required ISEB score for the schools they are interested in, (as a parent, you will never know what their ISEB score is), they are then invited back to jump through any number of extra hoops: interviews, verbal exams, group activities and whatever else they cook up.

For schools that have their own written test, the student sits that and then the next stage is an interview. The boarding school entrance process, from what I have seen and heard, is absolutely Byzantine and there seems to be no overarching theme except madness so let’s just pretend they don’t exist.

After that, offers are made in the Spring Term of Y6 (so right about now). Some offers for boys’ schools will be dependent on performance at Common Entrance, but from everything I have heard, CE is just not the drama it once was. If a boy already has a place at a school at 11 they would have to do really quite badly on the CE for the place to be rescinded.

Now: tutoring. Doom, doom. If your child is at a state primary school, it is likely that they will require some level of tuition to get into a private secondary school. This is not because your child is thick. It is because state primary schools do not prepare children for a private secondary school entrance exam and never claimed to. The entrance exams operate in a language and culture of their own. It’s not a quality thing.

Prep schools already operate in this language and culture so they do prepare their students for the entrance exam - the clue is in the word “prep” . Even then, plenty of prep school applicants use tutors in order to identify areas of weakness - it’s usually just exam technique, because 10 year olds haven’t really done any exams yet - and brush up those.

Personally, I don’t think there’s anything wrong with the support of a tutor to fill in gaps and work on the aforementioned exam technique. There is plenty of work still left for parents to do in order to prep for the 11+, but if your maths or English is absolute dog, or you have no patience whatsoever for primary school work, you need a ringer. It’s very much a team effort. People talk about “tutoring” like it’s giving your children drugs or some sort of vile arms race. It’s not. It’s fine.

Some children are massively over-tutored, (4 nights a week and lashed through practice papers at the weekend etc), but this is obviously, plainly crackers and not what anyone would advise and it’s not what most people do do.

Resources. None of these are, alas, free.

There is an online learning platform called Atom, which preps students for the ISEB and a lot of prep schools set prep work via Atom. You, as a parent, have to get your head round this, too, and work alongside your child. The best thing to do is do a bit every day - 10 minutes or so. You want to get your child used to the type of questions they will be asked, so when they pop up the kid says “I’ve seen this one”. The summer holidays between the end of Year 5 and the beginning of Year 6 is a key prepping time for the ISEB.

Schofield and Sims publish the books that many prep schools use for the 11+. You need the one in English, Maths, Verbal Reasoning and Non-Verbal Reasoning.

Past test papers from various schools are available here.

Okay, so why do people say the 11+ is terrible, then?

I have seen families have “a nightmare” when a few things happen.

First, when parents fail to be realistic about what their child is like. Only quite a particular type of child will be happy or flourish at, say, Westminster, Winchester or North London Collegiate.

Yes, you can flog your kid through hours of work so that they get in to a certain school, but it’s once they’re there that the nightmare starts. The work at a school like Westminster is non-stop, I have seen it with my own eyes. And perfectly capable children, pushed too hard into the wrong school, can end up feeling stupid, clumsy or fatally uncreative once they are there. We don’t want that.

Second, parents dump their anxieties on their children. Dumping your anxieties on other people is such a poisonous thing to do at the best of times but it’s particularly bad when you do this to children. If you, as a parent, look fine and not worried, your child will be bolstered by that positive energy. If you are raging around the house, sweating, with your eyes on stalks, screaming “If she doesn’t get into St Swithun’s MY LIFE IS OVER”, you’ve got a problem. Fall to bits in private, sure. But never let them see you cry.

It is very possible to keep your child well away from the internal machinery of all this. All they need to do is consistent prep and show up to the tests. They don’t need to go on any stupid schools tours. Save that for when they have got an offer from the school. And if they don’t get an offer from a certain school or schools, they don’t need to know about it, unless they ask. At this point, feel free to use sour grapes, “But we didn’t want you to go there anyway as they are losers and they stink.”

Children have to know that it doesn’t matter where they go to school. You don’t care. You will love them no matter what. All you want at 11+ is the illusion of options and the only thing that matters is that they give it their best shot. And Y7 is not their last chance. If it’s not working at a school you can think again - children move schools all the time.

Dealing with rejection and failure

To go through the 11+ is to offer yourself and your child up to potential rejection and failure and that is why a lot of parents dread it because it is genuinely triggering. But being unafraid, or at least philosophical, about rejection and failure is a cornerstone of navigating life. Experiencing the work for the 11+ and then either the success or failure that comes with that, and then handling it in a healthy way, will probably do more for your child than avoiding the process altogether, or getting some “dream” school (that doesn’t exist because it’s just a school).

Rejection is not nice. As a writer, I am constantly rejected and not always kindly. It is horrible, every time, but I’m not afraid of it. Maybe being rejected from several schools at the 11+, because I was so unprepared for it, has contributed to this attitude. Whatever: the younger you are when you learn not to fear rejection, the better.

Last of all, when you’re in the weeds with all the prep and the testing, which can feel a bit crazy, try not to resort to threats and intimidation. Look, we’ve all done it, but long term it’s not a great strategy for their relationship with academic work and testing.

Why is your child having to go through this bullshit? Well, it’s because we know what a great and wonderful kid they are, but these school bozos don’t know! They’ve never met them!

And the only way the schools can get to know the kids is through these dumb tests. We all wish there was a better way, but until then, this is what society has come up with. So let’s have another look at that comprehension, yes?

Over to you - what are the key things you learned, if you are out the other end of the 11+ process? Are you at the start of the journey and have questions? Please leave a comment in the handy box below.