11+ Support Thread 2026

[Elevenseconds]

Hi all

Am I going mad? I'm sure we had a thread to discuss those current Y5 who will be taking the exam in September. Has it disappeared, or am I having a moment?

Ah ok. I thought they all had to do on same day, like gcse's? Otherwise people could say off sick when not and get content from those who have already taken

Hi, twin mum here and we are just starting out 11+ in year 5. Best of luck to your twins - it is so tricky! Any advice on navigating with twins - are they on the samE schedule, pace and tutoring sessions?

Hi, twin mum here and we are just starting out 11+ in year 5. Best of luck to your twins - it is so tricky! Any advice on navigating with twins - are they on the samE schedule, pace and tutoring sessions?

No - not the case for the 11+. Out-of-county students some sit the same day in a partner school (e.g. go to a grammar school to take the exam), others sit different days. I think children who are off sick do it up to a week later, but they're cagey about releasing the date because of all the reasons you list. Generally after a week has passed you should be OK to discuss the content - though would still recommend avoiding detail, as all it does is give pointers to people who aren't your children!

Twins is so hard with the 11+ because of the horrid possibility that only one gets in! We kept to the same schedule for fairness but they practised different things at different points. It helps that my slightly less academic twin (who felt on the back foot starting this) turns out to be phenomenal at NVR so that helped her self esteem and they could help each other in bits they found challenging. She also was much more dedicated to revision and did more independently than her sister. I would say try and play to their strengths and interests. Double pay on atom wasn’t fun though 😂

Anyone getting ready for the FSCE test this weekend? A few schools are doing it on 26 September. Some GL exams on the same day too…

how are your kids? Good luck to everyone and remember to give your little one lots of praise and a treat for getting so far, regardless of the results!

fingers crossed for everyone.

How’s everyone doing with the seemingly endless wait for results? Two weeks today for us in Bucks!

Just over 2 weeks wait for CSSE. I think it will go quick as we have other school open evenings to go to.
Although my brain has gone into trying to analyse all of the comprehensives to get those in an order we are happy with. I am hoping the open evenings will help.

Good luck to all sitting today. We only have Sutton stage 2 left which will be next Saturday I think. Invites haven’t been sent yet.

16th October before Warwickshire comes out. Feels a long wait.

We have tried to put it aside, as a PP said, busy with lots of open evenings.

DD has now said she much prefers one of the local comps to the grammars, we took her to both an open evening and an open morning and she is very determined thats where she wants to go, even if she passes. We liked it equally to the grammar. On one hand it takes the pressure off, but on the other, why on earth did we go through a year of stress for the 11+ if she was going to pick a comp anyway 😂

Aaargh, how irritating!

We have told DD that whilst we will take her preferences into consideration, at the end of the day the final decision will be her parents’.

This is mainly because if she ends up for whatever reason, unhappy at school, I don’t want her blaming herself as “she chose it”. Hopefully unlikely to happen as she’s generally sunny natured, but we shall see.

Our local upper school is not a comp and the results are poor (30% pass rate at GCSE). There is a local school that admits on religion but rarely comes out as far as us on distance admissions.

I say comp, but it's actually a non selective Catholic secondary within a grammar area. It's decent, and at the end of the day she is the one going there and if thats what she wants that's ok with us. The work ethic and ambition that it took to get to this point will put her in a great position wherever she goes.

We wouldn't be having her going to the other non selective option though, which is very poor.

We didn’t get through London (Henrietta Barnett). Didn’t expect much as there must have been a thousand kids there but DD felt it had gone well and was great practice. Now focused on the selective independent schools later in the year.

Sorry she didn't make it through.

If the exams are later in the year, how do you get your school requests in by end of October deadline?

@Bushmillsbabe these are all independent schools we are applying for, and we are currently in an independent school too where we will stay if we dont get any of the other indies. The grammar was a long shot and not really the right fit but very local. Its one of the top schools and there were thousands of applicants. Im glad we tried.

We didn’t get through round 1 at HBS either, which requires top 10%—our score was somewhere in the top third instead. I am not very familar with the school as it is so far away from us, so sitting it was very much a last-minute "why not get some exam practice in?" decision. To be honest, the test format is so different from what we’ve been prepping for SW grammar/independent schools. VR and NVR aren't the main focus for our target schools, and bizarrely there was no maths at all in the first round. On the bright side, it was a really good humbling experience for her. Otherwise, she was at real risk of getting complacent!

Plus, my DD completely got her confidence back after breezing through both rounds of the Sutton tests. So I think she's ready for the main events now!

Hi 👋

I’ve followed this thread (thought I’d posted on this one but it’s the other one I’ve posted on 😂)

dd took the FSCE paper Saturday. I don’t have high hopes, she didn’t finish any of the sections. She didn’t want to take exam nearer the time, and part of me feels guilty for making her (told her it’ll be fun and just try)- of course if she gets in that’ll be great, but if not I’ll feel super guilty about it all.

anyone else’s dc take the FSCE papers?

It has been a stressful process. Im not sure my dd finished anything and the comprehension she completely forgot it.

It’s so odd - with DD1 I was very stressed in the run up to the exam but once it was done I was quite chilled out until results day.

This time round I was definitely more chilled out during preparation but have been having anxiety dreams and waking at 4 in the morning about results!

Same boat as you!

I am worried about my dd results. She did the fsce paper. Didnt have enough time to complete the comprehension and missed 5 questions, she also didn't manage to complete one of the sections in the Beacon paper. She is only 10yrs and 1 month. I am worried she may not have done enough to get a place. My anxiety is in overdrive. Any one got any words of encouragement or reassurance?

Generally they take into account age in the scores, so a just 10 year old wouldn't need quite as high a score to pass as a nearly 11 year old

Interestingly, I was just looking at the QE Boys results by birth month for 2025 and 2026. Among 3,000+ candidates, the highest standardised final score in both consecutive years was achieved by August-born children! I thought this might not be entirely unrelated to your concern and might give you a bit of reassurance.