Grammar School 11-Plus Prep Materials: Who's Really Getting an Advantage — and What to Do If You're Late to It

The story behind the headlines

A Schools Week investigation has found that some of the biggest entrance test providers are demanding families fork out for preparation materials, with the most expensive costing an eye-watering £600 a year. The reporting has reignited a long-running row over selective admissions: grammar school opponents criticise the sale of materials to parents anxious to give children an advantage, arguing that the commercial ecosystem around the 11-plus quietly rewards families who can afford to pay.

Campaigners have been making a version of this argument for years. The final issue with the test is that it helps to entrench wealth inequality as use of private tutors means that no matter how much preparation schools do for the test, the 11-plus is skewed in favour of those from wealthier families. The Schools Week piece has simply put a price tag on it.

If you're a parent staring down the test in Year 5 or Year 6, the political argument may feel a long way from your kitchen table. What you probably want to know is simpler: what do the materials actually cover, does buying them make a real difference, and if you're only just starting, are you already too late?

What the 11-plus actually is in 2025

There is no single national 11-plus. England has 163 grammar schools, 155 of which control their own admissions including the choice of test. That means the paper your child sits in Kent looks nothing like the one in Buckinghamshire, and the Sutton super-selectives are different again.

Broadly, tests are produced by two dominant suppliers and a handful of consortia:

• GL Assessment — used across large parts of the country including Kent, Bexley, Berkshire, Birmingham and Wolverhampton. Tests typically cover English, maths, verbal reasoning and non-verbal reasoning.
• CEM (Durham University) — historically pitched as "tutor-proof" and refusing to publish practice materials. CEM is perceived to be the more difficult of the two papers as it is designed to be "tutor-proof" — they don't produce or endorse any sample material. CEM has now been retired from the 11-plus market, though its papers still float around online.
• Consortia and bespoke school tests — the CSSE in Essex, the London super-selectives with their own two-round formats, and ISEB Common Pre-Test material used by many independent schools.

The exam board and format matter more than any glossy prep pack. Before you spend a pound, find out precisely which test your target schools use and in which month it falls. In most areas the test is now in September of Year 6, which pulls the real preparation window back into Year 5.

Why the "arms race" argument has teeth

The uncomfortable truth about a "tutor-proof" test is that it has never really existed. However, there is so much practice material available for the CEM 11+ that it is impossible for the exam to be tutor-proof. Any test that can be sat can be prepared for, and any test that can be prepared for advantages the child whose family knows that preparation exists.

Campaigners point to a wider pattern. Grammar schools remain socially selective schools with their pupils more likely to come from affluent families with degree educated parents — exactly the kind of advantages which boost children's chances of passing 11-plus selection tests. Vocabulary is a particular flashpoint: 11-plus English papers use words which are more likely to be known by children from more affluent families. An 11-plus tutor describes how the papers use words like bridle, buoy, epoch and plateau which may be less likely to be understood by working-class children.

Grammar schools themselves have run outreach and adjusted score thresholds for children on Pupil Premium (state funding for disadvantaged pupils), but the intake numbers have shifted little. Dr Nuala Burgess said, "Our figures show only a tiny shift in the figures since our last study of the data in 2021. This is in spite of grammar school assurances of their efforts to improve their intake of disadvantaged pupils. It would seem that little has changed."

None of that answers the question of what to do if your child is sitting the test in ten months' time. But it does mean you should approach the commercial prep market with your eyes open, not with the sense that everyone else has a secret you're missing.

What preparation materials actually cover

Strip away the branding and the paid platforms mostly do four things:

1. Content practice in maths and English, roughly aligned to Key Stage 2 but pushing into Key Stage 3 territory on some topics.
2. Verbal reasoning — analogies, code-breaking, letter series, cloze passages. Rarely taught in primary school.
3. Non-verbal reasoning — pattern-matching, rotations, spatial puzzles. Also not on the primary curriculum.
4. Timed practice papers that mimic the pressure and pacing of the real thing.

You do not need a £600 platform to cover any of this. The Bond series, CGP workbooks, and free familiarisation papers from GL Assessment's own website will get most children a very long way. While CEM is no longer used, these papers are still useful for practice.

The genuine value of the paid platforms is convenience: adaptive questions that respond to your child's weak spots, automatic marking, and a plan that removes decision fatigue for the parent. Whether that's worth the price depends on how organised you are and how much time you have.

Does a tutor make a difference?

Honestly? For some children, yes. For others, not much.

A tutor helps most when:

• Your child is capable but has gaps in maths or written English that a parent can't easily diagnose.
• Verbal and non-verbal reasoning are genuinely new — a tutor who knows the question types can teach the tricks in a few sessions that would take months to stumble into.
• Exam stamina and pacing are the issue. Sitting a paper against the clock with someone who will then unpick every question is a skill in itself.

A tutor helps least when:

• Your child is already scoring near the top of practice papers and just needs mileage.
• The underlying reading age is well below the paper's demands. No amount of tutoring in Year 6 will conjure four years of missed reading.
• The child is unwilling. Tutoring a resistant ten-year-old for a test they don't want to sit rarely ends well.

If you do use a tutor, ask them directly: which board is my child preparing for, what's their current score against a real past paper, and what is the realistic gap to close? Vague answers are a red flag.

What to do if you're late to it

"Late" usually means starting in Year 5 spring or Year 6 summer with the test in September. It's tight, not impossible. A workable plan:

• Confirm the test. Which schools, which board, which date, what score band do they typically admit at. Local Facebook groups and the school's admissions page are more reliable than national blogs.
• Do a diagnostic paper cold. No prep, no help. This is your baseline and your morale check. Mark it honestly.
• Fix the fundamentals first. Times tables to 12, fractions and percentages, comprehension of unfamiliar texts, and vocabulary. Reading twenty minutes a day of something above the child's comfort level does more than any workbook.
• Introduce reasoning question types. Two or three focused sessions on each type — verbal analogies, cloze, non-verbal series — is often enough for a bright child to see the patterns.
• Move to timed papers in the last two months. One full paper a week, marked properly, with the wrong answers reviewed the next day. Not five papers a week; that produces exhausted children and no learning.
• Have a plan B. Grammar school is one route into a good secondary education, not the only one. Children who are told the family's happiness rests on a September test perform worse, not better.

The wider question

The Schools Week story will keep the political argument alive, and it should. A system in which a child's chance of a state grammar place is meaningfully improved by hundreds of pounds of paid materials is a system that deserves scrutiny. Whether the answer is reforming the test, funding proper preparation for every eligible child, or ending selection altogether is not a decision any individual parent can make.

What you can do is prepare your child sensibly, without spending more than you need to, and without letting a September morning define what you think of them. The materials market will keep growing. Your child's education is bigger than it.