Finding an Online 11+ Tutor: What Birmingham Parents Should Know

In Birmingham the 11+ is one test, on one day, for eight schools. That makes preparation a format problem rather than a school-by-school problem — which is why what matters is whether your tutor knows the format and the timetable, not whether they can drive to your house.

The 11+ landscape in Birmingham

Birmingham has eight grammar schools: the six King Edward VI Foundation schools — Five Ways, Aston, Camp Hill Boys, Camp Hill Girls, Handsworth Grammar School for Boys and Handsworth Girls — plus Bishop Vesey's Grammar School and Sutton Coldfield Grammar School for Girls.

They do not run eight separate exams. All eight select through one shared entrance test, administered by the King Edward VI Foundation, and the same test is used across the wider West Midlands grammar schools group. Your child registers once, sits one test on one Saturday, and the score is used by every school you go on to name.

One test date means one chance per cycle. There is no second sitting if the day goes badly. Preparation has to peak in early September, not in October.

A score is not an offer. Meeting the qualifying score makes your child eligible to be considered. The actual offer depends on each school's own oversubscription criteria — which include priority categories and, at the Foundation schools, a higher "priority score" tier and distance. Two children with identical scores can get different outcomes at the same school.

Which test applies, and the dates for 2027 entry

The test is provided by GL Assessment and taken on paper in a school hall. According to the Foundation's own description, it consists of two papers, each approximately 60 minutes long, covering English comprehension, verbal reasoning, mathematics, and non-verbal and spatial reasoning. All questions are multiple choice, with answers recorded on separate answer sheets, and there is a short comfort break between the papers.

Scores are standardised to take account of age, so a child born in August is not disadvantaged against a classmate born the previous September. The Foundation does not publish raw scores, nor how many marks each section carries.

On scores: the Foundation published a qualifying score of 205 for 2026 entry, with a higher priority score of 224 used within the Foundation schools' oversubscription tiers. Those figures are set per cycle, so treat them as the shape of the system rather than next year's target. If standardised scores are new to you, what a good 11+ score actually means covers how they are calculated, and our GL Assessment explainer covers the format in detail.

Why online 11+ tutoring works as well as in-person

The honest version: what matters is the quality of the teaching and how well it matches the test, not whether the tutor is in your kitchen.

The Education Endowment Foundation's Toolkit puts one-to-one tuition at around five months' additional progress on average, from 123 studies, with the security of that evidence rated high. On delivery mode, the EEF's own summary is that studies involving digital technology show broadly similar effects to in-person delivery, and that costs are lower for online delivery than in person. Its rapid evidence assessment on remote learning — drawing on 60 systematic reviews and meta-analyses — concluded that teaching quality matters more than how lessons are delivered. There is more detail in online vs in-person tutoring: what the evidence says.

Where in-person genuinely wins: a child who cannot yet work at a screen without supervision, or one who needs an adult physically present to stay on task. That is worth being honest about before you book anything, and it is a real reason to choose differently.

What to look for in an 11+ tutor

Ten more questions, on money, safeguarding and cancellation, are in how to choose a tutor. On the two reasoning papers specifically, we tutor non-verbal and spatial reasoning and verbal reasoning as distinct subjects, because they are.

A realistic Birmingham preparation timeline

Working backwards from 12 September 2026.

Year 4 to early Year 5 — foundations. No 11+ material. Reading widely, vocabulary, times tables, arithmetic fluency. This is the highest-value period and it looks nothing like exam prep.

Year 5, autumn and spring — reasoning introduced. Verbal and non-verbal reasoning question types, one at a time, untimed at first. Maths and comprehension continue at curriculum level plus a little beyond.

Year 5, summer term — register. Registration opens 5 May and closes 26 June. Do it in May. Start light timed practice.

Summer holiday before Year 6 — the main block. Full papers under time, weak question types drilled, one mock a fortnight rather than one a day.

First two weeks of September — taper. Confidence, sleep, familiarity with the room and the answer sheet. Not new content.

On when to start: earlier is calmer, but earlier is not infinitely better — a child drilled from Year 3 often peaks before the test. When to start 11+ preparation sets out the year-by-year version.

How to start, and what it costs

Every student at Tutormint starts with a free demo class — about 40 minutes, including a short assessment across the four content areas, so the first thing you get is a picture of where your child actually stands rather than a sales pitch. You get honest feedback afterwards, including if we think it's too early to start.

Lessons run one hour on Google Meet in the browser — nothing to install — with a shared whiteboard, so your child works the questions rather than watching. 11+ preparation starts from £15 per lesson, with no sign-up fee and no contract; full rates are on the pricing page. We also tutor Birmingham families through GCSE and A-Level, and everything local sits on our Birmingham page.

If your child is in Year 5 now, the useful next step is the assessment — before registration opens in May, while there is still time for it to change what you do.