Online Tutors in Birmingham: 11+, KS3, GCSE & A-Level
Eight grammar schools, one shared entrance test — and, for most families, a comprehensive or academy where GCSE and A-Level grades are the whole game. We tutor one-to-one for both, from £15 per lesson. Your first demo lesson is free.
The Birmingham 11+: One Test, Eight Schools
This is the structural fact most national 11+ advice misses, and it makes preparation simpler than parents expect: in Birmingham the 11+ is a format problem, not a school-by-school problem.
One test
Not eight
A single shared entrance test, administered by the King Edward VI Foundation, taken once.
One day
One chance per cycle
Sat on a single Saturday at the start of Year 6. There is no second sitting if the day goes badly.
One score
Used by every school
The result counts for every school you go on to name — you do not sit a separate exam per school.
The test is provided by GL Assessment: two multiple-choice papers of approximately 60 minutes each, covering English comprehension, mathematics, verbal reasoning, and non-verbal and spatial reasoning, with scores standardised for age. Our 11+ tutoring programme is built for exactly this format — GL-style practice, strict timing, and the reasoning skills primary schools don’t teach. If standardised scores are new to you, our guide explains what a score actually means.
Every Grammar School Behind the Test
King Edward VI Five Ways
Bartley Green · Co-ed
King Edward VI Aston
Aston · Boys
King Edward VI Camp Hill for Boys
Kings Heath · Boys
King Edward VI Camp Hill for Girls
Kings Heath · Girls
King Edward VI Handsworth Grammar for Boys
Handsworth · Boys
King Edward VI Handsworth for Girls
Handsworth · Girls
Bishop Vesey's Grammar School
Sutton Coldfield · Boys
Sutton Coldfield Grammar for Girls
Sutton Coldfield · Girls
Six are run by the King Edward VI Foundation. Bishop Vesey’s and Sutton Coldfield Grammar School for Girls are separate academies that set their own admissions criteria while using the same shared test.
What the Entrance Test Actually Asks
Four strands, and they are not equally familiar. A child can be top of the class at their Birmingham primary and still meet half of this test for the first time on the day.
- English comprehension
- Inference, vocabulary in context and the writer's intent on an unseen passage — under a clock most children have never worked against.
- Mathematics
- Curriculum content asked sideways: multi-step word problems where the arithmetic is easy and reading the question is hard.
- Verbal reasoning
- Word codes, letter sequences, analogies and logic. Almost none of it appears in the primary curriculum, so it is learned skill, not raw ability.
- Non-verbal and spatial reasoning
- Shape sequences, rotations, reflections, 3D visualisation. The most trainable part of the test, and the part most children meet for the first time on the day.
We teach verbal reasoning and non-verbal reasoning as subjects in their own right — together they are half of what the test measures. See also our GL Assessment explainer and verbal reasoning question types.
Three Things That Catch Birmingham Families Out
None of these are about ability, and all three are avoidable. Check the Foundation’s published timetable for your child’s cycle — the deadlines move every year.
Registration closes long before the test
The deadline falls in the summer term of Year 5 — months ahead of a test sat at the start of Year 6. Miss it and there is no route in for that cycle.
Registering is not applying
Entering your child for the test and applying for a school place are separate processes. You still have to name your schools on your local authority's preference form.
A score is not an offer
Reaching the qualifying score makes your child eligible to be considered. Each school then applies its own oversubscription criteria — two identical scores can produce different outcomes.
Not sure when to begin? When to start 11+ preparation sets out the year-by-year version — earlier is calmer, but earlier is not infinitely better.
Why Birmingham Families Choose Tutormint
Private tuition in Birmingham is not cheap, and the market gives parents very little to compare on. The pricing page carries every rate, what a tutor costs in the UK gives the national picture, and how to choose a tutor lists the questions worth asking before you pay anyone — us included.
Honest pricing, published
Lessons are 1 hour and start from £15 for the 11+, from £15 at KS3, from £20 at GCSE and from £25 at A-Level. No upfront packages, no registration fee.
Online, so postcode stops mattering
Lessons run live on Google Meet. A family in Handsworth, Sutton Coldfield or Solihull gets the same tutor and the same lesson — with no school-run detour.
One experienced tutor
Tutormint was founded by a tutor with over 10 years of teaching experience. You know who is teaching your child rather than scrolling profiles and hoping.
Policies that respect parents
Reschedule free with 24 hours' notice. Illness reschedules always free. One free late cancellation each month. We reply to every message within 2 hours, 9am–9pm.
Every lesson is live, one-to-one, with the same tutor each week — how it works walks through the first fortnight step by step.
KS3, GCSE and A-Level Across Birmingham
For most Birmingham families the 11+ never arrives — the city’s comprehensives and academies are where the majority of children go, and the work that decides their results starts in Year 7.
KS3
Years 7 to 9 are where reading stamina and number fluency are built — the cheapest intervention on this page. KS3 English in particular is where essay structure becomes habit, or doesn't.
KS3 tutoringGCSE
Whether your child is at a grammar, an academy or an independent, Years 10 and 11 run on exam-board-specific preparation and past paper practice.
GCSE tutoringA-Level
Where the jump catches strong GCSE students out most often, and where structured preparation turns a predicted grade into an achieved one.
A-Level tutoringWe teach to AQA, Edexcel and OCR specifications with past paper practice throughout, and structured exam preparation turns a predicted grade into an achieved one. If your child is still picking options, our ranking of the hardest GCSE subjects is a useful reality check.
What We Tutor for Birmingham Students
One-to-one online lessons in Maths, English and Science — including Biology, Chemistry and Physics — across KS3, GCSE, A-Level and 11+ preparation, taught to the exam boards Birmingham schools use.
Chemistry deserves singling out: it is where sixth formers most often lose ground between a strong GCSE and a disappointing A-Level result, because moles, mechanisms and the required practicals punish anyone relying on memory rather than method.
Online Tutors Across Birmingham and the West Midlands
Where you live does not decide whether your child can sit the Birmingham test. There is no catchment requirement to register, which is why families in Solihull, Sandwell, Walsall and further out routinely enter — and why an online tutor in Birmingham is worth as much to a family in Wolverhampton as to one in Moseley.
Where you live does affect the offer, and it is worth being precise about how. Distance sits inside the Foundation schools’ oversubscription criteria alongside the priority-score tier — a tiebreaker applied after your child has already qualified, not a gate they must pass first. The consequence for preparation is nil: the score is the part you can change, and it is the part we work on.
What online lessons remove is the variable parents actually cannot control: finding a genuine 11+ or A-Level specialist within driving distance, on a weeknight, at a price that makes sense. Our comparison of online versus in-person tutoring is an honest read, including the case where in-person genuinely wins. You can see every area we cover on the UK tutoring hub.
Exam Boards in Birmingham Schools
Birmingham schools set different boards, and often different boards for different subjects within the same school — a pattern that gets more tangled across a city with this many academy trusts. We teach to AQA, Edexcel (Pearson) and OCR at both GCSE and A-Level, and to WJEC/Eduqas where a school uses it.
This matters more than parents expect. Specifications differ in paper structure, in required practicals, and in how questions are worded and marked, so a student revising from the wrong board’s past papers gets a false read on how ready they are. We confirm the board from your child’s own exercise book in the first lesson rather than assuming it from the school.
Birmingham Tutoring: Common Questions
Birmingham and beyond
Start With a Free Demo Class
One free lesson with an experienced tutor, including an assessment of where your child stands. No payment details, no obligation — see what the free demo class covers.