We share stories, expert tips and insight for parents. Find guidance, insights and advice for your child's education, exam prep and school admissions.
Times tables are one of those things every child preparing for the 11+ has to get right. The quicker they can recall their times tables, the quicker they'll be able to answer questions – and that saving can make all the difference on the day.
A handful of grammar schools made the news this weekend with a change that sounds small but matters a lot...
If you ask most parents what their child needs to work on for the 11+ vocabulary rarely makes the list – even though it underpins almost everything.
For most parts of the 11+, you can tell whether your child is on track. There are right and wrong answers for maths, verbal and non-verbal reasoning and English comprehension. But for creative writing, there's no such thing as a "right" answer..
For over 100,000 children every year, the 11+ is one of the first moments when they really feel the weight of adult expectations. All of a sudden, everything gets very serious – and it can feel like the rest of their life depends on this one moment.
Most parents assume the 11+ works like a school test: get enough answers right, and you pass. But that's not quite how it works – and understanding the difference changes how you think about preparation entirely.
HeyKitsu turns ideas from articles like this into short, focused 11+ sessions your child will actually enjoy.
Picture this. Your child is doing a practice paper. They read a question, stare at the page for ten seconds, write a single answer and move on. No working. No jottings. Nothing....
It's one of the most common questions parents ask – and one of the most anxiety-inducing. You want to give your child every opportunity. You also don't want to put them through months of pressure only to find it wasn't the right path....
Here's a scene a lot of parents know. It's a Sunday evening. Your child has a maths worksheet. You sit down to help. You work through it together, dusting off the maths you learnt at school, maybe even feeling quietly pleased with yourself....
The 11+ is a timed exam, but a lot of preparation doesn't actually reflect that. Children work through questions at their own pace, with no clock in sight, and then wonder why they freeze up when it counts.
There's a particular kind of sting to hearing your child say "I'm stupid." It usually comes out of nowhere....
Mention the 11+ at the school gate and you'll get one question before any other: "Have you got a tutor yet?"
There's a piece in The i Paper today about Colchester Royal Grammar School. I'd recommend reading it, but here's the core of it: a school that was once genuinely open to local kids – including one who grew up on a council estate and prepped with his great uncle – has become something else entirely...
HeyKitsu works on iPhone, iPad, and web — perfect for a few quick questions between everything else.
"When am I ever going to need this?" Sound familiar? My son Sam would sometimes complain about maths homework, wondering how calculating angles in a triangle would ever be relevant or useful...
Grammar schools were supposed to be the great equaliser – but preparing for the 11+ has quietly become something that mainly money buys. Today we're cutting our prices, explaining exactly why and making a promise about what happens next.
Somewhere between Champions League appearances and Premier League records, Max Dowman is sitting his GCSEs...
Every parent preparing a child for the 11+ eventually hits the same wall: what does a score of 118 actually mean? Is it good enough? Good enough for which school? And why does the number look nothing like a percentage?
Grammar schools vs independent schools – what separates them in 2026, from fees and selection to results, Progress 8 and how the VAT change affects the decision.
We've looked at the data from HeyKitsu – the questions children answer, where they hesitate, where they get things wrong – and there's a consistent pattern in English...
The 11+ maths test isn't just a harder version of what children do in class. It's faster, more multi-step, and sometimes includes topics children may not have covered at school yet. Understanding what's actually on it – and what isn't – is half the battle.
Fun, game-like practice that adapts to your child's pace. No more nagging.
Most parents have heard of GL Assessment. Quest Assessments is the name fewer people recognise – but that's changing....
There's a conversation a lot of parents have – usually late in Year 5 or early Year 6, when the 11+ is suddenly a lot closer than it felt when you first signed up for prep...
The question that arrives, usually at exactly the wrong time of night: have we already left it too late?....
There's a particular kind of frustration that most parents of primary-age children will recognise. Your child spends an evening working through a topic. They seem to get it. Then a week later, when you casually ask about it, they look at you like you've invented the question from scratch.
A curated reading list for ages 7–10 – organised by what each book actually does for your child's developing mind, from vocabulary to inference and stamina.
Are some children just natural readers? Is there a switch that gets flicked at some point that turns people into readers (like me, much later in life)?
Most school entrance exams test what your child knows. The ISEB Common Pre-Test does that too – but it does something else that catches families off guard if they haven't thought about it in advance: it adapts.
Our Resources hub has past papers, school guides, and planning tools to help you map out your child's 11+ journey.
Board games may not be as popular as they once were – we can thank Roblox, Minecraft, Fortnite... for that. But children still enjoy them – and they can be an effective way to practise core 11+ skills, they.
If you understand what schools are actually looking for – and the kinds of questions they ask – you can help your child prepare without turning it into another high-stakes drill...
If you've ever sat across the kitchen table from a child who would rather do literally anything – reorganise their sock drawer, stare at a wall, negotiate one more episode – than open their revision book, you are not alone.
A complete guide to the FSCE 11+ exam: which schools use it, what it tests across KS2 subjects and how to prepare for an exam designed to resist tutoring.
The 11+ is one of the most emotionally loaded experiences in a British child’s education. For the children sitting it, it can feel enormous – and for the parents supporting them, the weight of it can feel just as heavy. But the way parents respond to that weight makes all the difference.
