11+ maths: what's really tested, and how to prepare

I'm Anmol. I tutor maths and non-verbal reasoning one-to-one online, and 11+ maths is most of what I do week to week. This guide is the conversation I have with almost every parent before we start: what the subject actually covers, why it carries so much weight, and where children quietly lose the marks that decide a place.

What is 11+ maths?

There isn't one national 11+ maths paper. The exact format depends entirely on where you live and which schools you're aiming for.

Most grammar schools now use tests from GL Assessment, the dominant provider since CEM stopped supplying paper 11+ tests to schools from 2023. A local 11+ might test maths on its own, or bundle it with English, verbal reasoning and non-verbal reasoning. GL is upfront that timings, topics and question counts vary by area, so the first job is always to check your specific school's admissions page.

Independent schools often use a different route. The ISEB Common Pre-Test is an online, adaptive, multiple-choice assessment sat in Year 6 or 7, with a maths section that runs for 40 minutes. "Adaptive" means the software picks each question based on how your child answered the last one, and there's no back button, so a rushed guess is locked in the moment they move on.

Here's the reassuring bit. Whichever route you're on, the maths is built on the Key Stage 2 national curriculum your child is already taught. The 11+ doesn't invent new maths — it takes Year 5 and Year 6 content, asks it faster, and dresses it up.

That's also why 11+ prep sits so naturally alongside the KS2 SATs. The topic list overlaps almost completely. The difference is that the exam is non-calculator, tightly timed, and fond of hiding a simple sum inside a wordy problem.

Why maths carries so much weight

In a lot of selective admissions, maths is half the score or close to it. English is subjective at the edges. Maths isn't. An answer is right or it's wrong, which makes it the cleanest way for a school to separate a big field of bright children.

That cuts both ways. A confident mathematician can bank a strong, reliable mark and take pressure off the rest of the exam. A child who's shaky on arithmetic loses ground fast, because slow calculation eats the clock and leaves questions unanswered at the end. I've watched capable children run out of time with five perfectly doable questions untouched. Not a maths problem. A speed problem.

The topics 11+ maths covers

The content maps onto the KS2 maths curriculum, with the harder Year 6 strands doing a lot of the heavy lifting. Here's what your child needs to be comfortable with:

• Arithmetic and place value — the four operations with whole numbers, decimals and negatives, done mentally and on paper. This is the foundation; everything else runs slower when it's weak.
• Fractions, decimals and percentages — simplifying, comparing, converting between all three, and finding fractions or percentages of amounts. The 11+ leans on these hard.
• Ratio and proportion — sharing in a ratio, scaling recipes, unequal grouping. A Year 6 topic, and a favourite in worded questions.
• Basic algebra — substituting into simple formulas, finding a missing value, working out the rule of a sequence. Gentler than parents fear, but it rewards children who can think in patterns.
• Geometry, angles and area — properties of 2D and 3D shapes, angles on a line and around a point, perimeter, area and volume, coordinates. Compound L-shapes and T-shapes show up a lot.
• Measures and time — converting units, reading scales, and time problems including timetables and durations. A steady stream of marks.
• Data and averages — reading tables, bar charts, line graphs and pie charts, plus mean, median, mode and range. Marks here are often lost to misreading the scale, not the maths.
• Word problems and sequences — multi-step questions that bury two or three operations in a paragraph, and number sequences that ask for the pattern or the missing term. This is where the exam does its real sorting.

Where children actually lose marks

After enough papers, you stop being surprised. The same handful of leaks come up again and again, and almost none of them are about not knowing the maths.

• The clock. Non-calculator, tight timing, and no automatic times-tables recall is a slow puncture. Every sum that takes eight seconds instead of two costs a question at the end. Fast, accurate tables are the single biggest speed win I can give a child.
• Careless slips. Copying a number down wrong, dropping a decimal point, adding when the question said subtract. Tiny individually; across a full paper they add up to a grade. Most are fixable with a calmer method and a two-second check.
• Worded problems. A child who can find 25% of 80 in isolation freezes when it's wrapped in a story about a sale. The maths is easy — translating the sentence into a sum is the skill, and it's the one that separates a pass from a near miss.
• Reverse questions. "80% of a number is 64, what's the number?" trips up children who've only ever practised forwards. Same with working back from a perimeter or an average.
• Misreading graphs. Getting the axis intervals wrong, or reading between the wrong gridlines. The arithmetic is right; the reading isn't.

Notice how few of these are "my child can't do the maths". Most 11+ maths marks are lost to speed, misreading and nerves — which is genuinely good news, because those are the most coachable things there are.

How I help with 11+ maths

I teach 11+ maths one-to-one, online, one child at a time. No group of eight, no one-size worksheet.

We start by finding the leaks. A few papers usually tell me whether it's a knowledge gap, a speed gap, or a confidence gap, and those need very different fixing. Then we build the fundamentals until arithmetic is quick and automatic, because that's what buys time for the hard questions. From there we drill the exam craft: reading a worded problem properly, choosing a method under time pressure, and checking work without burning the clock. Alongside it I keep non-verbal reasoning ticking over, since so many 11+ and pre-test formats pair the two.

Mostly I want your child to walk into that room thinking maths is the bit they're good at.

The first lesson is free, and it doubles as an honest assessment. You'll leave it knowing where your child stands and what the plan is, with no obligation to carry on.

Common questions

When should we start preparing for 11+ maths?

For most families, the start of Year 5 gives a comfortable runway to build fluency without cramming. That said, if your child's arithmetic is already strong, a focused six to nine months can do plenty. Earlier is calmer; it's rarely too late.

Is 11+ maths harder than what schools teach?

The content is much the same as upper KS2 and SATs. What's harder is the delivery: non-calculator, strictly timed, and phrased to make you think. A child doing well at school can still find the exam a jump because of the pace and the wording, not the topics.

Does my child need to know algebra for the 11+?

Some basic algebra, yes — usually substitution, simple missing-number equations and sequence rules. It's introduced in Year 6 and it's more approachable than the word suggests. It won't dominate the paper, but the marks are there for children who aren't thrown by a letter standing in for a number.

How is the ISEB pre-test different from a grammar school paper?

The ISEB maths is online, multiple-choice and adaptive, so the questions get harder or easier as your child goes, and there's no going back to change an answer. A typical grammar paper is more likely to be written, non-adaptive, and reviewable within the time. The underlying maths is the same KS2 core; the exam technique differs.