How to prepare for the Brighton College 11+ exam

The exam at a glance

For Year 7 entry in September 2028, Brighton College uses the ISEB Common Pre-Test. This is an online assessment taken in Year 6 as part of the school’s Lower School admissions process.

The test covers four areas: Maths, English, Verbal Reasoning and Non-Verbal Reasoning. The ISEB pre-test is adaptive, which means the level of difficulty changes in response to a child’s answers, and it is also tightly timed. In practice, that means children need enough subject knowledge to answer accurately, but also enough familiarity with the format to work calmly and keep moving.

Brighton College’s admissions information for Year 7 explains that registration should be made well ahead of entry and that the process begins in Year 6. The school’s Lower School route includes application, assessment and then, for successful applicants, an orientation day before entry.

Because this is an online test, preparation should include working on screen as well as on paper. Children do not need to race every question from the start, but they do need to be used to making decisions promptly, reading carefully and recovering quickly if one question feels hard.

For parents, the most useful way to think about the exam day is this:

your child will sit an online pre-test rather than a traditional handwritten school paper;
the four subjects are assessed separately within the ISEB format;
pace matters as much as raw ability;
the school uses the assessment as one part of its admissions process, not as an isolated event.

The school’s published admissions page does not set out a detailed minute-by-minute schedule for the testing session, so it is sensible to check directly with Brighton College once your child is registered for the exact arrangements for your year.

Registration and key dates

Brighton College runs its own admissions process. For Year 7 entry, the school’s How to apply page says that parents should register at least one year prior to joining, and that the application should ideally be submitted by the beginning of October. For 2028 entry, that means families should expect the process to be underway during Year 6 in autumn 2027.

The same school page says that the admissions process for Year 7 starts in Year 6. It also confirms the usual sequence around visits and offers:

Lower School Taster Days are held in June, September and November;
the Orientation Day takes place in early January in the school year before entry;
Lower School places are offered by the end of January in the school year before pupils join.

As of the sources reviewed, Brighton College does not appear to publish a single standalone Year 7 deadline page with the exact 2027 testing date for 2028 entry. So, rather than guess, it is better to treat the school’s published guidance as the reliable framework: register early, aim to have the application in by the beginning of October, and expect the assessment stage during Year 6.

When you register, use the school’s admissions route on its website. If you are just beginning your research, these can help:

The Brighton College 11+ guide (format, catchment, dates): /schools/brighton-college
Free email alerts for this school's key dates: /school-alerts?school=brighton-college

Before submitting anything, have the basics ready: your child’s details, current school information and any documents the admissions team asks for in the registration process. If your child has access arrangements or a diagnosed need, contact the school early so there is time to understand what evidence will be required for the ISEB pre-test.

If 2028-entry dates are not yet live when you read this, the most sensible approach is to check the school admissions page regularly from late spring of Year 5 onwards, and then more closely from the summer term before Year 6.

Who can apply: catchment and admissions

Brighton College is an independent school, so admissions do not work in the same way as grammar schools run through a local authority test. Families apply directly to the school.

From the school’s published admissions information for Year 7, the key confirmed points are:

Year 7 entry is into the Lower School;
the admissions process starts in Year 6;
parents are advised to register at least one year before entry;
boarding is not offered until the Fourth Form, so Year 7 entry is not a boarding entry point.

On the sources reviewed, Brighton College does not publish a state-school-style catchment area, priority postcode map or score threshold for Year 7 entry. It also does not appear, on the pages checked, to publish a fixed number of Year 7 places available each year. Because this is an independent-school admissions process, decisions are made through the school’s own assessment and selection arrangements rather than a local authority rank order.

In practical terms, that means parents should focus on three things:

applying early enough to be in the main admissions round;
making sure their child is familiar with the ISEB pre-test format;
attending a taster or open event where possible so your child has some sense of the school before assessment.

If you want detail on current oversubscription, places or how competitive a particular year group may be, Brighton College is the right source to ask directly. Schools sometimes discuss demand at open events or in conversation with admissions, but unless it is published, it is best not to rely on hearsay.

A month-by-month preparation plan

The most effective preparation for the ISEB pre-test is steady and structured. For most Year 5 children, there is no need for very heavy tutoring or long daily sessions. A calm routine over several months is usually better than a late rush.

Below is a practical timetable working back from an autumn Year 6 test.

January to March in Year 5

Keep it light. Aim for 1 to 2 hours a week in total, split across short sessions. The goal is to strengthen the underlying building blocks:

mental arithmetic and number fluency;
reading comprehension and vocabulary;
basic reasoning patterns;
careful working habits.

At this stage, use untimed work for the most part. You are building confidence and noticing gaps, not chasing speed.

April to June in Year 5

Increase to around 2 to 3 hours a week. Introduce each of the four tested areas separately so your child sees that Maths, English, Verbal Reasoning and Non-Verbal Reasoning each have their own style.

This is a good point to begin short online-style tasks. Keep sessions brief and focused. For example: one reasoning set, one comprehension task, one Maths recap and one vocabulary session across the week.

If possible, attend one of the school’s Lower School taster opportunities when suitable for your family. A child who can picture the school often feels more settled about the process.

July to August before Year 6

Summer is the time to make the format familiar. Aim for about 3 hours a week, with plenty of breaks and holiday reading alongside formal practice.

Start mixed practice across all four subjects.
Use short timed sections rather than full papers at first.
Encourage your child to move on when stuck instead of freezing.
Review mistakes carefully, especially where an answer was lost through rushing or misreading.

By the end of the summer, your child should know what each question type looks like and should no longer find online timed work surprising.

September in Year 6

This is usually the most important preparation month. Aim for around 3 to 4 hours a week, spread sensibly. Now is the right time for more realistic timed practice.

Complete short timed sections regularly.
Add at least one fuller mixed practice each week if your child is coping well.
Keep a notebook of repeated errors.
Work on stamina, but stop before fatigue turns every session negative.

This is also the month to keep a close eye on the school’s admissions communications and make sure registration is complete.

October in Year 6 until the test

In the final stretch, keep work purposeful rather than excessive. Around 2 to 4 hours a week is enough for most children, depending on how close they are to the assessment date and how confidently they are performing.

Focus on:

accuracy under time pressure;
calm starts to each section;
not dwelling on one difficult item;
sleep, routine and confidence.

In the last few days, reduce the volume. Light review is fine; cramming is not helpful.

Subject by subject: what to practise

Maths

For the ISEB pre-test, Maths preparation should be broad rather than narrowly topic-spotted. Children need secure number skills, comfort with arithmetic and the ability to interpret short problem-solving questions quickly.

Prioritise:

number bonds, tables and mental calculation;
fractions, decimals and percentages at an age-appropriate level;
multi-step word problems;
spotting the operation needed without overthinking;
checking whether an answer is sensible.

Because the test is adaptive and timed, slow written methods for every question are not ideal. Practise efficient methods, estimation and quick decision-making.

English

English in the pre-test typically rewards careful reading, inference, vocabulary knowledge and grammar awareness. Children should be comfortable reading short passages on screen and selecting the best answer with precision.

Useful preparation includes:

regular reading from a wide range of fiction and non-fiction;
discussion of word meanings in context;
comprehension work focused on evidence in the text;
spelling patterns, punctuation and sentence sense;
noticing shades of meaning between similar words.

Vocabulary development matters here. A child who reads widely and talks through unfamiliar words will usually feel much more secure.

Verbal Reasoning

Verbal Reasoning tests how well a child can work with language patterns, letter patterns and logical relationships. Many children improve quickly once they recognise the common task types.

Practise:

synonyms and antonyms;
letter sequences and codes;
word relationships and analogies;
finding patterns efficiently;
eliminating unlikely answers.

Keep sessions short and repeat question types often. The aim is not to memorise tricks but to become fluent in spotting what the question is really asking.

Non-Verbal Reasoning

Non-Verbal Reasoning focuses on shapes, patterns, sequences, rotations, reflections and visual logic. It can feel unfamiliar at first, but regular practice usually makes a big difference.

Work on:

spotting changes in shape, position and shading;
rotations and reflections;
completing visual sequences;
identifying the odd one out;
breaking a complex pattern into smaller clues.

Children often benefit from saying aloud what changes from one box to the next. That habit can turn a vague guess into a reasoned answer.

Practice papers and mock exams

Practice works best when it is used to build familiarity, not fear. With an adaptive online test, there is limited value in simply piling up large numbers of papers. It is better to use a smaller set thoughtfully.

A sensible approach is:

start with untimed or lightly timed work to learn the question types;
move to short timed sections by late Year 5 or the summer before Year 6;
use fuller mixed practice closer to the exam;
review every mistake, especially guessed answers and timing errors;
repeat weak areas after a few days rather than immediately.

For Brighton College-specific preparation, use these resources:

Free Brighton College practice papers (one per tested subject, with answers): /schools/brighton-college-mock-tests
The Brighton College 11+ guide (format, catchment, dates): /schools/brighton-college
Free email alerts for this school's key dates: /school-alerts?school=brighton-college

If you use mock exams, choose them carefully. A mock is helpful when it familiarises your child with online timed work, a quiet test setting and the feeling of moving on from difficult questions. It is less helpful when it becomes a weekly high-pressure event.

After any mock or practice paper, ask:

Did my child lose marks through knowledge gaps or through timing?
Were errors caused by misreading?
Did they get stuck too long on one type?
Do they need more subject revision, or just more format familiarity?

That review is where much of the progress happens.

On the day

The best exam-day support is practical and calm. Children usually do better when adults treat the day as important but manageable.

Make sure your child has had a normal breakfast and enough sleep.
Arrive in good time so there is no rushed start.
Keep conversation light on the way in; avoid last-minute quizzing.
Remind your child that some questions will feel easy and some will not, which is normal in an adaptive test.
Encourage them to read carefully, answer confidently and move on if stuck.

For online assessments, children sometimes worry if a question feels unexpectedly hard. It can help to explain in advance that adaptive tests change level as they go; one difficult question does not mean they are doing badly.

After the test, try not to conduct a full post-mortem in the car home. A simple “well done, you kept going” is usually enough. Most children feel better if they are allowed to leave the paper behind rather than replaying every answer.

After the exam: results, allocation and appeals

For Brighton College, the admissions process is school-run rather than part of local authority secondary allocation. The school’s admissions page confirms that, for Lower School entry, places are offered by the end of January in the school year before pupils join, and that the Orientation Day is held in early January.

That means families applying for Year 7 should expect the assessment stage in Year 6, followed by decisions in the January before September entry. If your child is offered a place, the school will set out the next steps directly.

Because Brighton College is an independent school, the process is different from state-school offer day. There is no local-authority National Offer Day allocation for the school itself. Instead, families deal directly with the admissions team regarding offers, acceptance deadlines and any waiting-list movement.

If your child is unsuccessful, it is worth asking politely whether a waiting list operates and whether any further information is available about next steps. Formal appeal arrangements are not the same as statutory state-school admission appeals, so any review or reconsideration procedure would need to be checked directly with Brighton College.

If you are also applying to state schools, keep those deadlines entirely separate in your planning. Independent-school admissions and local-authority school applications often run on different timetables.

What has changed recently

From the sources reviewed for this guide, the key currently confirmed position for 2028 entry is that Brighton College uses the ISEB Common Pre-Test for Year 7 entry. We did not find a newly announced school-published change within the last two years to the Year 7 test format, catchment, number of places or admissions structure beyond the published admissions process already described. If the school publishes a fresh 2028-entry timeline or assessment update, parents should treat the school’s own admissions page as the main source.

Frequently asked questions

When should I register for Brighton College Year 7 entry?

The school says registration is recommended at least one year before entry, and the application should ideally be submitted by the beginning of October. For 2028 entry, families should expect to apply during Year 6.

What exam does Brighton College use for 11+ entry?

For 2028 entry, Brighton College uses the ISEB Common Pre-Test. It assesses Maths, English, Verbal Reasoning and Non-Verbal Reasoning in an online, adaptive format.

Does Brighton College have a catchment area for Year 7?

No published catchment area was found on the school admissions sources reviewed. As an independent school, Brighton College runs its own admissions process directly.

How many Year 7 places does Brighton College offer?

We did not find a published number of Year 7 places on the sources reviewed. For the most current picture, ask Brighton College admissions directly.

When do Brighton College Year 7 offers come out?

The school says Lower School places are offered by the end of January in the school year before pupils join. For a September 2028 start, that means by the end of January 2028.

Is boarding available from Year 7 at Brighton College?

No. The school states that boarding is not offered until the Fourth Form.

📄 Free Brighton College practice papers Start free and track readiness for Brighton College 🔔 Email me this school's key dates

Sources

Brighton College – How to apply: Brighton College offers Year 7 entry into the Lower School; the admissions process starts in Year 6; registration is recommended at least one year prior to joining; the application should ideally be submitted by the beginning of October; Lower School Taster Days are held in June, September and Novem
ISEB – Common Pre-Tests: The Common Pre-Test is an online assessment used for senior school admissions and covers English, Mathematics, Verbal Reasoning and Non-Verbal Reasoning.
ISEB – Common Pre-Test familiarisation: The ISEB Common Pre-Test is designed as an online assessment and provides familiarisation materials for its question style and on-screen delivery.

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Written by ElevenReady from the school's published information and reviewed by a person before publishing. Last reviewed 4 October 2026. Exam arrangements change. Check the school's admissions page for the current year.