How to prepare for the Christ's Hospital 11+

Exam format not yet verified. We have not confirmed this school's exam board or paper format from an official source. Where this guide describes the test, treat it as a working assumption and check the school's admissions page before relying on it.

The exam at a glance

For Year 7 entry at Christ's Hospital, the school says places are academically selective and are offered through the school's own admissions process. For 2028 entry, our working assumption, not yet verified with the school, is that the assessment is a computer-based paper using a GL Assessment style across Maths, English, Verbal Reasoning and Non-Verbal Reasoning.

That means your child needs a balanced preparation plan rather than a narrow focus on just maths and English. The test is timed and sat on screen, so two habits matter from the start: working accurately and working at a sensible pace on a computer.

From the school's admissions process for recent entry, families should expect the first stage to be an initial assessment, followed for shortlisted pupils by a later residential assessment. The school also refers to boarding and day places, and to bursary and scholarship applications running alongside admissions for some families.

In practical terms, the day of the initial assessment is likely to involve arrival and registration, the computer-based test itself, and then a wait for the outcome before any child is invited on to the next stage. The school publishes the detail for each entry cycle on its Year 7 and Year 9 admissions page, so it is worth checking that page regularly as soon as the 2028 information appears.

Board/format: school's own process using a GL-style assessment
Subjects: Maths, English, Verbal Reasoning, Non-Verbal Reasoning
Delivery: computer-based
Style: timed, selective, speed and accuracy both matter
Likely stages: initial assessment, then later residential assessment for shortlisted applicants

Registration and key dates

At the time of writing, the school's website does not yet publish the 2028 entry timetable. The most recent dated Year 7 and Year 9 timeline available on the admissions page is for 2027 entry, so parents preparing for 2028 should use that only as a guide to the likely rhythm of the process and then check the school page carefully for the confirmed dates.

For the latest published cycle the school handled registration itself through its admissions process, rather than through a local authority 11+ portal. The Year 7 and Year 9 admissions page links families to the school's admissions team and sets out the sequence for applications, assessment invitations, the initial assessment, residential assessment and acceptance.

Typical timing based on the latest published 2027 entry timeline:

Bursary and scholarship applications closed on 18 September 2026
Initial assessment invitations were sent on 25 September 2026
Initial assessments took place on 16, 17 and 19 October 2026
Initial assessment results were due in the week commencing 16 November 2026
Residential assessment took place on 7 and 8 January 2027
Residential assessment results were due in the week commencing 15 February 2027
Acceptance deadline was 15 March 2027

For 2028 entry, the safest assumption is that registration and scholarship or bursary paperwork may again fall in the early autumn of Year 6, with the first assessment in October and later stages running from November to March. However, that is a pattern from the latest published cycle, not a confirmed 2028 timetable.

If you are interested in a means-tested place, it is especially important to read the bursary information early because supporting financial forms often have their own deadlines and evidence requirements.

Useful links for parents tracking this process:

Who can apply: catchment and admissions

Christ's Hospital is an independent, coeducational school admitting pupils at Year 7, Year 9 and Sixth Form. The school says it welcomes both boarders and day students. For Year 7 entry, places are academically selective and offered through the school's own assessments.

There is no published catchment area in the way many state grammar schools use one. Instead, the school says it welcomes day pupils who are within a commutable distance of the school. Because the school does not publish a fixed mileage rule on the pages reviewed, parents considering a day place should ask admissions directly if the daily journey is realistic and acceptable.

The school also offers bursaries and scholarships, but families should separate these in their minds from the core admissions decision. A child still needs to perform strongly in the selective process, and the school makes clear that scholarship awards are highly competitive.

One point that makes Christ's Hospital different from many 11+ routes is that it is not part of a local authority grammar-school coordination test. You apply through the school's own admissions arrangements, and the school publishes its own timeline and next steps.

Because Christ's Hospital is an independent school, there is no local authority catchment ranking, distance cut-off or standardised qualifying score published in the same way as many grammar schools. If you want the latest picture on boarding, day places, bursary eligibility or how the school assesses suitability for later stages, the admissions team and the Year 7/9 page are the best places to check.

A month-by-month preparation plan

For a child aiming at the autumn of Year 6 assessment, the most effective approach is calm, steady and broad. Christ's Hospital's format rewards children who can handle several question types confidently and keep going at a sensible speed on screen.

Time before exam	Focus
January to March of Year 5	Build core skills in maths, reading and vocabulary. Start light reasoning practice once or twice a week. About 2 to 3 hours a week in total is plenty.
April to June of Year 5	Introduce short, mixed practice across all four subjects. Begin screen-based work in small chunks. Aim for 3 hours a week.
Summer holiday before Year 6	Keep momentum without turning summer into a boot camp. Do 3 to 4 short sessions a week, including one mixed timed set and regular reading.
September of Year 6	Move to timed sections more often. Practise switching quickly between question styles. Around 4 to 5 hours a week, split across several days, is realistic for most children.
October of Year 6	Final tidy-up. Short timed drills, one or two full mixed practices on screen, and lots of routine and sleep. Avoid cramming in the final days.

January to March, Year 5: this is the best stage for foundations. In maths, focus on secure arithmetic, fractions, place value and multi-step word problems. In English, build comprehension habits and vocabulary through regular reading. For reasoning, keep it gentle: short sessions on patterns, codes, word logic and visual sequences are enough at first.

April to June: begin mixing subjects so your child gets used to changing gear. That matters for GL-style assessments, where children often need to move from number work to language or visual reasoning quickly. Keep sessions short and varied. If your child finds one area hard, do not drop the stronger areas completely; balance is important here.

Summer holiday: this is a useful stretch for habit-building. One full paper every week is usually too much for a Year 5 child at this stage, but one mixed timed set each week works well. Use the rest of the week for corrections, vocabulary, reading and one focused maths session.

September, Year 6: start proper timed work. This is the point to introduce short bursts of pressure so your child learns when to move on rather than getting stuck. Because Christ's Hospital uses a computer-based test, make sure at least some practice happens on screen, with scrolling, clicking and reading from a monitor rather than only from printed papers.

Final two weeks: keep the mood steady. Review common mistakes, practise a few short sections, and make sure your child knows that an unfamiliar question does not mean they are doing badly. Calm children usually perform closer to their real standard than over-drilled, tired children.

Subject by subject: what to practise

Maths

For a GL-style maths paper, focus on strong Key Stage 2 fundamentals used at speed. Typical areas include number operations, place value, fractions, decimals, percentages, ratio at a simple level, shape and measures, data handling and worded problem solving.

Practise mental efficiency as well as written method. Many children know how to do the maths but lose time setting everything out in a long way. Short daily arithmetic, estimation, and deciding the quickest valid method are all useful. Also train careful reading of word problems so your child spots what the question is really asking before calculating.

English

English preparation should cover both comprehension and language accuracy. In GL-style work, children may need to read a passage and answer questions on meaning, inference, vocabulary in context and the writer's choices. They may also face sentence-level tasks involving spelling, punctuation, grammar or selecting the best word or phrase.

Good preparation is built on regular reading from a range of fiction and non-fiction. Ask your child to explain answers using evidence from the text, not guesses. Vocabulary work helps too: synonyms, antonyms, word families and careful reading of tone and context all make a difference.

Verbal Reasoning

Verbal Reasoning tests how comfortably a child works with patterns in language. In GL-style papers, this can include letter codes, word relationships, sequences, hidden words, compound words, vocabulary links and instructions that must be followed exactly.

The biggest gains often come from learning the main question types and then practising them repeatedly until the method feels familiar. Keep a notebook of errors by type. If your child repeatedly loses marks on, say, letter sequences or coded words, targeted drilling usually helps more than doing endless mixed papers.

Non-Verbal Reasoning

Non-Verbal Reasoning focuses on visual logic rather than school-taught content. Common GL-style tasks include sequences, similarities, rotations, reflections, symmetry, codes, nets and shape combinations.

This subject rewards method. Teach your child to check one feature at a time: shape, size, shading, position, number and direction. Many wrong answers come from noticing one change but missing another. Short, regular practice is better than occasional long sessions because visual pattern recognition improves with repetition.

Practice papers and mock exams

Practice papers are most helpful when they are used as diagnostic tools, not just score sheets. After every paper, spend at least as long reviewing as you spent completing it. Ask:

Which question types were secure?
Which errors were due to knowledge gaps?
Which were due to rushing, misreading or getting stuck?
Did your child manage time well on screen?

Because Christ's Hospital uses a computer-based assessment, include some practice done digitally. Even confident children can slow down if they are used only to paper methods. Get them comfortable reading from a screen, selecting answers carefully and keeping concentration without writing all over a booklet.

Start with untimed or lightly timed work, then move to timed sections, and only later to full mixed papers. For most children, full papers are most useful in the final stretch rather than at the very beginning.

Useful ElevenReady resources:

If you book a mock exam elsewhere, look for one that reflects a mixed, timed, computer-based format as closely as possible. The aim is not to frighten your child with a high-pressure event, but to make the real assessment feel familiar.

On the day

Keep the morning simple. A normal breakfast, plenty of time, and a calm tone at home are usually more helpful than last-minute revision. If your child wants to look at anything, let it be a few reassuring notes on method rather than new content.

Before the test, remind them of three practical rules:

If a question looks tricky, do not panic. Use what you know, make a sensible attempt and move on if needed.
Read instructions carefully, especially in reasoning sections where one missed word can change the whole task.
Keep an eye on pace. A nearly complete paper is often stronger than a perfect first half and a rushed second half.

For a computer-based exam, physical comfort matters too. Encourage your child to sit well, use the screen carefully and keep focus question by question rather than wondering how everyone else is doing.

After the assessment, try not to conduct a post-mortem in the car or on the train home. Most children remember only the questions they found hard, which gives a misleading picture. A quiet, ordinary rest of the day is usually best.

After the exam: results, allocation and appeals

For Christ's Hospital, the post-exam process is run by the school rather than through the state-school national allocation system. In the latest published cycle, families were told whether the child had been successful at the initial assessment stage in the week commencing 16 November 2026. Shortlisted pupils then moved on to a residential assessment in January, with final results due in the week commencing 15 February 2027. The acceptance deadline for that cycle was 15 March 2027.

That gives parents a useful sense of the shape of the process: initial assessment in the autumn, follow-up assessment for shortlisted applicants, then offers and an acceptance deadline later in the school year. For 2028 entry, wait for the school to publish the confirmed dates.

Because this is an independent-school admissions process, the language is usually about assessments, offers and acceptance rather than local authority allocation day. If your child is unsuccessful, the next step is to ask the admissions team whether any feedback is available and whether there is any review or appeal route under the school's policy. The exact process should be taken from the current admissions documentation for the relevant year.

If you are also applying to state schools, keep those timelines separate in your planning. Christ's Hospital's process does not replace any local authority application you may need to make elsewhere.

What has changed recently

On the pages reviewed, the main recent update is that the school's publicly dated Year 7 and Year 9 admissions timeline currently available is for 2027 entry, not yet 2028 entry. That page sets out the latest published dates for bursary and scholarship deadlines, initial assessment invitations, October initial assessments, January residential assessments and the March acceptance deadline.

Beyond that, we did not find a separately announced change in the last two years to the broad admissions structure on the official pages reviewed. Parents should still check the Year 7 and Year 9 admissions page regularly, as Christ's Hospital publishes each cycle's detail there.

Frequently asked questions

Does Christ's Hospital use the local grammar school 11+ test?

No. Christ's Hospital runs its own independent-school admissions process rather than using a local authority grammar-school test.

What subjects should my child prepare for?

For 2028 entry, prepare for Maths, English, Verbal Reasoning and Non-Verbal Reasoning, with balanced practice across all four.

Is the Christ's Hospital test on paper or computer?

For 2028 entry, our working assumption, not yet verified with the school, is that the assessment is computer-based, so screen practice matters.

Is there a catchment area for Christ's Hospital day pupils?

The school does not publish a standard state-style catchment area. It says it welcomes day students who are within a commutable distance from the school.

When will 2028 entry registration open?

The 2028 timeline was not yet published on the school page at the time of writing. Check the school's Year 7 and Year 9 admissions page regularly for confirmed dates.

Are scholarships easy to win at Christ's Hospital?

No. Scholarship awards are highly competitive, so families should treat them as selective extras rather than assumptions.

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Sources

Christ's Hospital – Year 7 and Year 9 Entry: School admissions page; Christ's Hospital admits at Year 7 and Year 9; places are academically selective; boarders and day students; latest published timeline on site is for 2027 entry; bursary and scholarship applications closed 18 September 2026; initial assessment invitations sent 25 September 20
Christ's Hospital – Admissions: School welcomes boarders and day students; admissions are handled by the school; families should contact the admissions team for entry information.
Christ's Hospital – Home: School identity and basic context: independent coeducational school in Horsham.

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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.