How to prepare for the Claires Court Schools 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 in September 2028, Claires Court Schools uses the school’s own entrance assessment. our working assumption, not yet verified with the school, is that the test format is a GL Assessment-style paper covering Maths, English, Verbal Reasoning and Non-Verbal Reasoning. That means children need broad preparation rather than a narrow focus on one or two subjects.

The school’s admissions information describes an assessment and interview process for senior entry. For the previous entry cycle published on the school website, families were asked to submit a recent school report and the school also requested a reference from the child’s current school before assessment days in November.

What does that mean in practice for parents? Expect the academic side to test core curriculum knowledge in Maths and English alongside the more format-specific skills used in verbal and non-verbal reasoning. Because the paper is described as having standard timed sections, the aim in Year 5 and early Year 6 is steady, dependable accuracy across all four areas, then gradual work on speed once methods are secure.

The school website does not clearly set out, on the pages reviewed, the exact room-by-room running order for the assessment day or whether the test is paper-based or digital for 2028 entry. Until the school publishes the next admissions cycle, it is safest to prepare your child for a formal test session with separate timed sections, followed by the possibility of an interview or wider admissions activities.

Board/format: school’s own assessment, GL-style
Tested subjects: Maths, English, Verbal Reasoning, Non-Verbal Reasoning
Approach to preparation: balanced practice across all four
Timing style: standard timed sections
Delivery: not confirmed on the pages reviewed

Registration and key dates

Claires Court handles admissions directly through the school rather than through a local authority 11+ portal, as this is an independent school. The main admissions page explains that parents submit an online registration form and pay a registration fee of £180. The same page also says that, if a place is accepted, a deposit of £1,200 is payable.

For the most recent published Year 7 cycle visible on the school site, the process included these steps:

submission of the child’s End of Year 5 report in September of Year 6
a current school reference requested in September of Year 6
registration deadline in November of Year 6
assessment days in November
formal offers issued in December of Year 6
deadline for place acceptance in March

Those dates are stated on the school’s admissions page for the previous cycle, so for 2028 entry they should be treated as typical timing only until the school publishes its new dates. In other words, if your child will start Year 7 in September 2028, it would be sensible to expect the application process to become active during Year 6, with reports and references gathered in September, assessments around November, and decisions later in the autumn term.

The scholarships page for the previous cycle also gave annual timing for scholarship applications and assessments: an October application deadline and November scholarship assessments. Awards were stated as being available up to a maximum 50% fee remission.

What should you prepare for registration? Based on the admissions pages reviewed, parents should expect to complete the school’s own form, pay the registration fee, and provide school information such as the latest report. The school may also contact your child’s current school for a reference.

For updates, keep an eye on the school’s admissions page and use Free email alerts for this school's key dates. You can also bookmark The Claires Court Schools 11+ guide (format, catchment, dates) for a quick overview when the next cycle opens.

Who can apply: catchment and admissions

Claires Court is an independent, coeducational school, so there is no catchment area in the way families might expect with a state grammar school. Admission is handled by the school and is not tied to living within a particular distance.

The admissions pages reviewed describe a process based on registration, school information, assessment and interview. For senior entry, the school refers to assessment days and formal offers. The site also makes clear that scholarships are available, including academic and other talent-based opportunities, with awards of up to 50% fee remission according to the scholarships information reviewed.

The school website pages reviewed for this guide did not clearly publish a fixed Year 7 intake number or a numerical breakdown of places available for 2028 entry. For that reason, it is better not to guess about competition levels, numbers sitting the test or the likelihood of an offer. If you want the latest information on places for your child’s year, check directly with the admissions team via the school’s admissions page.

Because there is no catchment restriction, the practical question for most families is not distance priority but fit: whether the school’s senior provision, pastoral approach, transport arrangements and fee structure suit your child and your household. That makes it worth planning an open event or conversation with admissions alongside test preparation.

A month-by-month preparation plan

The most useful plan for Claires Court is a balanced one. Because the assessment spans four subjects, children do best when preparation is regular and calm rather than intense. The outline below assumes an autumn assessment in Year 6, which is the pattern shown on the school’s previous admissions page.

Month	What to focus on
January to March, Year 5	Build foundations. Two to three short sessions a week is enough at this stage, around 1.5 to 2 hours total. Focus on arithmetic fluency, reading comprehension, vocabulary and simple reasoning drills. Keep non-verbal work light and visual.
April to May, Year 5	Increase to three sessions a week, around 2 to 2.5 hours total. Start introducing GL-style question types in all four subjects. Keep work untimed at first so your child learns method and layout.
June to July, Year 5	Steady consolidation. Aim for 2.5 to 3 hours a week. Begin short timed bursts: for example, 10 to 15 minutes on mental maths, a brief reasoning set, or a short comprehension extract. Identify weak areas before the summer.
August before Year 6	Use the summer lightly but consistently. Around 3 hours a week is usually plenty. Mix revision with stamina-building: one longer mixed paper section each week plus review. Do not turn every day into exam practice.
September, Year 6	This is the month to become more structured. Aim for 3 to 4 hours a week over four sessions. Make sure the End of Year 5 report is ready if the school asks for it, and confirm any registration steps. Start doing timed sections more often, but still review errors carefully.
October, Year 6	Refine technique. Complete one or two mixed-subject timed papers a fortnight, not every day. Focus on pacing, neat working in Maths, careful reading in English, and accuracy in both reasoning areas. Keep one session each week for pure teaching and correction rather than testing.
November, Year 6	If the school follows its previous pattern, this is usually assessment month. Reduce workload in the final week. Use short confidence-building tasks, sleep well and keep routines normal.

A good rule is this: younger Year 5 children need consistency more than volume. If your child is coping well, add a little time; if they are tiring, shorten sessions and protect confidence. Four focused half-hours often achieve more than one long, unhappy study block.

Subject by subject: what to practise

Maths

For a GL-style independent school paper, Maths preparation should cover secure Key Stage 2 content and careful interpretation of short, timed questions. Prioritise number operations, place value, fractions, decimals, percentages, ratio at an age-appropriate level, measures, geometry basics and straightforward word problems.

Practise mental arithmetic first, then written method selection. Children often know the maths but lose marks through rushing, misreading units or skipping a step. Use short mixed sets, then occasional timed sections once methods are reliable. Encourage neat working and checking, especially where estimation could catch an obvious mistake.

English

English preparation should include both comprehension and technical accuracy. In many school-set assessments using GL-style structure, children need to read efficiently, retrieve evidence, infer meaning and handle vocabulary in context. Spelling, punctuation and grammar may also feature directly or indirectly.

Practise with age-appropriate fiction and non-fiction extracts. Ask your child to explain why an answer is right, not just pick one quickly. Build vocabulary little and often: synonyms, antonyms, word families and understanding words from context are all useful. Keep some time for sentence work, punctuation review and precise written expression.

Verbal Reasoning

Verbal Reasoning rewards familiarity with the question types as much as raw ability. Children should get used to tasks involving letters, codes, word relationships, sequences, vocabulary links and logical manipulation of language-based information.

The best approach is to learn one question type at a time, then mix them. Keep an error log so your child can spot patterns such as losing marks on alphabet codes, missing hidden instructions or mismanaging time. Vocabulary growth matters here too, so regular reading and word study are genuinely helpful.

Non-Verbal Reasoning

Non-Verbal Reasoning usually tests visual logic: patterns, shape sequences, rotations, reflections, symmetry, analogy and spatial change. Many children improve quickly once they learn to look systematically rather than guess from appearance.

Teach your child to check one feature at a time: shape, size, shading, position, number and movement. Start untimed so they can explain the rule they have spotted. Once confidence grows, introduce timed practice because speed matters in this area, but only after method is secure.

Practice papers and mock exams

Because Claires Court uses a school-set paper with GL-style content, practice materials should be used to build familiarity with the style of questioning across all four tested subjects rather than to chase exact replicas of the real paper.

Start with short topic-based practice in each subject. Once your child understands the question types, move to mixed timed sections. Leave full paper simulations until the later stages of preparation, when stamina and pacing become more important.

A simple routine works well:

teach or revise one question type
do a short set untimed
repeat the same type with light timing
review every mistake carefully
return to that skill a week later

Mocks are most useful when they are followed by analysis. A score alone does not tell you much. Look instead for patterns: slow starts, avoidable slips, particular verbal reasoning types, or reading comprehension questions where your child is not using evidence from the text.

Use these resources to structure practice:

One final tip: do not overdo full tests. For most children, one well-reviewed paper is more valuable than three rushed ones. Build confidence through correction, not just repetition.

On the day

Keep the morning calm and predictable. Aim for a normal breakfast, comfortable uniform or clothes if the school gives guidance, and plenty of time to arrive without rushing. Children usually perform better when the day feels organised and ordinary.

In the final 24 hours, avoid last-minute cramming. A quick look at familiar methods or a few confidence-building questions is fine, but the real priorities are sleep, hydration and steadiness.

Remind your child of a few simple habits:

listen carefully to instructions at the start of each section
check how long they have and keep moving
if stuck, make the best decision they can and go on
read English questions twice before answering
show clear working in Maths where possible
look for the rule methodically in reasoning questions

If there is also an interview element, encourage your child simply to be polite, engaged and honest. Schools are not looking for a rehearsed performance. They usually want to see whether a child can talk naturally about school, interests and learning.

Parents can help most by staying matter-of-fact. Quiet confidence is far more helpful than a big build-up.

After the exam: results, allocation and appeals

For independent schools such as Claires Court, the process after assessment is different from the state-school National Offer Day system. The school’s admissions page for the previous cycle states that formal offers were issued in December of Year 6, with a deadline for place acceptance in March. If the same pattern is used for 2028 entry, families should expect direct communication from the school rather than local-authority allocation.

If your child also applies to state schools, keep the two processes separate in your mind. An independent school offer from Claires Court does not replace the need to complete any local authority secondary application required for state options.

The pages reviewed did not set out a detailed public appeals procedure in the way state admissions authorities do. In the independent sector, if a child is not offered a place, the practical next step is usually to contact the admissions team politely to ask whether there is a waiting list, whether any further assessment is possible, and what options remain.

Where scholarships are involved, families should also check the specific scholarship communications and deadlines carefully, as these can run on their own timetable alongside the main offer process.

What has changed recently

From the sources reviewed, the clearest published recent information is the school’s admissions timeline for the latest visible Year 7 cycle and the scholarships timeline for September 2027 entry. Those pages show an autumn-term assessment process, with reports and references gathered in September, a registration deadline in November, assessment days in November, offers in December, and place acceptance by March. The scholarships page also states an October application deadline, November assessments and awards up to 50% fee remission.

We did not find an announced change in the last two years to a different exam board, a newly published catchment rule, or a published change to a fixed number of Year 7 places on the pages reviewed. If the school publishes a new admissions page for 2028 entry later on, that is the version families should follow.

Frequently asked questions

Does Claires Court have an 11+ catchment area?

No. It is an independent school and the admissions information reviewed does not use a catchment-area system for Year 7 entry.

What does Claires Court test for Year 7 entry?

For 2028 entry, our working assumption, not yet verified with the school, is that the school uses its own paper in a GL-style format covering Maths, English, Verbal Reasoning and Non-Verbal Reasoning.

When is the Claires Court Year 7 assessment?

The school’s previous admissions page showed assessment days in November of Year 6. Until the 2028 entry page is published, treat that as typical timing rather than a confirmed date.

How do I register for Claires Court?

Registration is handled directly by the school through its admissions process. The admissions page says parents complete the school’s registration form and pay a £180 registration fee.

Does Claires Court offer scholarships?

Yes. The scholarships page reviewed says awards are available up to a maximum of 50% fee remission, with applications and assessments following their own published timetable.

When do offers come out?

For the previous published cycle, the school said formal offers were issued in December of Year 6. Check the current admissions page for the exact timetable for your child’s year.

📄 Free Claires Court Schools practice papers Start free and track readiness for Claires Court Schools 🔔 Email me this school's key dates

Sources

Claires Court Schools admissions - applying: School runs admissions directly; registration form process; registration fee £180; deposit £1,200; for previous Year 7 cycle: End of Year 5 report submitted in September of Year 6; current school reference requested in September of Year 6; registration deadline in November of Year 6; assessment days
Claires Court Schools scholarships: Scholarship application deadline in October annually; scholarship programme assessments in November annually; awards available up to a maximum of 50% fee remission; scholarships run alongside the admissions process.
Claires Court Schools official website: Claires Court is an independent, coeducational school in Maidenhead with senior girls, senior boys and sixth form provision.

Preparing for other schools in Windsor and Maidenhead

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.