How to prepare for the Dixie Grammar School 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

Dixie Grammar School is an independent, co-educational school in Market Bosworth, and for 2028 entry the senior school entrance assessment is the school’s own paper, taken in school. the working assumption for this guide, not yet verified with the school, is a paper-based test using a GL Assessment style across Maths, English, Verbal Reasoning and Non-Verbal Reasoning, with standard timed sections. In practice, that means children need steady, all-round preparation rather than a narrow focus on one subject.

The school’s admissions information says entry to the senior school is based on several elements taken together: a visit to the school, a meeting with the Headmaster, a school report and entrance exams held in school. The school also says that senior school entrance exams take place each year on a Saturday morning in late January, and that prospective pupils usually also have a taster day.

For families preparing for 2028 entry, the most sensible approach is to expect a traditional independent-school assessment day: arrival and registration in school, one or more paper-based test sessions, and a calm, supervised routine rather than a large consortium-style test centre. Because the format spans four areas, children benefit from building confidence in short timed work, careful reading, neat presentation and the ability to reset between sections.

Board/format: school’s own entrance paper, GL-style
Subjects: Maths, English, Verbal Reasoning, Non-Verbal Reasoning
Delivery: paper-based, in school
Setting: senior school entrance exams held at the school
Typical timing: Saturday morning in late January

Because Dixie is an independent school rather than a local-authority grammar allocation system, parents should think of the exam as one part of a wider admissions picture. Good preparation matters, but so do school fit, your child’s report from their current school and the family’s engagement with the admissions process.

Registration and key dates

The school’s senior admissions page explains that families should arrange a visit and meet the Headmaster as part of the admissions process. The same page says a child’s school report is considered alongside the entrance examinations. The school does not, on the pages reviewed, publish a step-by-step online registration portal in the way many state grammar schools do, so the practical first step is to contact the school through its admissions route and book a visit.

For 2028 entry, the school has not yet published a full set of dated milestones on the pages reviewed. What it does say is that senior school entrance exams are held each year on a Saturday morning in late January. For Year 6 children applying for September 2028 entry, that points to an exam date typically in late January 2028, but parents should treat that as the school’s usual pattern until the exact date is announced.

The school’s visits information also confirms a whole school open morning on 3 October 2026 and says there will be a summer open morning in May 2027. Those events matter for 2028 applicants because independent schools often expect families to engage early, well before the assessment date.

What parents can do now:

Autumn 2026 to spring 2027: attend an open event if you are at the early research stage.
During Year 5: arrange an individual visit if possible and ask admissions how and when they will open registration for 2028 entry.
Autumn 2027: check whether the school has published the specific entrance exam date and any registration deadline for 2028 entry.
Late January 2028: expect the entrance exam on a Saturday morning, based on the school’s stated annual pattern.

The school pages reviewed do not publish a confirmed results date for the entrance exam. If you are applying, ask admissions directly when families are normally told the outcome and what the next step is after assessment.

If you want a single place to track updates, keep an eye on The Dixie Grammar School 11+ guide (format, catchment, dates) and sign up for Free email alerts for this school's key dates.

Who can apply: catchment and admissions

Dixie Grammar School is an independent school, so it does not operate like a state grammar school with a local-authority coordinated 11+ offer system. On the school’s own admissions page, the key points are that admission to the senior school is based on visits, a meeting with the Headmaster, a school report and entrance exams. The school also notes that its junior school feeds automatically into the senior school.

On the sources reviewed, the school does not publish a catchment area, a distance priority, a published oversubscription ranking system or a fixed number of Year 7 places for external 11+ applicants. It also does not publish a pass mark or qualifying score on those pages. Where a school does not publish these figures, it is better to say that plainly than to guess: parents should check the school’s admissions page and ask admissions directly about likely availability for external applicants in the relevant year.

In practical terms, families applying from outside the junior school should assume two things:

places may be more limited than the total Year 7 cohort suggests, because some pupils transfer internally from the junior school; and
the school will look at the whole application, not only the test score.

That makes early contact especially worthwhile. Ask admissions how many external places they expect to have for your child’s year, whether there is any priority for siblings or other groups, and whether all candidates who sit the exam are also invited for a taster day or interview-style meeting.

A month-by-month preparation plan

Because the exam is typically held in late January, most families do best with a steady Year 5 plan rather than a last-minute push. For a GL-style paper across four subjects, consistency matters more than huge weekly hours.

February to April of Year 5

Keep preparation light: around 1 to 1.5 hours a week split into short sessions. Focus on secure arithmetic, reading comprehension habits, vocabulary building and a gentle introduction to Verbal and Non-Verbal Reasoning question styles. At this stage, untimed work is fine. The aim is familiarity and confidence.

May to July of Year 5

Increase to around 2 hours a week. Start covering all four subjects every fortnight so nothing is neglected. For Maths, make sure core number skills are accurate. For English, work on careful reading, inference and spelling or punctuation basics. For reasoning, learn one question type at a time. If possible, visit the school or attend an open event during this period so the goal feels real but not pressurised.

August before Year 6

Keep momentum without turning the holiday into a boot camp. Around 2 to 3 hours a week is usually enough. This is a good time for mixed practice and short timed sections of 10 to 15 minutes. If your child has obvious weak spots, tackle those now while there is still plenty of time.

September of Year 6

Move to 3 hours a week, still in short sessions. Now begin more regular timed practice, but use it as a diagnostic tool, not a source of stress. Children should start getting used to changing gear between subjects. Keep a simple notebook of errors: rushed arithmetic, missed instruction words, vocabulary gaps, or recurring reasoning types.

October

Build up to 3 to 4 hours a week. Introduce one short mixed paper or a sequence of timed sections each week. Review every mistake carefully. At this point many children improve more from correction and discussion than from doing ever more questions. If handwriting or layout causes avoidable errors, work on that too.

November

Continue at 3 to 4 hours a week. This is the point to use more realistic practice runs, including sitting at a table without help, following timings and moving on when time is called. If your child is tiring, shorten sessions but keep them regular. Quality beats quantity.

December

Keep preparation steady at around 3 hours a week and avoid cramming. Use this month to consolidate techniques, revise common Maths methods, keep vocabulary active and make sure your child recognises the main reasoning question types quickly. One or two full practice runs over the month is enough for most children.

January before the exam

In the first two or three weeks, do light timed practice and confidence-building review. In the final few days, reduce the workload. Aim for calm, sleep and routine rather than squeezing in more papers. By now your child should know how to pace a timed section, mark a question to return to mentally, and keep going after one difficult item.

Subject by subject: what to practise

Maths

For a GL-style independent school paper, prioritise quick, accurate core skills. Children should be fluent with the four operations, place value, fractions, decimals, percentages, ratio basics, measures, time, simple algebraic thinking and interpreting word problems. Practise setting work out neatly and checking whether an answer is sensible. Short timed arithmetic bursts help, but do not neglect multi-step problems where reading accuracy matters as much as calculation.

A good routine is one session each week on pure number fluency and one on mixed problem solving. When reviewing errors, separate them into knowledge gaps, misreading and rushing. That makes home practice much more efficient.

English

English preparation should cover reading comprehension, vocabulary and the ability to notice exactly what a question is asking. For independent school entrance papers, children often need to retrieve information accurately, infer meaning, explain word choice and write clearly in full sentences. Strong spelling, punctuation and basic grammar also support marks across the paper.

Use short, varied reading passages: fiction, narrative non-fiction and information texts. Ask your child to justify answers from the text rather than guessing. Build vocabulary steadily through reading and discussion, not only with word lists. If the school’s paper includes a writing element, practise planning briefly, then writing with clear structure and careful punctuation.

Verbal Reasoning

Verbal Reasoning rewards familiarity with question types and secure vocabulary. Children should practise common GL-style tasks such as code or letter patterns, relationships between words, inserting letters, finding hidden words, number-letter links and structured logic tasks. The exact mix can vary, so broad exposure is helpful.

The best method is to learn one type at a time, master the method slowly, then bring the timing down. Keep a vocabulary notebook for synonyms, antonyms and less familiar words. Many children improve sharply once they stop treating Verbal Reasoning as a mystery and start recognising the pattern behind each task.

Non-Verbal Reasoning

Non-Verbal Reasoning usually tests visual patterns and transformations rather than school-taught content. Children should practise spotting changes in shape, rotation, reflection, shading, symmetry, codes and sequence rules. The key is to look systematically: shape, size, position, direction, number and shading.

Encourage your child to talk through what changed from one box or figure to the next. That habit builds method and reduces random guessing. Because this section can feel fast, brief but regular practice is better than occasional long sessions.

Practice papers and mock exams

Practice papers are most useful when they are used thoughtfully. Start with untimed or gently timed work to learn the format, then move gradually to realistic timings once your child understands the question types. After every paper, spend longer reviewing than your child spent sitting it. Ask:

Which questions were wrong because of knowledge gaps?
Which were wrong because of speed or carelessness?
Did your child run out of time, and if so in which section?
Are there patterns in the mistakes?

For Dixie Grammar School, balanced preparation across all four tested subjects matters. Use one subject-specific session for weaker areas and one mixed session each week so your child practises switching between styles of thinking.

Useful resources:

If you use mock exams, treat them as rehearsal rather than judgement. They can be helpful for stamina, timing and nerves, especially for children who have never sat a formal paper in an unfamiliar setting. But one mock result should never define your child. What matters is the feedback: pacing, concentration and any recurring weak areas you can still improve before the real exam.

On the day

Because the entrance exam is held in school on a Saturday morning, aim for a calm, predictable routine. Lay out everything the night before, allow plenty of travel time and avoid last-minute revision in the car. A child who arrives settled will usually perform better than one who has spent the morning being quizzed.

Give your child a normal breakfast they know suits them.
Arrive in good time so there is no sense of rushing.
Remind them that some questions are meant to feel difficult.
Encourage them to keep moving if they get stuck, especially in timed reasoning sections.
Tell them to listen carefully to instructions at the start of each section.
After the exam, avoid an intense post-mortem. A simple “well done” is enough.

For paper-based tests, practical habits matter: keeping work tidy, marking answers clearly and checking that no question has been missed by accident. Children should also know that it is normal not to finish every section with lots of time to spare. The goal is steady concentration, not perfection.

After the exam: results, allocation and appeals

At an independent school such as Dixie Grammar School, the post-exam process is different from the state secondary allocation system used by grammar schools through local authorities. The school considers the assessment alongside the wider admissions process, including the school report and meeting arrangements described on its admissions page.

On the sources reviewed, the school does not publish a specific date for releasing entrance exam results, nor a formal appeals timetable equivalent to maintained-school admission appeals. In independent schools, if a place is not offered, the next step is usually to speak to admissions directly to understand whether there is a waiting list, whether further information can be provided and what options remain.

If you are applying for 2028 entry, ask the school these practical questions once registration opens:

When should families expect to hear the outcome of the entrance assessment?
Are offers conditional on a satisfactory school report or other steps?
Is there a waiting list if the year group fills?
What is the process if parents want feedback or wish to query a decision?

Independent schools often handle these matters individually, so direct communication with admissions is the clearest route.

What has changed recently

From the sources reviewed, the clearest current admissions information is that senior school entrance exams take place in school each year on a Saturday morning in late January, and that the school’s visits page advertises a whole school open morning on 3 October 2026 plus a summer open morning in May 2027. We did not find an officially announced recent change to the entrance exam board, catchment, number of places or admissions rules on the pages reviewed.

Frequently asked questions

When is the Dixie Grammar School 11+ exam for 2028 entry?

The school says senior school entrance exams take place each year on a Saturday morning in late January. For September 2028 entry, families should expect a date in late January 2028 unless the school announces otherwise.

Is the Dixie Grammar School 11+ GL Assessment?

For 2028 entry, the working assumption for this guide, not yet verified with the school, is the school’s own paper using a GL-style assessment across Maths, English, Verbal Reasoning and Non-Verbal Reasoning.

Does Dixie Grammar School have a catchment area?

We did not find a published catchment area or distance priority on the school pages reviewed. As an independent school, it may not operate a catchment in the same way as a state grammar school, so check directly with admissions.

How do I register for the Dixie Grammar School entrance exam?

The school’s admissions information points families first towards arranging a visit and engaging with admissions. If you are applying for 2028 entry, contact the school to ask when registration opens and what forms or documents they require.

Does the school publish a pass mark?

We did not find a published pass mark or qualifying score on the school pages reviewed. Ask the admissions team directly if you want to understand how outcomes are decided.

What else does Dixie Grammar School consider besides the exam?

The school says senior admissions are based on visits, a meeting with the Headmaster, a school report and entrance exams held in school. So the test is important, but it is not the only part of the process.

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Sources

Dixie Grammar School – Senior School Admissions: Independent senior school admissions are based on visits, a meeting with the Headmaster, a school report and entrance exams held in school; the junior school feeds automatically into the senior school; the school is independent and co-educational.
Dixie Grammar School – Home: School location and general school identity as The Dixie Grammar School in Market Bosworth.

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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.