How to prepare for the Lichfield Cathedral School 11+

The exam at a glance

Lichfield Cathedral School is an independent, co-educational school and, for Year 7 entry, it does not present itself as a grammar-style 11+ process. The school describes itself as non-selective and says that for children aged 9 or above it uses academic assessments to understand a child’s current ability level. For Year 7 entry in 2027, the school listed a specific Assessment Day in November.

For 2028 entry, ElevenReady’s verified information is that the school uses its own paper. Beyond that, the exact format for 2028 entry is not confirmed. Unless the school publishes fuller details for the 2028 cohort, parents should work on the basis that the assessment is set by the school and that the most reliable source will be the school’s own admissions page.

What is currently clear from the official admissions information is this:

Year 7 applicants are normally invited to an assessment as part of the admissions process.
The school recommends registering well in advance.
Open events are part of the route in for many families and are worth attending before the assessment day if you can.

What is not currently confirmed in official material available for 2028 entry is the exact paper structure, tested subjects, timing of each paper, or whether the assessment is partly written, computer-based, interview-based or a mixture. Because of that, preparation should focus on secure Key Stage 2 fundamentals, careful reading, clear written method in maths and confident test-room habits rather than trying to second-guess a particular commercial exam style.

In practice, parents should expect the day to involve an age-appropriate assessment session organised by the school, with admissions staff guiding families through timings nearer the date. Once 2028 details are published, check the school’s admissions page again for any instructions about arrival time, equipment or further stages.

Registration and key dates

The admissions process is run by the school, not by a local authority consortium. The school’s admissions page invites families to begin by contacting the admissions team and completing the school’s registration process. The same page also states that it is recommended that children are registered 12 months prior to their start date.

For Year 7 entry in September 2028, families should therefore expect to deal directly with Lichfield Cathedral School rather than through the local authority secondary transfer system alone. If your child is also applying to state schools, remember that independent-school registration and assessment sit alongside, not instead of, the local authority application process for maintained schools.

Verified timings from the school’s published information for the previous cycle are:

A Senior School Open Morning was listed for 29 September 2026.
A Year 7 Entrance 2027 Assessment Day was listed for 14 November 2026.

As of today, specific 2028 entry deadlines and assessment dates are not yet confirmed in the sources reviewed. The safest way to plan is to treat the autumn term of Year 6 as the likely assessment period, because that is what the school used for the previous cycle, and to contact admissions early in Year 5 or at the start of Year 6.

A sensible planning timeline is:

Spring or summer of Year 5: make first contact with admissions and ask when registration for 2028 entry will open, if it has not already.
Summer to early autumn of Year 6: attend an open event if offered and complete registration paperwork.
Autumn of Year 6: be ready for an assessment day, as the previous cycle used mid-November.

The school page reviewed does not publicly list a full checklist of documents needed for Year 7 registration. In practice, schools often ask for a registration form and may request supporting information, but parents should rely on the admissions team’s current instructions rather than assumptions.

If you want to keep track of updates, you can also use Free email alerts for this school's key dates.

For a quick overview page, see The Lichfield Cathedral School 11+ guide (format, catchment, dates).

Who can apply: catchment and admissions

Lichfield Cathedral School is an independent school, so it does not operate a state-school catchment area in the usual grammar-school sense. ElevenReady’s verified admissions note for this school is NoCatchment.

The school describes itself as non-selective. That matters for parents because the assessment is not presented as a pass-or-fail grammar-school hurdle. Instead, the school says that for children aged 9 or above it uses academic assessments to understand their current ability level. In other words, the assessment forms part of the admissions process, but the published wording does not describe it as a ranking test with a published pass mark.

Where the school is oversubscribed, ElevenReady’s verified directory note says that if all places are filled, priority on the waiting list is given to parents who already have a child in the school; otherwise places are offered in chronological order of application.

From a parent’s point of view, that has two practical implications:

Applying early matters, especially because the school itself recommends registration 12 months before the start date.
If you are applying after places are already full, waiting-list priority is not based on distance from the school.

In the sources reviewed, the school did not publish a Year 7 pass mark, standardised score threshold, cut-off score or catchment distance. That is not unusual for an independent, non-selective school. If you want the latest picture on Year 7 availability, scholarships or any interview stage, check directly with admissions on the school website.

A month-by-month preparation plan

Because the school’s exact 2028 assessment format is not yet published, the best preparation is steady, low-pressure work that strengthens the basics and builds confidence. For most Year 5 children, short and regular sessions are far more effective than occasional long ones.

January to March in Year 5

Aim for 1 to 2 hours a week in total, split into short sessions.
Focus on secure arithmetic, times tables, fractions, reading comprehension and accurate spelling and punctuation.
Read widely: fiction, non-fiction and short articles. Ask your child to explain what they have read in full sentences.
If your child is not yet fluent with written methods in maths, make that the first priority.

April to June in Year 5

Increase to around 2 hours a week.
Add light problem-solving and longer comprehension tasks.
Encourage neat working, checking answers and explaining reasoning out loud.
Begin very gentle unfamiliar-task practice: not to chase a test style, but to help your child stay calm when a question looks new.

July to August before Year 6

Keep work ticking over at about 2 to 3 hours a week, with plenty of breaks and holiday reading.
Do a mixture of maths fluency, comprehension and short writing tasks.
Practise finishing small sets of questions in a reasonable time, but avoid turning summer into a mock-exam boot camp.

September in Year 6

Move to roughly 3 hours a week, depending on your child’s stamina and school workload.
If the school publishes 2028 assessment details by this point, tailor preparation to them immediately.
Start using timed sections more deliberately: for example, 10- to 20-minute bursts with careful review afterwards.
Attend any open event you can and make sure registration is complete.

October in Year 6

Keep to 3 to 4 hours a week at most for most children.
Use one or two longer mixed practice sessions each week to build concentration.
Review mistakes by category: rushing, misunderstood vocabulary, missed method, careless arithmetic or incomplete explanation.
Practise calm starts: reading instructions, underlining key words and checking work at the end.

November in Year 6

If the assessment follows the previous cycle, this may be the exam month.
In the final fortnight, reduce volume slightly and focus on confidence, sleep and routine.
Use only light review in the last few days: key maths facts, short reading passages and a few confidence-building questions.
Do not introduce lots of new material at the last minute.

If your child is bright but anxious, keep practice shorter and predictable. If they are confident but careless, spend more time on checking routines than on extra content. The goal here is not to outguess the paper; it is to arrive in good shape for a school-set assessment.

Subject by subject: what to practise

The school’s official information reviewed for 2028 entry does not confirm the tested subjects. Because of that, the safest approach is to prepare the core areas most commonly used in school-based academic assessments for this age, while checking the admissions page regularly for any subject-specific update.

English

Build strong reading and clear written expression. Practise comprehension using fiction and non-fiction, focusing on retrieving information, making simple inferences, understanding vocabulary from context and explaining ideas in full sentences. For writing, work on accurate punctuation, paragraphing, spelling of common words and answering the exact task set. If your child reads fluently but answers briefly, encourage them to develop fuller written responses with evidence from the text.

Mathematics

Prioritise secure Key Stage 2 maths: number facts, place value, the four operations, fractions, decimals, percentages, measures and basic geometry. Practise showing method clearly, because even where final answers matter most, children who write down steps make fewer avoidable mistakes. Include some multi-step word problems so your child gets used to extracting the important information before calculating.

Reasoning or broader cognitive tasks

The school has not confirmed whether reasoning is assessed. However, many school-run assessments include questions that test pattern-spotting, logic, following instructions or handling unfamiliar information. You do not need to label this as a specific exam-board style. Instead, help your child get comfortable with careful reading, spotting what changes from one item to the next and staying methodical when a task looks new.

Interview, discussion or classroom observation

No official source reviewed confirmed an interview or observation stage for 2028 entry, so do not assume there is one. That said, it is always helpful for children to practise greeting adults politely, listening to instructions the first time and talking about what they enjoy at school. Keep this natural rather than coached.

If the school later publishes exact subjects, shift your preparation plan straight away. Until then, broad academic readiness is the most sensible route.

Practice papers and mock exams

Because Lichfield Cathedral School uses its own assessment and the exact 2028 format is not yet confirmed, practice papers are best used to build confidence in core skills rather than to mimic a paper type too rigidly.

A good routine is:

Start with untimed practice so your child can learn method and question approach.
Move on to short timed sections once accuracy is reasonably secure.
Review every piece of work carefully. The review matters more than the score.
Keep an error log: vocabulary gaps, arithmetic slips, missed instructions, weak explanations and timing issues.
Repeat weak areas in small bursts the following week.

For school-specific support, use Free Lichfield Cathedral School practice papers (one per tested subject, with answers). Pair these with The Lichfield Cathedral School 11+ guide (format, catchment, dates) so you can adjust your plan if the school publishes new details.

If you use mock exams more generally, choose them for stamina and exam-room confidence, not because you assume they reproduce this school’s paper exactly. One or two well-timed mocks are usually enough for a non-selective independent-school assessment route; too many can raise anxiety without adding much value.

As a rule of thumb:

Before summer in Year 5: mostly untimed skill-building.
Summer before Year 6: occasional timed sections.
September onwards: a small number of longer mixed sessions under realistic conditions.

If the school later confirms exact subjects or timing, update your paper choice to match.

On the day

Keep the day simple and calm. A steady breakfast, comfortable uniform or clothes if requested, a good night’s sleep and an unhurried journey matter more than any last-minute cramming.

Check the school’s instructions carefully the evening before.
Pack any required stationery only if the school asks for it; otherwise avoid overpacking.
Aim to arrive in good time so your child is not rushing into the room.
Remind them to listen carefully, read every instruction and leave any difficult question for a moment rather than freezing on it.
Encourage them to show working in maths and to check for missed questions at the end if time allows.

Emotionally, the most useful message is that this is a chance for the school to get to know them academically, not a judgement on their worth. For a non-selective school, that framing is especially helpful. Keep your own tone matter-of-fact and reassuring.

After the assessment, avoid a full post-mortem in the car. A simple “well done, you handled that” is usually enough.

After the exam: results, allocation and appeals

In the sources reviewed, Lichfield Cathedral School did not publish a standardised pass mark, a results date for the 2028 cohort, or a ranked allocation system of the kind used by grammar schools. For an independent school, the process is usually more direct: families hear from the school after assessment and any further admissions consideration, then decide whether to accept an offer by the stated deadline.

The school’s published information reviewed for this guide does not set out a formal appeals process equivalent to local-authority school admission appeals. If your child is not offered a place, the practical next step is to speak to the admissions team about waiting-list arrangements and whether any movement is expected.

One verified point from ElevenReady’s admissions directory is that if places are full, waiting-list priority is given to parents who already have a child in the school; otherwise places are offered in chronological order of application. That means prompt application can matter even after the assessment stage.

If your child is applying to both independent and state schools, keep a careful diary. Independent-school offer timelines may not match local-authority National Offer Day arrangements, so make sure you understand each school’s acceptance deadline before making decisions.

What has changed recently

From the official information reviewed, the clearest recent published detail is that for Year 7 entry in 2027 the school listed a Year 7 Entrance 2027 Assessment Day on 14 November 2026, alongside a Senior School Open Morning on 29 September 2026. That confirms a formal Year 7 assessment event in the most recent cycle reviewed.

ElevenReady’s verified information for 2028 entry is that the school uses its own paper. However, the exact assessment format, tested subjects and delivery method remain not confirmed in the official material reviewed for this guide.

Beyond that, I found no officially announced recent change in the sources reviewed to catchment, a published pass mark or a move to a named external exam board.

Frequently asked questions

Is Lichfield Cathedral School selective for Year 7 entry?

The school describes itself as non-selective. It does use academic assessments for applicants aged 9 or above, but the published wording reviewed does not describe a grammar-style pass mark.

Does Lichfield Cathedral School use GL Assessment or CEM?

For 2028 entry, ElevenReady’s verified information is that the school uses its own paper. The exact provider or style is not confirmed, so parents should not assume a GL or CEM format unless the school later states it.

When should we register for Year 7 entry?

The school says it is recommended that children are registered 12 months before their start date. Specific 2028 deadlines were not published in the sources reviewed, so contact admissions early.

Is there a catchment area?

No. This is an independent school and ElevenReady’s verified admissions note is NoCatchment.

What happens if the year group is full?

ElevenReady’s verified directory says that if all places are filled, waiting-list priority goes first to parents who already have a child in the school; otherwise places are offered in chronological order of application.

What subjects should my child revise?

The school’s official information reviewed does not confirm the tested subjects for 2028 entry. The safest preparation is strong English and maths fundamentals, careful reading and confidence with unfamiliar tasks, while checking the admissions page for updates.

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Sources

Lichfield Cathedral School – Begin your journey: The school runs its own admissions process; the school recommends children are registered 12 months prior to their start date; the school is non-selective; for children aged 9 or above the school uses academic assessments to understand current ability level.
Lichfield Cathedral School website: School identity and context as an independent, co-educational school in Lichfield.

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Written by ElevenReady from the school's published information and reviewed by a person before publishing. Last reviewed 20 October 2026. Exam arrangements change. Check the school's admissions page for the current year.