How to prepare for the North London Grammar School 11+

The exam at a glance

North London Grammar School is an independent co-educational school with admissions into senior years, and its admissions page says applicants complete an entrance test as part of the process. For Year 7 entry in 2028, the school has not published a confirmed exam board for the 11+ route, so parents should treat the test format as one to watch closely on the school’s own admissions page.

What is clear from the school’s admissions information is that entry is selective and based on school-run assessment rather than a local authority grammar-school test. ElevenReady’s verified information for 2028 entry is that the first stage is an adaptive, computer-delivered screen focused on developed ability. In practice, that means children are likely to meet questions in Maths, English, Verbal Reasoning and Non-Verbal Reasoning, with an emphasis on vocabulary, reasoning and mental arithmetic rather than a taught syllabus.

Because the screen is adaptive and tightly timed, the feel of the test matters. Children need to be comfortable reading quickly on screen, entering answers accurately and moving on when a question is not immediately obvious. Adaptive testing often feels different from paper practice: questions may become harder as a child answers correctly, so the goal is not to finish feeling that everything was easy. A sensible target is steady concentration, calm pacing and good decision-making under time pressure.

The school’s entrance-test page also says that applicants from Year 2 to UFP are interviewed. For Year 7 families, that means you should be ready for assessment to include more than one step, even if the exact sequence for 2028 has not yet been published. In practical terms, the day may involve an online or on-site test slot booked after registration, followed by further assessment or interview if the school requests it.

For now, the safest way to think about this exam is as a mixed-delivery admissions process: likely to begin with a computer-based screen and potentially followed by later-stage school assessment. Keep checking the school’s entrance-test page for the confirmed 2028 process.

Registration and key dates

North London Grammar School runs its own admissions process. The school’s entrance-test page says families should complete a registration form and then book an entrance test. At the time of writing, the school does not publish a dated 2028-entry registration timetable, a fixed Year 7 test date, or a results date on the admissions pages we could verify.

That means parents should plan for a school-managed process rather than a borough-wide portal. In practical terms:

Start on the school’s admissions and entrance-test pages.
Complete the school’s registration form when it becomes available.
Book the entrance test through the school’s process once invited or prompted to do so.
Watch for any request for supporting information the school may need for your child’s application.

Because no dated 2028 schedule is published yet, it is wise to sign up for updates and check the school regularly. You can use Free email alerts for this school's key dates and keep an eye on The North London Grammar School 11+ guide (format, catchment, dates).

The school website does currently advertise an open day on Saturday 3 October, 10am to 1pm. That is useful for getting a feel for the school, but it is not the same thing as a published Year 7 entrance-test timetable for 2028 entry.

Until the school releases confirmed dates, a sensible parent checklist is:

Visit the admissions page once each half term in Year 5, then more often from the summer before Year 6.
Register promptly when the form opens.
Book the test as soon as booking is offered, especially if slots are limited.
Keep copies of emails and confirmation screens.
Ask the school directly if you need clarity on deadlines, test format or next-stage interviews.

If you want a one-page summary to revisit, see The North London Grammar School 11+ guide (format, catchment, dates).

Who can apply: catchment and admissions

North London Grammar School is an independent school, so its admissions are not run through grammar-school catchment rules in the way a state selective school would be. In the material we could verify, the school does not publish a Year 7 catchment area, priority distance, oversubscription distance or a numerical pass mark for the entrance test.

What the school does state is that it admits pupils across a wide age range and that applicants from Year 2 to UFP complete an entrance test, with interviews for those year groups as part of admissions. For Year 7 families, the practical takeaway is that eligibility is not presented as a local catchment matter on the page we reviewed; instead, admission appears to depend on performance in the school’s own assessment process and on the school’s wider admissions decisions.

We also could not verify a published number of Year 7 places for 2028 entry from the pages reviewed. If numbers matter for your planning, check the school’s own admissions page and ask admissions directly whether they publish the intake for your child’s year group.

Independent-school admissions can move at a different pace from local authority secondary transfer. That makes early organisation especially helpful. Parents should make sure they understand:

whether the test is only a first-stage screen;
whether interviews or further assessments apply to Year 7 in that cycle;
when offers are normally made;
whether there is a deposit or acceptance deadline if a place is offered.

At present, the school’s site gives only limited public detail on those points, so it is best to treat them as school-specific questions to ask directly once registration opens.

A month-by-month preparation plan

Because the school has not yet published dated 2028-entry test arrangements, the most useful plan is to work backwards from an autumn of Year 6 exam window. This plan suits a Year 5 child preparing steadily without turning the whole year into exam practice.

January to March of Year 5

Keep things light: around 1 to 2 hours a week in short sessions is plenty. Focus on core habits rather than heavy testing. Build mental arithmetic fluency, careful reading, vocabulary growth and visual pattern work. If your child is new to reasoning, start with untimed practice so they learn the question styles calmly.

April to May of Year 5

Move to about 2 hours a week. Introduce mixed practice across Maths, English, Verbal Reasoning and Non-Verbal Reasoning. Start using short, timed bursts on screen as well as on paper. Adaptive tests reward children who can settle quickly, so brief sessions with a visible timer are useful.

June of Year 5

Stay at roughly 2 to 3 hours a week. By now, your child should be seeing all four subject areas regularly. Begin keeping a simple error log: not pages of notes, just a list of recurring slips such as rushed arithmetic, missed keywords, or choosing an answer too quickly in pattern questions.

July to August before Year 6

This is a good time for steady consolidation rather than cramming. Aim for 2 to 3 hours a week, split across several short sessions. Introduce the first properly timed mini-papers or sections. If your child has mostly worked on paper so far, make sure some of the practice is completed on a computer screen. Add a little resilience work too: one hard question should not spoil the next five.

September of Year 6

If the school opens booking or publishes test details around this stage, adjust quickly. Increase to 3 to 4 hours a week and use one longer session each week to practise mixed, tightly timed work. This is the point to start doing fuller timed papers, but not too many. Quality review matters more than quantity.

The final 4 to 6 weeks before the exam

Keep work regular and purposeful at 3 to 4 hours a week. Use a small number of realistic practice papers and review them carefully. Focus on pacing, answer entry, reading instructions properly and staying composed if questions become harder. In the last week, reduce volume slightly so your child goes in fresh.

A simple rhythm works well for many families:

two shorter weekday sessions for skill-building;
one weekend session for mixed timed work;
one brief review slot to correct errors and revisit weak areas.

If your child is thriving at school but tires quickly with extra preparation, do less, not more. For this kind of screen, consistency and calm are usually more helpful than marathon study sessions.

Subject by subject: what to practise

Maths

For this style of entrance screen, Maths preparation should focus on quick, accurate number work and clear reasoning. Prioritise mental arithmetic, number bonds, times tables, place value, fractions, percentages, ratio basics and straightforward worded problems. Practise reading the question carefully, deciding the method quickly and checking whether the answer is sensible. Because timing matters, short drills in calculation speed can help, but they should sit alongside mixed reasoning so your child does not expect every question to look routine.

English

English is likely to reward strong vocabulary, precise reading and secure comprehension rather than long creative writing. Build wide reading, discuss unfamiliar words in context and practise answering questions based on short passages. Ask your child to spot the key word in a question before answering. Helpful habits include summarising a paragraph in one sentence, identifying tone, and using evidence from the text. For adaptive testing, fast and accurate reading on screen is especially useful.

Verbal Reasoning

Verbal Reasoning usually tests how confidently a child can handle language-based patterns and logic. Useful practice areas include vocabulary, synonyms and antonyms, letter and number codes, word relationships, sequences, odd-one-out tasks and instructions involving several steps. The main skill is not just knowing an answer type but recognising it quickly. Encourage your child to categorise mistakes: was it vocabulary, misreading, or getting stuck in a slow method?

Non-Verbal Reasoning

Non-Verbal Reasoning preparation should cover pattern recognition, rotations, reflections, similarities and differences, nets, codes and shape sequences. Children often improve well here once they learn to scan systematically rather than guess from the first feature they notice. A useful routine is: count, compare, track movement, then choose. If your child works too quickly, insist on a simple checking habit before clicking an answer.

Across all four subjects, one of the biggest gains comes from learning test behaviour: read carefully, answer decisively, move on when needed and recover quickly after a difficult item.

Practice papers and mock exams

Practice papers are most helpful when they are used to build familiarity, not fear. For North London Grammar School, start with one paper or section per subject to identify strengths and weaker areas, then return to those weaker areas in shorter drills before doing another full set.

Use these free resources from ElevenReady exactly as part of your plan:

A practical way to use papers is:

First attempt: do it untimed or lightly timed to learn the style.
Review: mark carefully and note only recurring errors.
Repair: spend a week fixing those weak spots in short drills.
Second attempt: try a fresh paper under tighter timing.
Final phase: use mixed timed sections to sharpen pacing.

If you can access a realistic mock, the main benefit is not the score on its own. It is the experience of working to time, using a screen confidently and coping with a question that feels harder than expected. After any mock, ask three things: Which question types slowed my child down? Which mistakes were avoidable? Did nerves affect pace?

Do not swamp a child with paper after paper. For an adaptive screen, overdoing volume can be less useful than improving judgement, accuracy and recovery under pressure.

On the day

Keep the day simple and calm. Aim for a normal morning routine, a sensible breakfast and plenty of time to travel or log in, depending on how the school runs the assessment. Avoid last-minute teaching. A short confidence boost is better: remind your child to read carefully, keep moving and not to panic if some questions feel hard.

Because this is likely to begin with a computer-based screen, practical comfort matters. If the school gives guidance in advance, make sure your child knows how answers are entered and what to do if they need help. At home, you can prepare by making sure they are used to reading on screen, using a mouse or keyboard comfortably and working with a timer visible.

Useful reminders for children are:

one hard question does not mean the whole test is going badly;
keep your eyes on the question you are on, not the one before it;
watch the clock, but do not stare at it;
if you are unsure, make the best decision you can and move on.

For parents, the biggest gift on the day is steadiness. Keep conversations warm and ordinary. Save detailed post-mortems for later, and only if your child wants to talk.

After the exam: results, allocation and appeals

North London Grammar School does not publish, on the pages we could verify, a dated 2028 results timeline for Year 7 entrance testing. It also does not publicly set out a local-authority allocation process because this is an independent-school admission rather than a state secondary transfer round.

In general, the process is usually school-led: families sit the school’s assessment, the school communicates the outcome, and successful applicants may then receive an offer or an invitation to a further stage if one applies. If a place is offered, there is often an acceptance deadline set by the school. Because these specifics are not published in the material we verified, parents should check directly with admissions once their child has tested.

If your child is not offered a place, ask politely whether feedback is available and whether there is a waiting-list process. Independent schools do not always run appeals in the same formal way as state schools, so the right next step is to ask the school what review or reconsideration procedure, if any, applies.

Keep all emails, booking confirmations and any written communication about the test outcome. That makes follow-up much easier if you need clarification.

What has changed recently

From the official material we could verify, we did not find a clearly dated public announcement in the last two years confirming a change to North London Grammar School’s Year 7 exam board, catchment, number of places or published test timetable. The key point for parents is that the school’s entrance-test page currently gives only limited operational detail, so families should watch for future updates rather than relying on assumptions from other schools.

One currently advertised item on the school website is an open day on Saturday 3 October, 10am to 1pm, which may help families considering the school, but it is not itself a published 2028-entry admissions timetable.

Frequently asked questions

Does North London Grammar School use the same 11+ as Barnet grammar schools?

No. It is an independent school and runs its own admissions process rather than using a local authority grammar-school test.

Has the school published the 2028 Year 7 exam date yet?

Not in the official material we could verify. Check the school's entrance-test page regularly and sign up for alerts.

What subjects should my child prepare for?

For 2028 entry, ElevenReady's verified subjects are Maths, English, Verbal Reasoning and Non-Verbal Reasoning.

Is there a catchment area for North London Grammar School?

We could not verify a published Year 7 catchment or distance rule on the school's admissions pages reviewed.

How should we prepare for an adaptive screen?

Use short, regular practice, include timed work on screen, and teach your child to move on calmly when a question feels difficult.

Does the school interview Year 7 applicants?

The school says applicants from Year 2 to UFP are interviewed, but the exact 2028 Year 7 process should be checked with admissions when details are published.

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Sources

North London Grammar School – Entrance Test: The school runs its own admissions process; families are told to complete a registration form and then book an entrance test; applicants from Year 2 to UFP complete an entrance test; applicants from Year 2 to UFP are interviewed.
North London Grammar School – Home page: The school is an independent co-educational school serving pupils from Reception through senior years; the site advertises an open day on Saturday 3 October, 10am to 1pm.

Preparing for other schools in Barnet

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.