How to prepare for the St Michael's Catholic Grammar 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 September 2028 entry, St Michael's Catholic Grammar School uses the school's own entrance test process. our working assumption for this school, not yet verified with the school, is that the test format is a GL-style paper covering Maths, English, Verbal Reasoning and Non-Verbal Reasoning, with a mixed delivery and standard timed sections. For families, the practical takeaway is simple: preparation needs to be broad and steady across all four areas rather than heavily weighted to one subject.

In recent admissions information published by the school for the previous round, applicants were invited to sit the entrance tests in person at the school. The school also described the tests as by invitation only. That matters because this is not usually a case of simply turning up for a consortium test at an external venue: parents need to complete the school's process carefully and watch for invitations and instructions.

On the day itself, children should expect a structured test session with separate timed elements. Because the school's format in our directory (not yet verified with the school) is a GL-style assessment across four subjects, sensible preparation should focus on:

secure core Maths rather than only trick questions;
careful English reading and comprehension with accurate spelling, punctuation and grammar awareness;
Verbal Reasoning methods learned clearly and practised regularly;
Non-Verbal Reasoning pattern recognition done under calm timed conditions.

The exact running order and section lengths for 2028 entry may not be published this far ahead. If the school releases a parent guide or familiarisation details nearer the time, use those as your final authority. Until then, balanced practice across all four tested subjects is the safest plan.

Registration and key dates

St Michael's runs its own admissions process for the entrance tests, so parents should start with the school's admissions page rather than assuming it follows a shared borough test process.

For the most recently published cycle on the school's admissions page, the key dates were:

Registration opened: 14 April 2026
Registration deadline: 7 July 2026
Entrance test date: Friday 11 September 2026

The same admissions information also said that entrance tests were by invitation only and had to be sat in person at the school. Because your child is aiming for 2028 entry, do not assume the same dates will be repeated exactly. At the time of writing, the school's 2028 dates may not yet be published, so the most sensible guide is that registration usually opens in spring, closes in early July, and the test is typically in early to mid-September, based on the published 2027-entry timetable.

For Catholic priority evidence, the school states that from September 2027 entry onwards, baptised Catholic girls from a practising Catholic family must provide a Certificate of Baptism in the Catholic Church and a Certificate of Catholic Practice. The school also says parents should notify it at application if their child is eligible for Pupil Premium or is Looked After or Previously Looked After.

Before you submit anything, read the current admissions page and any supplementary information form carefully. In selective schools, small administrative mistakes can become stressful later.

If you want to keep track of updates, these pages are useful:

The school also announced that its 2026 Open Evening was postponed to Monday 13 July, with guided tours between 5pm and 7pm and Headteacher talks at 5pm and 7pm. Open events can change from year to year, but they are worth attending if a current-year date is offered, because they often clarify the admissions process and give children a feel for the school.

Who can apply: catchment and admissions

St Michael's Catholic Grammar School is a Catholic grammar school for girls and says it is historically oversubscribed with applicants to sit entrance tests. That means parents should think about admissions in two separate stages:

eligibility to sit the entrance test and completing the school's registration correctly;
oversubscription and admissions priority if your daughter is applying for a place.

From the school's published admissions information for recent entry, an important point for Catholic applicants is the evidence required. From September 2027 entry onwards, baptised Catholic girls from a practising Catholic family must provide both a Certificate of Baptism in the Catholic Church and a Certificate of Catholic Practice.

The school also asks parents to notify it at application if their child is eligible for Pupil Premium or is Looked After or Previously Looked After. If any of these apply, it is wise to gather supporting paperwork early rather than leaving it to the deadline week.

At the time of writing, you should not rely on unofficial summaries of cut-off scores, pass marks or travel-distance rules. If the school has not published a figure, treat it as unknown. The safest approach is to read the current admissions policy and supplementary form when the 2028 process opens, then check whether any priority categories, faith evidence or other supporting documents are required.

Because the school is oversubscribed, parents should also remember that doing well in the test does not remove the need to follow the full admissions process. You will still need to complete your local authority secondary application as instructed in the relevant year and list the school according to your genuine preference order.

A month-by-month preparation plan

For a child sitting this exam in September of Year 6, the most effective preparation usually begins in Year 5 and builds gradually. The aim is not to create constant pressure; it is to make the four tested subjects feel familiar, manageable and well-practised.

Month	What to do
September-October (Year 5)	Start gently with two or three short sessions a week, around 1.5 to 2 hours total. Focus on reading quality texts, mental maths fluency, and finding out how comfortable your child is with verbal and non-verbal reasoning. Do not rush into constant timed work yet.
November-December	Move to 2 to 3 hours a week. Begin structured practice in each subject: one Maths session, one English session, one reasoning session, plus reading. Keep most work untimed, but occasionally ask for short bursts of timed accuracy.
January-February	By now, your child should know the common question styles. Increase to around 3 hours a week. Start short mixed sections so she learns to switch between subject types. Review mistakes carefully and keep a notebook of patterns: missed instructions, slow arithmetic, weak vocabulary, or particular reasoning types.
March-April	Keep a steady rhythm of about 3 to 4 hours a week. Introduce more timed practice, but still in sections rather than full papers every weekend. Build stamina gradually. Registration for recent years has opened in April, so this is also a sensible time for parents to check the school's admissions page regularly.
May half term to June	This is the point to become more exam-specific. Aim for roughly 4 hours a week. Start using fuller timed papers and mixed practice. After each paper, spend at least as long reviewing as completing it. Accuracy first, then pace.
July	Use 4 to 5 hours a week if your child is coping happily. Sit one or two full papers under realistic conditions each week, with shorter repair sessions in between. Do not let every session become a test; some lessons should still be targeted teaching on weak areas.
August	Keep practice regular but calm. Two full papers a week is usually enough for most children, plus short top-up work on identified weaknesses. Revisit methods, timings, and exam routines. Protect sleep, exercise and family time.
Early September	In the final days, reduce workload. Use brief confidence-building exercises, not exhausting cramming. Check travel, stationery and any invitation details from the school. The week before the test should feel settled, not frantic.

A useful rule of thumb is that steady consistency beats sudden intensity. Children usually improve most when they practise little and often, review errors properly, and avoid long gaps followed by panic.

Subject by subject: what to practise

Maths

For a GL-style Maths paper, prioritise quick, accurate arithmetic and secure Key Stage 2 problem-solving. Practise number operations, fractions, decimals, percentages, ratio basics, place value, measures, time, shape and data handling. Children also need to read questions carefully: many lost marks come from misreading rather than not knowing the maths.

Good practice includes short mental-maths warm-ups, one or two worked problem-solving questions, and timed sets where your child learns when to move on and return later. If speed is weak, build it gradually; if accuracy is weak, slow down and repair methods first.

English

English preparation should centre on reading comprehension, vocabulary, inference, and secure spelling, punctuation and grammar. Because school-set selective English papers can vary, keep preparation broad. Read fiction and non-fiction, discuss author meaning, and practise answering in a precise way rather than writing too much.

Useful habits include daily reading, vocabulary collection, editing short passages, and short comprehension tasks where your child must justify an answer from the text. Strong readers usually cope better with pressure across the whole test, including reasoning.

Verbal Reasoning

Verbal Reasoning rewards method as much as intelligence. Children should learn the common question families clearly, then repeat them until they become familiar. This often includes vocabulary-based tasks, letter and number patterns, codes, sequences, relationships between words, and instruction-heavy items where careful reading matters.

Practise in short, focused sets. When your child gets an answer wrong, identify whether the problem was vocabulary, method, or time pressure. Build a small bank of new words each week: stronger vocabulary often improves both verbal reasoning and English together.

Non-Verbal Reasoning

Non-Verbal Reasoning usually tests visual patterns, similarities, sequences, rotations, reflections, nets and shape-based logic. Many children improve quickly once they are shown how to look systematically rather than guessing from the overall picture.

Use brief but regular practice. Ask your child to explain what has changed from one shape to the next: rotation, shading, line count, position, symmetry or size. Timed work matters here, but only after the underlying visual habits are secure.

Practice papers and mock exams

Practice papers are most useful when they are used as a learning tool rather than just a score generator. For this school, aim to cover all four tested subjects evenly and avoid over-practising only the area your child already enjoys.

Use papers in three stages:

Learn the question type untimed.
Practise short timed sections to build pace.
Sit fuller papers under realistic conditions once methods are secure.

After every paper, review carefully:

Which questions were genuinely not understood?
Which were rushed?
Which were avoidable slips?
Did timing fall apart near the end?

That review is where most improvement happens. A child who scores 70% and learns from every error usually makes faster progress than a child who races through paper after paper with no analysis.

These ElevenReady resources are a good starting point:

If you book mock exams elsewhere, use them selectively. One or two well-timed mocks can help with stamina, travel routines and nerves. Too many can drain confidence and turn preparation into a cycle of judgement rather than learning.

On the day

Keep the morning simple. Aim for a calm breakfast, comfortable uniform or clothes if instructed, and plenty of time for the journey. Last-minute drilling in the car rarely helps; it usually just raises tension.

Children do best when they treat the day as a routine piece of work with clear steps:

listen carefully to instructions;
check the page and question number before starting;
keep moving if one question feels sticky;
come back if there is time;
stay focused on the question in front of them, not the whole paper.

Remind your daughter that selective tests are designed to feel brisk. It is normal not to feel certain about every single question. A calm child who keeps going usually performs better than one who panics after a difficult section.

For parents, the best help is practical reassurance: confirm the invitation details, know the route, arrive in good time, and keep your own tone steady. Children are very quick to absorb adult anxiety.

After the exam: results, allocation and appeals

After the entrance test, schools usually notify families according to their own admissions timetable, and local authority school allocations then follow on the national secondary admissions schedule. Because exact result dates can vary and may not yet be published for 2028 entry, parents should follow the school's current admissions page closely.

In general, the process works like this:

Your child sits the entrance test.
The school communicates the outcome or next-stage information according to its published process.
You submit your local authority secondary school application by the national deadline in the autumn of Year 6.
National Offer Day brings the formal school allocation.
If you are refused a place, the school or local authority explains waiting list and appeal arrangements.

Appeals are always case-specific, so it is best to use the official information issued for that admissions round rather than relying on forum advice. Keep copies of forms, emails and any supporting evidence from the start of the process; it makes later administration much easier.

What has changed recently

The clearest recently announced changes and updates we found were these:

The school states that from September 2027 entry onwards, baptised Catholic girls from a practising Catholic family must provide a Certificate of Baptism in the Catholic Church and a Certificate of Catholic Practice.
For the 2027-entry round, the school published that entrance tests were by invitation only and that applicants had to sit them in person at the school on Friday 11 September 2026.
The school also announced that the 2026 Open Evening was postponed to Monday 13 July, with guided tours from 5pm to 7pm and Headteacher talks at 5pm and 7pm.

We did not find an officially announced recent change to the exam board away from the school's own process for the entry year covered here. the information in our directory (not yet verified with the school) remains the authority for the 2028 format.

Frequently asked questions

What subjects are in the St Michael's Catholic Grammar School 11+?

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

Is the St Michael's test taken at the school?

For the most recently published round, the school said applicants had to sit the tests in person at the school. Check the current admissions page for your daughter's year.

When do registrations usually open?

For the published 2027-entry round, registration opened on 14 April 2026 and closed on 7 July 2026. For 2028 entry, expect a spring opening unless the school announces otherwise.

Does St Michael's publish a pass mark or cut-off score?

We did not find a published pass mark or cut-off score in the sources used here. Parents should rely on the school's admissions page and policy rather than unofficial figures online.

What Catholic documents may be needed?

The school says that from September 2027 entry onwards, baptised Catholic girls from a practising Catholic family must provide a Certificate of Baptism in the Catholic Church and a Certificate of Catholic Practice.

Should my child focus more on reasoning than English and Maths?

No. the information we hold (not yet verified with the school) for this school covers four areas, so preparation should be balanced across Maths, English, Verbal Reasoning and Non-Verbal Reasoning.

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Sources

St Michael's Catholic Grammar School Admissions 2027-28: Registration opened on 14 April 2026; registration deadline was 7 July 2026; entrance test date was Friday 11 September 2026; tests were by invitation only; applicants had to sit the tests in person at the school; from September 2027 entry onwards baptised Catholic girls from a practising Catholic f
St Michael's Catholic Grammar School website: The school is a Catholic grammar school in North Finchley, London; the school has a sixth form and serves pupils through Key Stage 5.
St Michael's Catholic Grammar School Home page / announcements: Open Evening 2026 was postponed to Monday 13 July, with guided tours between 5pm and 7pm and Headteacher talks at 5pm and 7pm.

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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.