How to prepare for The American School in London 11+

The exam at a glance

For 2028 entry, ElevenReady’s verified format for The American School in London is the ISEB Common Pre-Test. This is an online, adaptive assessment covering Maths, English, Verbal Reasoning and Non-Verbal Reasoning. Because it is adaptive, the level of difficulty changes in response to a child’s answers. In practical terms, that means children need both secure skills and the confidence to keep moving at a steady pace.

The school’s admissions pages for Grades 5–12 explain that applicants must submit results from an accepted standardised test as part of the application. ASL also publishes separate school-hosted testing dates for other accepted tests, so parents should always read the current admissions testing page carefully before booking anything. For this guide, the preparation advice below is based on the verified 2028-entry route: the ISEB Common Pre-Test.

The delivery is listed as mixed. In practice, parents should expect on-screen assessment and should help their child get used to reading carefully, answering neatly and managing time without dwelling too long on one question.

What does the test day feel like? Usually, children work through several short, tightly timed sections rather than one long paper. The adaptive format means there is no point trying to second-guess the test. The best approach is simple: read accurately, answer decisively, and reset quickly after any question that feels difficult.

Board: ISEB Common Pre-Test
Format: online, adaptive, tightly timed
Subjects: Maths, English, Verbal Reasoning, Non-Verbal Reasoning
Key skill: balancing accuracy with pace
Best preparation style: short, regular practice on screen as well as on paper

Registration and key dates

The first thing to know is that ASL runs its own admissions process. Families apply through the school’s admissions system rather than through a local authority 11+ portal. The school’s application page says applications for the 2027–28 school year are open, and it asks families who want to be considered in the first round to complete their application by 15 January.

For Grades 5–12, the admissions pages say that applicants submit results from an accepted standardised test. The testing page also lists ASL-hosted dates for ISEE and SSAT, with the note that dates can fill quickly, registration deadlines are often about three weeks before the test date, and accommodation requests should allow at least six weeks for test-provider approval.

Because ASL’s pages are built around annual application cycles, parents should treat exact dates as cycle-specific. For children starting Year 7 in September 2028, the current pattern suggests that families should expect the main application window to be open during the preceding school year, with first-round consideration typically closing in mid-January. The school-hosted testing dates shown for the relevant cycle are Saturday 14 November 2026, Saturday 12 December 2026 and Saturday 9 January 2027, although those published dates on the ASL page relate to the school’s listed hosted tests and should not be assumed to be the ISEB timetable unless ASL confirms that on the page for your child’s year of entry.

The school also states that there is a £360 non-refundable application fee for each application, inclusive of VAT, and that this fee is waived for families applying for financial aid.

What should parents do in practice?

Read ASL’s current admissions and testing pages first.
Start the application through the school’s admissions system.
Check which test route is accepted for your child’s entry year and whether ASL is hosting the test or expecting external results.
Book early if a hosted date is offered, because the school warns that places can fill quickly.
If your child may need access arrangements, start early because the page says provider approval can take at least six weeks.

For ongoing updates, parents can also save these pages: The The American School in London 11+ guide (format, catchment, dates) and Free email alerts for this school's key dates.

Who can apply: catchment and admissions

Unlike a state grammar school, ASL does not operate a local-authority catchment model. Instead, its admissions rules are based on the school’s own entry requirements. The key point published by the school is that students must have the right to enter, live and study in the United Kingdom. The school also says students are expected to live full-time with their parent or parents during their studies, and that ASL does not provide student visa sponsorship or a CAS.

That matters for families planning ahead: academic preparation is only one part of the process. You should check immigration and residency eligibility early, especially if you are relocating or if your child currently studies abroad.

ASL describes itself as an international school in London serving Kindergarten 1 through Grade 12. For applicants to Grades 5–12, standardised test results form part of the application. The school’s published pages do not present this as a selective catchment-based 11+ in the grammar-school sense, so parents should think of it as an independent-school admissions process with testing, rather than a pass-mark-and-catchment system.

We did not find a published number of Year 7 places, a catchment radius or any published cut-off score on the pages reviewed. Where a school does not publish these figures, it is best to avoid guesswork and rely on the current admissions page only.

A month-by-month preparation plan

For most Year 5 children, steady preparation works far better than an intense last-minute push. The plan below assumes an autumn test date in Year 6 and starts in the spring or summer of Year 5. If your child is starting later, shorten the plan but keep the same order: skills first, then timing, then full mixed practice.

March to April (Year 5)

Keep it light: around 1 to 1.5 hours a week in short sessions. Focus on core arithmetic, vocabulary, reading comprehension and pattern work. At this stage, do not worry about speed. Your aim is to spot any weak areas while practice still feels calm and manageable.

May to June

Increase to about 1.5 to 2 hours a week. Introduce short practice in each of the four subjects. Start building habits that matter in an adaptive test: careful reading, estimating before calculating, and moving on quickly from one hard question without losing concentration.

July

Work for 2 hours a week. Begin small timed sets, perhaps 8 to 12 minutes at a time, rather than full papers. This is a good point to let your child practise on a laptop or desktop as well as on paper, because on-screen confidence matters.

August

Aim for about 2 to 3 hours a week, but keep sessions short and regular. Mix content revision with timed drills. Vocabulary and reading are especially worth revisiting little and often. If maths accuracy drops under time pressure, step back and rebuild fluency before adding more speed.

September

Move to roughly 3 hours a week. This is the point to start regular mixed practice across all four subjects. Children should now be learning how to reset between topics: a tricky reasoning question should not affect the next English or maths item.

October

Keep to 3 to 4 hours a week, depending on your child’s energy and school workload. Start using fuller timed practice sessions, but not so many that confidence dips. Review mistakes carefully. In an adaptive test, the lesson from each error matters more than doing huge quantities.

November up to the test

Reduce the volume slightly and focus on consistency. A child who is tired or overloaded often underperforms in a tightly timed online test. In the final fortnight, use shorter refreshers, quick arithmetic, vocabulary review, brief reasoning sets and one or two calm run-throughs of test-day routines.

When to start timed papers: usually from summer of Year 5 in short bursts, then more regularly from early autumn of Year 6
Best weekly rhythm: 3 or 4 short sessions usually works better than one long one
Best review habit: keep an error notebook with only the mistakes your child can learn from

Subject by subject: what to practise

Maths

For the ISEB Common Pre-Test, maths preparation should centre on secure Key Stage 2 skills used quickly and accurately. Practise the four operations, place value, fractions, decimals, percentages, ratio basics, measures, simple geometry and interpreting data. Because the format is tightly timed, children need number fluency: bonds, tables, mental arithmetic and sensible checking habits. Short daily practice is usually more effective than occasional long worksheets.

A good routine is to mix three things: quick mental starters, one or two multi-step problems, and a few timed questions where your child must decide whether to calculate exactly or estimate first.

English

English preparation should cover both reading and language skills. Practise retrieving information, inferring meaning, understanding vocabulary in context and spotting tone or purpose in short passages. Also revise grammar, punctuation, sentence structure and spelling patterns. Because the assessment is on screen and timed, children benefit from practising concise reading: taking in meaning efficiently without rereading every line.

Vocabulary development matters. Encourage wide reading, but also make time for direct vocabulary work: synonyms, antonyms, prefixes, suffixes and words with multiple meanings.

Verbal Reasoning

Verbal Reasoning usually tests how well a child handles language patterns and logic. Useful practice areas include code and letter patterns, sequences, analogies, classifications, word relationships and careful instruction-following. The exact item style can vary, so the most valuable skill is not memorising one publisher’s tricks but learning to recognise patterns quickly and stay methodical.

Children often improve fastest when they slow down at first, learn one question type properly, and only then add time pressure.

Non-Verbal Reasoning

Non-Verbal Reasoning focuses on shapes, patterns, transformations and spatial logic. Practise rotations, reflections, symmetry, series, odd-one-out tasks, matrices and shape combinations. Many children find NVR easier once they learn to describe what they can see: turning, shading, moving, mirroring, increasing sides and so on. That running commentary helps them avoid random guessing.

On a screen, accuracy depends on scanning carefully. Encourage your child to compare options systematically rather than relying on first impressions.

Practice papers and mock exams

Practice papers are useful, but only when they are used thoughtfully. For an adaptive online test, the goal is not to chase a raw score from one paper to the next. Instead, use practice to build three habits: quick settling-in, steady pace and calm recovery after hard questions.

A simple way to use practice well is:

Start untimed so your child understands the question type.
Move to short timed sections.
Review errors carefully and group them: knowledge gap, rushed reading, or avoidable slip.
Repeat only the weak area, not the whole paper every time.
Nearer the exam, use occasional mixed sessions to practise switching between subjects.

If you use mock exams, choose them carefully. One or two realistic mocks can be helpful for stamina and nerves, but too many can dent confidence. For a child applying to an independent school, it is usually better to arrive confident and fresh than over-tested.

Use these ElevenReady resources as part of your preparation:

If your child is bright but inconsistent, spend more time reviewing than testing. If they are accurate but slow, use shorter timed drills rather than full papers every weekend.

On the day

Keep the morning simple. Aim for an ordinary breakfast, comfortable clothes and plenty of time to arrive without rushing. Children usually do best when the day feels familiar rather than over-important.

Check the booking details and location the day before.
If the test is on screen, remind your child that they can only answer one question at a time: there is no benefit in worrying about the last one once it has gone.
Encourage a steady rhythm: read, decide, answer, move on.
If a question feels unusually hard, that is not necessarily a bad sign in an adaptive assessment.
Avoid last-minute cramming in the car or at the venue.

The most helpful message to give your child is usually this: you do not need every question to feel easy. In a selective, adaptive test, some hard questions are part of the process. Calm focus matters more than perfection.

After the exam: results, allocation and appeals

After testing, the next steps are handled through ASL’s own admissions process, not through National Offer Day in the state-school sense. Families should follow the school’s communications about application review, any further stages and decision timelines.

ASL’s admissions information for the published cycle says that applications are reviewed in rounds, with families seeking first-round consideration asked to complete the application by 15 January. That gives parents a useful sense of the process: test results are one part of a wider application rather than a stand-alone pass/fail outcome.

We did not find a published cut-off score, ranking list or formal appeal framework in the way grammar schools usually publish them. Independent schools typically manage decisions, waitlists and any requests for reconsideration through their own admissions office. If you need clarification after the assessment, the most sensible step is to contact ASL admissions directly and ask how decisions and waitlists are handled in the current cycle.

What has changed recently

For 2028 entry, ElevenReady’s verified record shows the admissions test route as the ISEB Common Pre-Test, covering Maths, English, Verbal Reasoning and Non-Verbal Reasoning in an online adaptive format. On the school’s own current admissions testing page, ASL also publishes hosted ISEE and SSAT dates for the active application cycle. Because these two pieces of information are not presented in the same way, parents should check the latest ASL page carefully for their child’s exact year of entry.

Beyond that, we did not find any separately announced recent change on the pages reviewed to catchment, place numbers or a published score threshold. Where a school has not announced a change, it is better not to infer one.

Frequently asked questions

Does The American School in London use the local authority 11+ process?

No. ASL runs its own admissions process as an independent school, so families apply through the school rather than through a grammar-school registration system.

What test should my child prepare for for 2028 entry?

ElevenReady’s verified format for 2028 entry is the ISEB Common Pre-Test: online, adaptive and timed across Maths, English, Verbal Reasoning and Non-Verbal Reasoning.

Does ASL have a catchment area?

We did not find a published catchment radius. The school instead states that students must have the right to enter, live and study in the UK, must live full-time with their parent or parents, and that ASL does not sponsor student visas or provide a CAS.

How much is the application fee?

The school says the application fee is £360 including VAT, non-refundable, and waived for families applying for financial aid.

When should we apply?

ASL’s current admissions page says applications for the 2027–28 school year are open and asks families seeking first-round consideration to complete the application by 15 January. Always check the current page for your child’s exact entry year.

Are there school-hosted test dates?

Yes, the ASL testing page lists school-hosted ISEE and SSAT dates for the current cycle. The page also says dates can fill quickly and registration deadlines are often about three weeks before the test date.

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Sources

The American School in London - Admissions Testing: Applicants to Grades 5-12 must submit results from an accepted standardized test; school-hosted ISEE and SSAT dates of Saturday 14 November 2026, Saturday 12 December 2026 and Saturday 9 January 2027; test dates can fill quickly; registration deadlines are often three weeks before the test date; acc
The American School in London - Apply: Applications for the 2027-28 school year are open; families seeking first-round consideration should complete applications by 15 January; application is handled through the school.
The American School in London - Admissions: ASL is an international school in London serving Kindergarten 1 through Grade 12.
ISEB - Common Pre-Tests: General familiarisation for the ISEB Common Pre-Test as an online adaptive assessment.

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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.