How to prepare for the Worth School 11+

The exam at a glance

Worth School is an independent, co-educational Catholic day and boarding school in West Sussex. The school says pupils join at 11+ for Year 7, as well as at 13+ and 16+.

For 2028 entry, ElevenReady’s verified information is that Worth uses the school’s own assessment. Beyond that, the exact format is not confirmed. Unless the school publishes more detail for the relevant entry year, parents should assume that the assessment is set and administered by Worth rather than through a national grammar-school test process.

At the time of writing, the school’s publicly available admissions information does not clearly set out the full 11+ paper structure, named provider, tested subjects, timing or whether the assessment is written, online or mixed. That means the safest approach is to prepare broadly and then follow any instructions sent by the admissions team once your child is registered.

In practical terms, families should expect the process for Year 7 entry to involve some combination of registration, school contact with admissions, an assessment and later an offer decision. Because Worth is an independent school, the day itself may feel more like a school-run admissions event than a large consortium test sitting.

What parents should do now:

Read the school’s admissions information carefully and register your interest early.
Book an Open Day or a private visit if you can, because the school explicitly welcomes both.
Ask admissions directly what the current Year 7 assessment includes for your child’s entry year.
Prepare your child in core English and maths, with light reasoning practice only if the school later confirms it is relevant.

Registration and key dates

Worth runs its own admissions process through the school rather than through a local authority selective-testing portal. The school’s website invites families to make contact with the admissions team and to attend Open Days or arrange a private visit.

For 2028 entry, verified registration opening dates, assessment deadlines and results dates are not currently published in a clear 11+ admissions timetable on the pages reviewed. Parents should therefore treat any unofficial dates with caution and check directly with Worth.

The school homepage states that boys and girls join at 11+ and invites families to book an Open Day on Saturday 12 September. It also says visitors are welcomed throughout the year and refers to both Open Days and private visits. Because this is the only clear dated admissions prompt visible on the reviewed pages, it is sensible to use the school’s events cycle as your cue to start the process early.

If this year’s detailed 11+ dates are still not published when you read this, a sensible plan is:

make contact with admissions in the summer term of Year 5 or at the start of Year 6;
attend an Open Day or arrange a visit;
ask for the Year 7 entry timeline, registration form and assessment information in writing;
keep checking the school website for updates.

Because Worth is an independent school, families should also be ready to provide the usual application information if requested, such as:

basic pupil details;
parent contact details;
current school information;
possibly school reports or references, if the admissions team asks for them.

If you want reminders when the school updates its process, you can use Free email alerts for this school's key dates. For a quick overview page, see The Worth School 11+ guide (format, catchment, dates).

Who can apply: catchment and admissions

Worth is an independent school, so there is no published catchment area in the way many state grammar schools use one. The school describes itself as a Catholic, co-educational day and boarding school, and its public-facing information reviewed here does not set out a geographical priority area for Year 7 admission.

That means families from across the UK and overseas may be able to apply, subject to the school’s own admissions process and place availability. As always with an independent school, the practical questions are less about catchment and more about whether your child is a good fit, whether places are available in the relevant year, and whether your family is comfortable with the school’s ethos and fees.

Worth’s website states that pupils join at 11+ for Year 7, 13+ for Year 9 and 16+ for Year 12. It also makes clear that the school offers both boarding and day places.

What is not clearly published on the reviewed pages is equally important:

no verified Year 7 published admissions number was found;
no verified 11+ published cut-off, pass mark or score threshold was found;
no published catchment or distance priority was found.

So if you are trying to judge competitiveness, the most reliable next step is to ask the admissions office directly about likely Year 7 place numbers, boarding versus day availability, and how the school assesses suitability at 11+.

A month-by-month preparation plan

Because Worth sets its own assessment and the exact format is not clearly published, the best preparation plan is broad, calm and skills-based. For most Year 5 children, 2 to 3 hours a week in the early stages is enough, rising gradually only as the assessment approaches. The aim is steady confidence, not cramming.

January to March in Year 5

Keep preparation light. Focus on secure core skills in reading, comprehension, spelling, arithmetic and problem solving. Read with your child most days if possible, and talk about vocabulary naturally. One or two short sessions on weekdays plus a longer weekend session is plenty.

Weekly time: around 2 hours.
Main goal: build strong basics without pressure.
Best activities: reading, mental maths, short written responses, careful presentation.

April to June in Year 5

Start slightly more structured preparation. If your child writes slowly, begin practising clear, accurate written answers under gentle time limits. Keep maths fluent: four operations, fractions, decimals, percentages and multi-step word problems. If the school later confirms any reasoning element, introduce it here in small amounts.

Weekly time: 2 to 3 hours.
Main goal: accuracy first, then pace.
Best activities: short mixed tasks, comprehension, spelling review, arithmetic drills.

July to August before Year 6

Use the summer to build confidence, not to overload. This is a good time for wider reading, vocabulary work and one or two mixed practice sessions each week. If you visit the school over the summer or attend an event early in the new term, your child will feel more settled.

Weekly time: 2 to 3 hours.
Main goal: keep skills warm.
Best activities: reading, light revision, one timed task a week.

September in Year 6

This is usually when preparation becomes more focused. Confirm the assessment arrangements with Worth as soon as possible. Once you know more, tailor the final weeks around the school’s own instructions. If no extra detail is given, continue with balanced English and maths practice and only modest timed work.

Weekly time: 3 to 4 hours.
Main goal: familiarity with working carefully under time pressure.
Best activities: short timed exercises, error review, calm routine.

The final two to three weeks

Do not suddenly double the workload. Children do best when they feel competent and rested. Use short mixed papers, mark them carefully, and spend more time discussing mistakes than doing endless new questions.

Weekly time: about 3 hours.
Main goal: confidence and consistency.
Best activities: one or two timed pieces, plenty of review, early nights.

When should you start timed papers? For a school-run assessment with an unclear published format, there is no need to begin full timed work very early. For most children, the summer before Year 6 or the start of Year 6 is the right point. Before that, untimed accuracy is more useful.

Subject by subject: what to practise

Worth’s publicly available admissions information reviewed here does not clearly confirm the tested subjects for 11+. So the safest approach is to prepare the areas most commonly used by independent-school entry assessments and then refine your plan if the school provides more detail.

English

Prioritise reading comprehension, vocabulary, spelling, punctuation and clear written expression. A child applying to an academically selective independent school should be comfortable explaining what a passage means, spotting evidence, and writing in full, accurate sentences.

Read fiction and non-fiction regularly.
Practise retrieving information and explaining ideas from a passage.
Build vocabulary from reading rather than rote lists alone.
Work on spelling patterns, punctuation and paragraphing.
If your child does creative writing at school, focus on structure and clarity rather than over-decorated language.

Mathematics

Keep maths practical and fluent. Children should be secure in arithmetic and able to apply it to word problems. Accuracy matters, but so does method: many school-set assessments look for tidy working and sensible problem solving.

Practise the four operations until they are reliable.
Revise fractions, decimals, percentages, ratio and measures at an age-appropriate level.
Use word problems that require more than one step.
Encourage neat working and checking.
Mix easy fluency questions with a few stretch problems.

Reasoning or additional assessment elements

No officially confirmed reasoning component was found on the pages reviewed. Because of that, do not make reasoning the centre of your preparation unless Worth confirms it. If you want to keep options open, a small amount of pattern, logic and vocabulary-based reasoning practice can help children become flexible thinkers without taking over the schedule.

Keep any reasoning practice light and general.
Focus on learning how to stay calm when a question type feels unfamiliar.
If the school later confirms a particular component, switch to targeted practice at that point.

The key principle is this: for Worth, broad academic readiness is more sensible than trying to second-guess an unpublished paper style.

Practice papers and mock exams

When a school sets its own assessment, practice papers are best used to build steady habits rather than to mimic an exact unseen format. Start with short sections. Check every mistake carefully. Then repeat similar work a week later to make sure the lesson has stuck.

A sensible routine looks like this:

Use untimed practice first to secure method.
Move to short timed sections once accuracy is good.
Review errors by topic, not just by score.
Keep a short notebook of recurring mistakes.
In the final weeks, do only a small number of longer mixed papers.

For school-specific support, use Free Worth School practice papers (one per tested subject, with answers). You can also bookmark The Worth School 11+ guide (format, catchment, dates) and sign up for Free email alerts for this school's key dates.

Should your child sit a mock exam? It can help if your child is prone to nerves or has never worked in a formal test setting. But for a school-run assessment with limited published detail, one calm mock experience is usually enough. More than that can create fatigue without adding much value.

Quality matters more than quantity. A child who has completed a modest number of papers thoughtfully will usually be better prepared than a child who has rushed through many papers without reflection.

On the day

Keep the morning quiet and predictable. Lay out clothes, stationery and travel plans the night before. If the school has sent instructions, follow them closely and avoid adding last-minute extras that may unsettle your child.

Give plenty of time for breakfast and the journey.
Avoid heavy revision on the morning itself.
Bring any documents the school has asked for.
Remind your child that some questions may feel unfamiliar in a school-set assessment, and that this is normal.
Encourage them to read carefully, show working where appropriate, and move on if stuck.

Emotionally, the most helpful message is simple: this is not about getting everything perfect. It is about showing the school how your child thinks, works and copes. Children often perform better when parents talk about the day as an opportunity rather than a verdict.

After the assessment, resist a detailed post-mortem in the car. A snack, some fresh air and a change of subject usually help more.

After the exam: results, allocation and appeals

As an independent school, Worth’s process is separate from the state secondary allocation system used by local authorities for grammar schools. If your child sits Worth’s 11+ assessment, the school will normally contact families directly about the outcome and any next steps.

However, a verified public results date for Year 7 entry was not found on the reviewed admissions pages. Parents should therefore ask the admissions office when decisions are expected and whether there are any further stages after the assessment.

If your child receives an offer, make sure you understand:

the deadline for accepting the place;
whether any deposit is required;
whether the offer is for a day or boarding place, if relevant;
what information the school needs next.

If your child is not offered a place, independent schools do not usually run the same formal statutory appeals process as state schools. Instead, families may be able to ask whether a waiting list is held or whether there is any review route within the school’s admissions process. The admissions team is the right first point of contact.

If Worth is one of several schools on your list, keep each school’s process separate in your notes. Independent-school offers, deposits and deadlines can work quite differently from local-authority school allocations.

What has changed recently

No clearly published recent change to Worth School’s 11+ exam board, paper format, catchment arrangements or Year 7 admissions structure was found on the official pages reviewed.

The current publicly stated position remains that pupils join at 11+, 13+ and 16+, and that families are encouraged to attend Open Days or arrange private visits through the admissions process.

Frequently asked questions

Does Worth School use GL or CEM for 11+ entry?

No confirmed official source reviewed here says that it does. For 2028 entry, ElevenReady’s verified information is that Worth uses the school’s own assessment, and the detailed format is not confirmed publicly.

What subjects are in the Worth School 11+ exam?

The tested subjects are not clearly confirmed on the public pages reviewed. Check directly with Worth admissions for the current Year 7 assessment details before narrowing your preparation.

Is there a catchment area for Worth School?

No catchment area was found on the school information reviewed. Worth is an independent day and boarding school, so applications are not presented in the same catchment-based way as state grammar schools.

When should we start preparing for Worth School 11+?

For most children, a light start in Year 5 is sensible, with more focused work in the summer before Year 6 and at the start of Year 6. Keep it steady and skills-based unless the school confirms a specific format.

Are Worth School 11+ dates published yet?

A full public Year 7 admissions timetable was not clearly found on the pages reviewed. The school does advertise Open Days and welcomes private visits, so contact admissions early and ask for the current timeline.

How many places are available at 11+?

A verified published Year 7 places figure was not found in the sources reviewed. Ask the admissions office directly about likely availability for the relevant entry year.

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Sources

Worth School homepage: Worth is a Catholic, co-educational independent boarding and day school in West Sussex; pupils join at 11+ (Year 7), 13+ (Year 9) and 16+ (Year 12); the homepage invites families to book an Open Day on Saturday 12 September; visitors are welcomed throughout the year and private visits are mentioned.

Preparing for other schools in West Sussex

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.