The 11+ From London

What the London 11+ actually costs, and which deadlines close a year before you think

I took my own children through the London 11+ from outside the prep school system. No prep head making calls on our behalf as neither playground full of parents who'd done it last year. No idea that half the deadlines were already behind us.

This is what I wish somebody had handed me at the start.

Twenty two pages, none of it motivational. It covers the reference your primary head won't know how to write and a prep head writes in their sleep. The content gap between what Key Stage 2 teaches and what an 11+ maths paper assumes. Seven years of fees modelled properly, with VAT, because the number in the prospectus isn't the number you pay. How to use open day season instead of drowning in it. How to find a tutor with no grapevine to ask.

It comes with a planner spreadsheet you fill in with your own shortlist, so the fee modelling uses your schools and your numbers instead of mine.

What is inside

• The shape of the year, and which deadlines close a full year early
• The reference problem, and what a prep head does that your primary head won't know to do Building a shortlist with no grapevine to ask
• Open day season used properly rather than endured
• What it costs, part one and part two, with VAT and every extra the prospectus leaves out Funding seven years rather than one
• Finding a tutor without the playground, and the content gap nobody warns you about
• The reading list that was actually read, not the one that gets recommended
• Exam week, interviews and the wait until February
• What I would do differently
• The eighteen month checklist
• Using the planner
• Sources, and the honest limits of all of it

What it isn't

This isn't admissions consultancy and I'm not an admissions consultant. It predicts nothing about any particular child. It isn't tutoring and it doesn't teach maths. Schools change their fees, their deadlines and their assessment formats every year. Where this guide and a school's own page disagree, the school is right.

One parent writing down four years of working out, so you can skip the part where you find everything out too late. Instant download. Yours to keep. Nothing expires and nothing renews.

There are two versions of this guide. One for families already in London, one for families applying from abroad. The overlap is large, so buy the one that matches your situation, not both.