Year 9 EntryFor students in current years 7 and 8
Child in current years 5 and 6? See Year 7 Entry (coming soon)What's included
5 full mock exams, free of charge
Sat under timed exam conditions.
The same tutor all year
The person who writes the material also teaches the class and marks the work, so nobody is handed between tutors mid-year.
Exam technique, taught explicitly
Pacing, staying calm, and reviewing mistakes.
6 hours of live teaching a week
Three interactive classes via Zoom, two hours each.
Experience one week freeWeekly workbooks and homework
A workbook for the class and a homework set each week, handed in through the portal and marked weekly.
Thousands of practice questions across the year
Selective-style questions every week, plus a portal of resources and lesson recordings.
Parent updates
Regular feedback on where your child stands.
The six subjects
The weekly loop
Three stages.
Teaching and homework are the parts every program has. What comes back afterwards is where they differ.
In class
Taught
Every section taught live each week, by the same tutor all year. Technique is taught explicitly rather than left to be picked up from practice papers.
- The same tutor all year
- Written for the current format
At home
Attempted
A workbook and a homework set each week, built to the current paper rather than adapted from an older one. The student works it under their own conditions.
- Weekly workbook
- Homework every week
The week after
Returned, individually marked
The work comes back marked on the student's own page, with the comments written against their own sentences, so they can see which line each note is about. What they got wrong is checked against last week's work, so we can spot repeated mistakes.
- Marked on their own page
- Comments anchored to their own words
- Checked against last week
Across the year
The same loop, repeated until the timing is routine.
Week one
A diagnostic, before any teaching
A full timed paper sat cold, marked section by section. The point is to measure the starting position rather than assume it, so the first weeks are aimed at the actual gaps.
Every week
Taught, attempted, returned marked
The loop above, repeated. The marking is what carries information from one week into the next, because each set is checked against the last.
Six times a year
A full paper under timed conditions
Sat to the real time limits rather than at a comfortable pace, because the exam is as much a test of working under a clock as of what a student knows.
Throughout
Parents told where their child stands
Not a grade in isolation. Which sections are moving, which are not, and what is being done about the ones that are not.
Ways to prepare, compared
The exam was restructured. Reading Comprehension and Verbal Reasoning are now a single 55-minute paper, and the multiple choice total fell from 175 questions to 145. Most material on sale still trains the old exam, so that is worth checking first, whichever way you decide to prepare. What changed, in detail.
Written for the current exam format
- Practice packs and apps
- Mostly still the old format
- Coaching college
- Varies, ask to see a paper
- Private tutor
- Depends on the material they use
- Accel Education
- Rewritten for the merged Reading and Verbal paper
Live teaching each week
- Practice packs and apps
- None
- Coaching college
- Yes, usually in large classes
- Private tutor
- An hour or two
- Accel Education
- 6 hours, three classes of two hours
Writing taught and marked consistently
- Practice packs and apps
- No, writing cannot be auto-marked
- Coaching college
- Sometimes, often at extra cost
- Private tutor
- Usually yes
- Accel Education
- Yes, taught and marked weekly
Full mock exams under timed conditions
- Practice packs and apps
- Self-timed at home
- Coaching college
- Usually a few
- Private tutor
- Rarely
- Accel Education
- 6, included
One-to-one attention
- Practice packs and apps
- None
- Coaching college
- Limited in a large class
- Private tutor
- Every minute of the lesson
- Accel Education
- One-to-one feedback calls, bookable at any time
This describes how each option usually works, not any one provider. Individual tutors and colleges vary, so it is worth asking any of them the same questions.
Questions
What parents ask first
What does the exam actually test?
Four things are reported: Mathematics, Quantitative Reasoning, Reading and Verbal Reasoning as a single combined band, and Writing.
Reading and Verbal Reasoning used to be two separately timed papers and are now one: 75 questions in 55 minutes, with nothing marking the halfway point. Quantitative Reasoning kept its 30 minutes and lost ten questions. The multiple choice total fell from 175 to 145, which is why a percentage from an older practice paper does not translate to the current exam.
When should my child start?
For a child sitting next year, now is the right time. There is enough runway to fix technique rather than paper over it.
For Year 5 or 6, we would not start Year 9 selective entry preparation at all yet. That exam is sat partway through Year 8, so it's years off. Reading is the section that responds least well to a short run at it and it carries the most weight, so wide reading, and being made to explain what they have read, does more at that age than any course.
Year 7 entry is a different exam on a different clock, and it's the one Year 5 and 6 families should be looking at. Places in accelerated programs like SEAL and ACE are tested during Year 6, with most registrations closing in July, so preparing for one does belong in Year 5 and Year 6. Each school runs its own test, so the first job is working out which schools you're aiming at. Our Year 7 Entry stream is being built for that group and hasn't launched yet.
What does the report actually tell you?
It gives a band for each of the four reported domains: Top 10%, Top 20%, Above average, Average, or Below average. It tells you which band a child landed in, not their own percentile or rank, and the bands are worked out against everyone who sat the exam that year.
That has a consequence worth understanding before results day. Two children whose reports look identical can sit a long way apart on the ranked list that actually decides offers, because a band covers everyone from the top of it to the bottom of it.
How is this different from a coaching college?
Mainly in the marking, and in what a parent gets to see.
You get your own login showing your child's progress as it updates, instead of finding out how a term went at a report night.
The full comparison against the other ways of preparing is set out on the program page.
What it costs
List price $210Now $150a week for all three classes
Which works out at $25 an hour of live teaching
Everything above is included.
Other options
You do not have to take all three classes. A family can start with one, from $60 a week.
Need a different arrangement? Get in touch and we will work something out with you.
Get in contactFirst-month guarantee
Attend the first four weeks and submit all the homework we set. If you do not think the program has helped, tell us within 7 days of the fourth class and we refund all four weeks of fees.