11+ Maths Topics: The Complete Checklist for 2026

The nearest thing to an 11+ maths syllabus is the national curriculum, and its Year 6 programme of study has nine statutory strands, from place value to statistics. Sutton Grammar School states that its maths paper is broadly based on the Key Stage 2 curriculum (Years 3 to 6), and CSSE says its Mathematics test is based on Key Stage 2 of the National Curriculum; Year 6 is the final year of that programme of study, set out below. The difficulty is the calendar. In 2026 the Kent Test was sat on Thursday 10 September 2026 for pupils at a Kent primary school and on the weekend of 12 and 13 September 2026 for other pupils, and the Buckinghamshire Secondary Transfer Test on 8 and 10 September 2026, early in the autumn term of Year 6, when what a child has covered depends on their school's own order of teaching.

Where Does the 11+ Maths Syllabus Actually Come From?

The national curriculum is the nearest thing to a syllabus, and the schools' own statements point to it. Sutton Grammar School says plainly that it provides no specimen papers, although it gives examples of the sorts of questions asked, and that the content of the maths and English tests is broadly based on the Key Stage 2 curriculum, and CSSE says its Mathematics and English tests are based on Key Stage 2 of the National Curriculum. Sutton's tests contain no verbal or non-verbal reasoning at all.

So the checklist below is not our opinion about what matters. The strands are the statutory Year 6 programme of study, strand by strand. The 'Usually taught' column is our own rule of thumb, not part of the programme of study.

The Problem With Every 11+ Maths Checklist

Read that final column again; it is our own rule of thumb, not the DfE's. On that rule of thumb, ratio, algebra, measurement, most of geometry and all of statistics come in the spring and summer terms of Year 6. Now put the test dates next to it.

A child who sat the Kent Test on 10 September 2026 was early in the autumn term of Year 6. How much of the Year 6 programme of study their school had covered by then is not set by the DfE.

It has a direct consequence. The gaps are not the hard-looking topics; they are ordinary Year 6 topics that may simply not have come up in class yet. Ratio and algebra are two statutory Year 6 strands a child may not yet have met at a September sitting.

Which Year 6 Topics Might Not Have Been Taught Yet?

Ratio and algebra are both worth quoting from the curriculum rather than paraphrasing.

Algebra. The statutory Year 6 content is: use simple formulae; generate and describe linear number sequences; express missing-number problems algebraically; find pairs of numbers that satisfy an equation with two unknowns; and enumerate possibilities of combinations of two variables. That last pair can read as a puzzle rather than as algebra, and children who have never seen it may treat it as a guessing game.

Ratio and proportion. The statutory content is: problems involving the relative sizes of two quantities using integer multiplication and division facts; the calculation of percentages of measures, for which the curriculum's own example is 15% of 360; similar shapes where the scale factor is known or can be found; and unequal sharing and grouping using knowledge of fractions and multiples.

Unequal sharing is worth a closer look. A question that shares an amount in the ratio 3:5 uses ratio notation, which the Year 6 programme of study mentions only in its non-statutory notes; the statutory Year 6 objective is unequal sharing and grouping using knowledge of fractions and multiples. A child who is fluent in fractions but has never met ratio notation will read the question as arithmetic and get it wrong for the right reasons.

How Long Do You Get Per Question?

The checklist is half the problem. The other half is pace, and the authorities publish the length of each section.

Kent's first paper covers English and maths in one hour, and each section is a 5 minute practice followed by a 25 minute test. The maths test is 25 minutes, so a section of 25 questions would allow about 60 seconds a question, and the practice period is not part of it. Sutton's Selective Eligibility Test papers take between 40 and 50 minutes each, with a rest and toilet break between the two.

Those timings change what accuracy means. At an illustrative minute a question there is little time to check working, and long multiplication done carefully may be slower than that allows. What pays is fluency in the things that are otherwise slow: times tables to the point of recall, fraction and decimal equivalence known rather than calculated, and percentages of round numbers done mentally. The curriculum's own example, 15% of 360, should take a well-prepared child a few seconds rather than a column of working.

What Does “Secure” Mean at This Pace?

A checklist invites a binary answer — covered or not covered — and that is the wrong test. At an illustrative minute a question there are three distinct states, and only one of them scores.

A topic can be met, meaning the child has seen it and can do it with prompting and time. It can be independent, meaning they can do it unaided but slowly, working it out from first principles each time. Or it can be automatic, meaning the answer arrives without construction. Under exam conditions the first two behave almost identically: both consume the minute the question is worth, and both push the child behind the clock for everything that follows.

The Year 6 number and place value objectives make the point. The statutory content asks children to read, write, order and compare numbers up to 10,000,000 and determine the value of each digit, to round any whole number to a required degree of accuracy, and to use negative numbers in context including intervals across zero. None of that is conceptually hard. All of it is slow if it is being reasoned rather than recalled, and a paper that opens with three place-value questions can cost three minutes before the child has met anything difficult.

The practical implication is that practice papers measure the wrong thing if they are done untimed. A child who scores well with unlimited time and poorly at a minute a question does not have a knowledge gap; they have a fluency gap, and the remedy is short, frequent, timed work on the specific operations that are slow, rather than more full papers.

Using the Checklist in Year 5 and in Year 6

In Year 5, the checklist is a syllabus to be taught. The child will probably not have met most of the Year 6 strands, and there is a year in which to introduce them properly, in a sensible order, alongside consolidating Year 5. That is the comfortable case, and it is why families who start in Year 4 or early Year 5 are not being sold something — the work genuinely takes that long if it is done at the pace of understanding rather than of cramming.

In Year 6 with a September sitting, the checklist is a triage tool. There is no time to teach nine strands from scratch, so the question becomes which untaught topics can be brought to a usable level with the least teaching. Ratio and algebra are natural places to start: both are self-contained, both are statutory Year 6 content, so a child whose school has not yet reached them will not have met them, and both can be brought to a usable level in weeks rather than terms.

How Should the Checklist Be Used?

For a child preparing for 2028 entry, who is in Year 5 now, work down the strand table in order and mark each one taught, partly taught or not yet met. That gives a genuine picture, and it will usually show several Year 6 strands unmarked in a Year 5 child. Then prioritise in reverse: the strands the school has not reached are the ones preparation has to supply, because nobody else is going to.

Two cautions. First, the Year 5 programme of study matters as much as Year 6, and a weakness there will not be visible in a Year 6 checklist — if long division or fraction equivalence is shaky, that is a Year 5 objective and it needs fixing before any Year 6 topic is useful. Second, a topic ticked as taught is not the same as a topic secure at speed, and the timings above are the standard to test against.

For the specific formats, our Kent Test, Sutton SET and Buckinghamshire pages set out what each authority's papers contain, and our guide to 11+ pass marks covers what the resulting score has to clear.

The 'Usually taught' column is our own rule of thumb, not part of the programme of study; the DfE says schools may introduce content earlier or later, so your child's school may order the year differently.

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Reviewed October 2026: dates, figures and rules checked against Kent County Council, Buckinghamshire Council, Sutton Grammar School, CSSE and the DfE national curriculum mathematics programme of study.

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