Practical guidance from the Leading Tuition team
Book a Free ConsultationThe 2022 admissions cycle was the first in three years to run at something close to normal pace. Schools that had postponed, reformatted or modified their entrance examinations during 2020 and 2021 were running them in full again — and in several cases with updated formats that caught underprepared families off guard. For our cohort, the return to a standard calendar brought sharper focus: this was the year to find out whether the preparation we had maintained through the pandemic had held. This post covers what happened, and what this cycle taught us about how the selective admissions landscape had quietly shifted.
In the 2022 admissions cycle, we worked with 38 students sitting selective school entrance examinations at 11+ and 13+. Of those, 36 received at least one offer from a selective or independent school — a success rate of 94.7%.
We define success as receiving at least one offer from a school the family had genuinely targeted. We do not count offers from schools added as late safety options if the family's first-choice school did not make an offer.
2022 was the first full post-pandemic admissions cycle. Several schools had updated their examination formats in light of the disruption of the previous two years, and the ISEB Common Pre-Test — used by Haberdashers' for pre-registration — was being applied more consistently by independent schools as an early filter. Families who had registered early and understood the ISEB process were at a real advantage.
This was the year we first saw the ISEB pre-test become a meaningful differentiator for North London independents. Children who sat it without preparation were surprised by the adaptive format and the time pressure on reasoning sections. The key lesson: the pre-test is a different skill from the school paper, and it needs its own preparation window.
We asked several families if they would share a brief reflection.
Writing to us after results day, a parent whose son gained a place at QE Boys wrote: "We had looked at other tutoring options and they were all doing the same thing — GL Assessment papers, week after week. What made the difference with Leading Tuition was that the tutor sat down with us at the start and explained exactly what QE Boys was actually testing, and why that was different from the standard 11+ format. Our son stopped making the same mistakes within about six weeks."
Writing to us after results day, a parent whose daughter gained a place at Haberdashers' Girls' wrote: "Nobody warned us about the ISEB pre-test. We found out about it very late and almost missed the registration deadline. Our tutor got us up to speed on the format quickly — the adaptive element especially — and our daughter came out feeling it had gone well. It had."
If your child is in Year 4, Year 5 or Year 6, and you are beginning to think about selective school entry, the most important first step is understanding which schools and which exams are relevant to your child — and what realistic preparation looks like for each one. You can find school-specific guides on our 11+ school preparation pages, or book a free consultation to talk through your child's specific situation.
How do you measure your success rate?
We count the proportion of students who received at least one genuine offer from a school the family had identified as a target school before the admissions cycle began. We do not include offers from schools added as late backup options.
Do you only work with high-achieving children?
No. We work with a wide range of students, including children who need to build foundational skills before beginning focused exam preparation. Our tutors assess each child individually and build a programme around where they are, not where they need to be.
How early should preparation start?
It depends on the target school. For the most selective grammar schools — QE Boys, Henrietta Barnett, Tiffin — most of our successful students began working with us in Year 4 or early Year 5. For boarding school 13+ entry, the ISEB Common Pre-Test is taken in Year 6, so preparation typically begins in Year 5.
What does 1-to-1 tuition offer that group tuition or online courses don't?
A specialist tutor can identify exactly where a specific child is losing marks and address that precisely. Group courses and online platforms can build general exposure to exam content, but they cannot adapt in real time to an individual child's misconceptions, gaps, or exam technique weaknesses.
Book a free consultation and we’ll help you find the right support for your child.
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