A cross-school comparison of 8+ exam format, dates and subject weighting, plus a month-by-month Year 2 to Year 3 preparation timeline
Book a Free ConsultationThe 8+ entrance exam is the assessment children sit in Year 3 (age 7-8) to join a prep school's Year 4 in September, and it varies more school-to-school than any other entry point in independent education. King's College Wimbledon admits 14 boys into Year 4 at 8+ via an early-October exam (Friday 9 October 2026) with a 25-minute listening component; St Paul's Juniors (Colet Court) admits 18 boys via a January written exam and interview - and has confirmed that 2026 is the final year it will run 8+ entry at all. Most schools test English, Maths and reasoning against the Year 3 National Curriculum, but exam windows, registration deadlines and the weight given to interviews and group activity days differ significantly. This guide compares the format, dates and places across 10+ named London and South East prep schools, and sets out a month-by-month Year 2 to Year 3 preparation timeline pegged to National Curriculum levels 2B through 3A.
The "8+" is not a single national test - unlike the GL Assessment used across many grammar school consortiums at 11+, each prep school sets and marks its own 8+ papers. Children sit the assessment during Year 3, typically between the ages of 7 and 8, for entry into Year 4 the following September. The 8+ sits between the 7+ (Year 2 entry into Year 3, more common as a school's main entry point) and the 9+/10+, and at most schools it functions as a smaller, "occasional place" intake that tops up a Year 4 cohort rather than the school's primary entry round. That distinction matters for competition: because 8+ places are limited and many candidates apply from strong pre-prep or state primary backgrounds already working above the expected National Curriculum level, per-place competition is often higher than the headline applicant numbers suggest.
Historically, some schools designed the 7+ around girls (who are often reported to reach certain literacy milestones earlier) and the 8+ around boys, though this distinction has become far less rigid as more schools have moved to co-educational or single-year assessment models. Today, the practical difference between 7+ and 8+ schools is less about gender and more about each school's own admissions cycle - some schools such as Latymer Prep treat 8+ (Year 4) entry purely as an "occasional place" process that runs only when a vacancy arises, rather than a fixed annual intake with a published number of places.
At least ten London and South East prep schools run a Year 3-to-Year-4 (8+) assessment: King's College Wimbledon (Junior School), Dulwich Prep London, St Paul's Juniors (Colet Court), Westminster Cathedral Choir School, The Harrodian, Latymer Prep (occasional places only), Westminster Under School (occasional places only), Sussex House, Wetherby Prep, Eaton House The Manor and Garden House School. The table below compares format and testing detail for the schools where we could verify specifics from official admissions pages or detailed third-party admissions guides - we have deliberately left cells blank rather than estimate a figure where a school does not publish it.
| School | Places at 8+ | Exam Window | Subjects / Components Tested |
|---|---|---|---|
| King's College Wimbledon (Junior School) | 14 boys into Year 4 | 9 Oct 2026 | English (45 min: comprehension + writing), Maths (Year 3 curriculum + extension), verbal & non-verbal reasoning, 25-minute listening exercise, interview with a senior member of junior school staff |
| St Paul's Juniors (Colet Court) | 18 boys into Upper First Year (2026 is the final year of 8+ entry) | January | English, Maths, reasoning (weighted by age), interview + group tasks, headteacher reference |
| Dulwich Prep London | Not published | January (half-day, combined with activities) | English paper, Maths paper, online verbal & non-verbal reasoning |
| Westminster Cathedral Choir School | Not published | Early January | Maths, Comprehension & Composition, punctuation, spelling |
| The Harrodian | Not published | Spring term before entry | Literacy, numeracy, candidate observation, brief interview, school reference |
| Latymer Prep | Occasional place only (no fixed annual number) | As vacancies arise; main 7+ cohort assessed in January | English, Maths (7+ format used as the school's reference point) |
| Westminster Under School | Occasional place only; ~60 places at the main 7+ intake | 7+: mid-October; 8+ vacancy-dependent | Maths, English, verbal & non-verbal reasoning |
Sussex House, Wetherby Prep, Eaton House The Manor and Garden House School also run 8+ assessments, but at the time of writing none of the four publishes a specific places number or exam-window date on its admissions pages - families interested in any of these should contact the registrar directly, since informal minimum requirements and timing can change from cycle to cycle. For the schools listed in the table, always verify current-cycle dates directly with the school before registering, since admissions policies are reviewed annually.
8+ intakes are consistently smaller than a school's main entry point, which is exactly why they are sometimes called "occasional" or "top-up" places. King's College Wimbledon's 14 places into Year 4 sit alongside much larger 7+ and 11+ intakes at the same school group. St Paul's Juniors' 18 places at 8+ are similarly a fraction of the school's main entry rounds - and the school has confirmed that 2026 will be the final year it runs 8+ entry at all, after which admission to the Upper First Year will need to happen through a different route. This kind of structural change is exactly the sort of detail that does not appear in generic "how to prepare for the 8+" guides, but it materially affects which schools are realistically open to a family starting their search in Year 2 or Year 3.
Latymer Prep and Westminster Under School both illustrate the "occasional place" model directly: neither publishes a fixed annual number of 8+ places, because 8+ entry at these schools exists specifically to fill vacancies that arise when a pupil leaves the existing Year 4 cohort, rather than as a planned intake round. Families should treat "occasional place" schools differently from schools with published numbers - registering interest does not guarantee a seat becomes available in any given year, and it is worth applying to a mix of schools with fixed 8+ intakes (King's College Wimbledon, St Paul's Juniors, Dulwich Prep London) and schools offering occasional places, rather than relying on the latter alone.
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Book a Free Consultation Message us on WhatsAppRegistration deadlines for 8+ entry typically fall in the autumn term of Year 3, roughly three to four months before the January exam window most schools use, though several schools close registration even earlier. Westminster Cathedral Choir School closed 2027-entry registration for its 7+/8+ round on 1 December 2026, with assessments held in early January. St Paul's Juniors closes registration in early October, ahead of its January written exam. Dulwich Prep London's registration deadline falls in November of the year before entry, with the exam itself in January and offers issued in February. King's College Wimbledon runs on an earlier cycle altogether: its exam entry form deadline falls at midday on Friday 18 September 2026, ahead of its exam on Friday 9 October 2026 - noticeably earlier than the January cluster most other schools use. For context on how tight the 7+ cycle running alongside 8+ can be, Latymer Prep's 2027-entry 7+ assessment date is Wednesday 6 January 2027, with registrations closing at midday on Friday 6 November 2026 - a pattern families targeting Latymer's 8+ occasional places should use as their reference timeline, since the school assesses both year groups on a broadly similar cycle.
The practical implication: because registration for September entry typically opens around 12 months in advance and closes 3-4 months before the exam, families should register with every target school no later than the start of the autumn term of Year 3 - and, for King's College Wimbledon or Westminster Cathedral Choir School specifically, by 18 September or 1 December respectively. Missing a registration deadline is the single most common and most avoidable reason families lose access to a school they would otherwise have been eligible for.
Because 8+ papers are set independently by each school rather than to a single national syllabus, the clearest reference point for "how able does my child need to be" is the National Curriculum teacher assessment scale that most UK primary schools still use informally to describe pupil progress. The national average for a child at the end of Year 2 is level 2B; by the point most 8+ exams are sat (January of Year 3), the national average has typically moved to around level 3C-3A. Independent prep schools setting 8+ papers are, by definition, assessing an above-average applicant pool, so most look for children working securely at 3C and pushing into 3B or 3A in reading, writing and maths by the time they sit the exam - comfortably ahead of the whole-cohort average rather than merely in line with it.
Dulwich Prep London gives one of the more specific benchmarks published by any 8+ school: it advises that children who can score 70% or higher consistently in the school's own practice tests should be on track to pass. That kind of specific, school-published pass indicator is unusual - most schools describe their expectations only in general National-Curriculum-level terms, which is why practising against real past-paper-style material from the target school (where available) is more informative than working from generic reasoning workbooks alone.
The timeline below spans roughly 12 months, starting in the spring term of Year 2 and ending with the January exam window most 8+ schools use. It is pegged to the National Curriculum levels most children are expected to move through over the same period, so parents can sense-check progress against a concrete benchmark rather than a vague sense of "readiness".
| Period | NC Level Target | Focus |
|---|---|---|
| Spring term, Year 2 (Jan-Mar) | Secure 2B | Consolidate reading fluency, times tables to 5, and independent sentence writing - no exam-style practice yet |
| Summer term, Year 2 (Apr-Jul) | Push into 3C | Extend comprehension to longer texts, introduce simple verbal/non-verbal reasoning puzzles informally, register with target schools as windows open |
| Summer holiday (Jul-Aug) | Maintain 3C | 15-20 minutes daily reading and arithmetic fluency; confirm registration for schools with September-opening windows |
| Autumn term, Year 3 (Sep-Oct) | 3C moving to 3B | Begin timed English & Maths practice papers; start structured VR/NVR practice twice weekly; finalise registration for King's College Wimbledon (18 September deadline) and St Paul's Juniors (early October) |
| November | 3B moving to 3A | Intensive past-paper practice under timed conditions; mock interviews and group-activity rehearsal; Dulwich Prep London and Latymer Prep registration deadlines fall in this window |
| Early December | Consolidate 3A target | Final content revision and exam-technique review; Westminster Cathedral Choir School's 1 December registration deadline falls here |
| January (exam month) | Exam performance at target level | Sit written assessments; most schools (Dulwich Prep London, St Paul's Juniors, Westminster Cathedral Choir School) test in this window; King's College Wimbledon has already tested in early October |
| February-March | - | Interviews and group activity days conclude; offers are issued (Dulwich Prep London issues offers in February) |
English components across the schools we reviewed consistently combine a comprehension exercise with a piece of extended composition, and several schools (Westminster Cathedral Choir School, King's College Wimbledon) separately assess spelling and punctuation. Practising comprehension on unfamiliar texts - rather than only texts a child has already studied at school - is the single most useful preparation activity, because 8+ papers deliberately use passages children have not seen before to assess independent reading skill rather than recall. For composition, prep schools are typically looking for a clear structure (opening, development, ending), varied sentence types, and accurate basic punctuation, rather than length for its own sake.
Maths papers are pegged to the Year 3 National Curriculum at every school we reviewed, generally covering the four number operations, place value, simple fractions, measurement and shape, with several schools (King's College Wimbledon) adding extension questions beyond the core Year 3 syllabus to differentiate stronger candidates. Fluency in times tables and mental arithmetic strategies matters more at this stage than advanced content, since 8+ maths papers are testing whether foundational number sense is secure enough to build on in Year 4, not whether a child has covered topics ahead of their year group.
Where verbal and non-verbal reasoning is tested (Dulwich Prep London delivers this online; King's College Wimbledon and Westminster Under School include it in the written round), most children benefit from short, regular practice - 10-15 minutes two or three times a week - rather than long infrequent sessions, because reasoning question types are pattern-based skills that improve through repeated, varied exposure rather than depth of study in any single sitting. King's College Wimbledon's 25-minute listening exercise is a genuine outlier among the schools we reviewed: no other school in our comparison table includes a dedicated listening component, so families targeting King's College Wimbledon specifically should include recorded-passage listening practice, which is not standard preparation material for most other 8+ schools.
The most common mistake is treating every 8+ school as if it uses an identical format. Because each school sets its own papers, preparation that ignores the target school's specific components - for example, practising no listening exercises at all for a King's College Wimbledon application, or under-preparing the group activity and interview stage for St Paul's Juniors' three-part process - leaves genuine gaps that generic "8+ practice paper" workbooks do not cover. A second common mistake is registering too late: because deadlines cluster between late September and early December for September-entry exams the following January (or early October, in King's College Wimbledon's case), families who start their search in the autumn term of Year 3 itself often find that several target schools have already closed registration.
A third mistake is over-focusing on written papers at the expense of the interview and group activity stage, which nearly every school in our comparison table includes alongside the written test - The Harrodian, St Paul's Juniors and King's College Wimbledon all explicitly combine written assessment with an interview and, in most cases, an observed group or classroom activity. Because these stages assess different qualities (confidence, communication, how a child works with peers) from a written paper, they benefit from separate, deliberate preparation rather than being treated as a formality after the "real" exam.
Leading Tuition provides specialist 8+ tuition for children in Year 2 and Year 3 preparing for Year 3 entry to London and South East prep schools. Because 8+ format varies so much by school - from King's College Wimbledon's listening exercise to Dulwich Prep London's online reasoning test to St Paul's Juniors' three-stage written, interview and reference process - our specialist tutors build a preparation programme around each family's specific target school list rather than a single generic 8+ curriculum. We track progress against National Curriculum benchmarks (2B through 3A) so parents have a concrete, comparable measure of readiness at each stage of the timeline above, and we prepare children for the interview and group activity stage as thoroughly as for the written papers. Rated 4.8/5 on Trustpilot, with tutors experienced across the specific admissions processes of the schools compared in this guide.
Most 8+ (Year 3 entry) assessments are held in January of Year 3 for September entry into Year 4, though timing varies by school. Dulwich Prep London tests in January with a November registration deadline and February offers. Westminster Cathedral Choir School assesses in early January and closed 2027-entry registration on 1 December 2026. King's College Wimbledon holds its 8+ exam in early October (Friday 9 October 2026 for 2027 entry), with the entry form deadline at midday on Friday 18 September 2026. The Harrodian assesses in the Spring term before entry. Because deadlines fall 12-14 months before the September start, families should register by the autumn term of Year 2 at the latest, and ideally as soon as registration opens roughly a year in advance.
Schools offering 8+ entry include King's College Wimbledon (Junior School), Dulwich Prep London, St Paul's Juniors (Colet Court), Westminster Cathedral Choir School, The Harrodian, Latymer Prep (as an occasional place), Sussex House, Wetherby Prep, Eaton House The Manor and Garden House School. Nearly all test English (comprehension and composition) and Mathematics pegged to the Year 3 National Curriculum, with most also including verbal and/or non-verbal reasoning. King's College Wimbledon adds a 25-minute listening exercise. Almost every school combines the written papers with an interview, a group or classroom activity, and a reference from the child's current school.
Places at 8+ are generally far fewer than at a school's main entry point, because 8+ intakes top up a cohort that mostly already exists. King's College Wimbledon admits 14 boys into Year 4 at 8+. St Paul's Juniors admits 18 boys into the Upper First Year at 8+ - and 2026 is confirmed as the final year the school will run 8+ entry at all, after which admission moves to other entry points. Because 8+ cohorts are small and many candidates come from strong pre-prep schools, competition per place is typically higher than at a school's 7+ or 11+ intake, even though total applicant numbers are lower.
Schools generally expect candidates to be working comfortably within or above the expected range for their age. The typical end-of-Year-2 national average is level 2B, rising to roughly 3C-3A during Year 3. Independent prep schools setting 8+ papers usually look for children performing toward the top of this range - working securely at 3C and pushing into 3B/3A in reading, writing and maths - since the papers are designed to differentiate within an already able applicant pool. Dulwich Prep London, for example, advises that children scoring 70%+ consistently in practice papers are on track.
Effective 8+ preparation runs in stages across roughly 12 months. In the spring and summer of Year 2, focus on consolidating core reading, writing and arithmetic fluency rather than exam practice. In the autumn of Year 3, begin timed English and Maths practice papers alongside verbal and non-verbal reasoning familiarisation, and register with target schools before their autumn deadlines. From November to the January exam window, run full mock assessments under timed conditions and prepare for interviews and group activity days, which most 8+ schools use alongside the written papers.
Leading Tuition provides specialist 8+ tuition for Year 2 and Year 3 children preparing for Year 3 entry to London and South East prep schools. Our tutors build tailored programmes around each target school's specific format - whether that is King's College Wimbledon's listening exercise, Dulwich Prep London's online reasoning test, or St Paul's Juniors' three-stage process - and track progress against National Curriculum benchmarks (2B to 3A) rather than generic worksheets. Rated 4.8/5 on Trustpilot. Book a free consultation at leadingtuition.co.uk/consultation or message us on WhatsApp.
For families weighing up the 7+ instead of or alongside the 8+, see our 7+ Tuition London: Complete Guide and our Year 3 early preparation guide for 11+ grammar schools. For the wider selective-schools landscape beyond 8+, our Grammar School Preparation: The Complete Guide covers the 7+ through 13+ pathway, and our Pre-11+ practice papers hub has 7+, 8+, 9+ and 10+ material. Official admissions detail for individual schools should always be checked directly - see, for example, King's College Junior School's own 7+/8+/9+ entry page and Westminster Cathedral Choir School's Year 3 and Year 4 admissions page.
Leading Tuition provides specialist 8+ tuition for Year 2 and Year 3 children preparing for Year 3 entry. Rated 4.8/5 on Trustpilot.
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