Desperate parents paying hundreds of pounds a year for 11-plus practice papers are competing in a “tutoring arms race” to secure their children a grammar school place, experts fear. A Schools Week investigation has found that some of the biggest entrance test providers are demanding families fork out for preparation materials, with the most expensive costing an eye-watering £600 a year. Opponents of the system believe the findings show the “11-plus has created an industry in which anxiety about a child’s future school can be monetised”. It comes as one Kent grammar found itself at the centre of an admissions row after launching a new entrance exam in a bid to boost numbers. High-stakes assessment Across England, 163 grammar schools are scattered across 35 local authorities. In these areas, children gain admission to the selective secondaries after passing the “11-plus” test. The assessments can be organised by the schools themselves, consortiums of schools or councils. Schools Week has found some of the largest 11-plus providers are also flogging practice materials to parents desperate to give their children an advantage. GL Assessment, which said it is “used by the majority of grammar schools in the UK”, sells verbal reasoning, non-verbal reasoning, English and maths practice papers. Its largest bundles are advertised for £99, alongside testimonials from parents such as: “I used this product as the ONLY resource to successfully prepare my child for the 11+.” Parents can also download “10 hours of free familiarisation materials” from GL’s website. Joanne Bartley But Reading School head Chris Evans argued: “We believe that selling practice papers to families creates a tutoring arms race which is unfair upon the most disadvantaged. “The 11+ must not be a high-stakes assessment which needs years of tutoring and hours of practice papers.” ‘Pressure to pay’ Another test provider, Quest Assessments, forms one wing of Atom Learning. Another arm of the company runs a paid-for “online learning platform for children aged seven to 11”. Called Atom Home, it “provides everything you need for a successful exam-day – tailored questions, teacher-led learning resources, school-specific mock papers and progress tracking”. It has initiatives ensuring youngsters eligible for the pupil premium receive an account for free. Schools receive pupil premium funding based on the number of children eligible for free school meals (FSM) at any point in the previous six years. However, FSM have historically only been offered to families with a pre-benefits income below £7,400 a year, leaving many struggling families above that low threshold ineligible. For those not eligible for the pupil premium, Atom charges about £670 a year for its “exam prep plus” programme, which gives users “unlimited mock tests and detailed feedback on performance”. Joanne Bartley, of the anti-grammar school campaign group Comprehensive Future, said: “If Atom suggest the tuition is helpful for poorer pupils, then obviously other parents will want the advantages it brings. How can parents not see this and feel pressure to pay? “The 11-plus has created an industry in which anxiety about a child’s future school can be monetised.” Accounts show Atom Learning’s turnover increased by 15.4 per cent from £13.2 million in 2023-24 to £15.2 million the following year. Its net profit also rose by 72 per cent from £2.7 million to £4.6 million. The company did not respond to requests for comment. Meanwhile, GL – which produces a number of other tests besides the 11-plus – generated £25 million in profit in 2024, up from £18 million the year before. Over the period, it also declared and paid a dividend of £112.8 million. ‘Fairness is fundamental’ A spokesperson for the firm stressed GL’s “priority is to provide schools with robust, reliable and fair assessments, while ensuring that candidates understand the assessment process and what to expect on test day”. They added: “Fairness is fundamental to our approach. Our assessments are developed and statistically validated by specialist assessment experts, and we continually review accessibility, inclusivity and candidate support.” Grammar school entrance tests are not regulated by Ofqual or any national exams body. The school admissions code, drawn up by the Department for Education, sets out some broad rules on fairness and timing, though. Bartley said grammar school tests were “a wild west of varied tests and providers. There is no scrutiny of 11-plus test providers. “The government acted to ban expensive school uniform. If it cared about the hidden costs of education, then 11-plus tests should be next on their agenda.” We believe that selling practice papers to families creates a tutoring arms race which is unfair upon the most disadvantaged In 2016, Education Policy Institute research into grammars failed to find a “significant positive impact” on social mobility. Instead, the study showed the gap between the proportion of FSM children attaining five A* to C GCSEs and all other youngsters was wider in selective areas (34.1 per cent) than in non-selective areas (27.8 per cent). More recently, a Sutton Trust report said disadvantaged pupils “are systematically excluded from many of the highest-attaining schools in the country”. FSM rates at the average grammar were 9.2 percentage points lower than elsewhere in their catchment areas in 2024. Some schools have taken it on themselves to design their own papers. One of these is the Consortium for Selective Schools in Essex (CSSE), a not for profit launched in 1993 which provides the same test to 10 members. CSSE sells three separate English and maths practice packs for £19. The packs cover 2026, 2025 and 2024 entry. Those for 2024 can be ordered for free by children in receipt of FSM. However, families have to pay for the more recent packs. ‘Damned if they do, damned if they don’t’ Stuart Gardner, former CEO of the Thinking Schools Academy Trust in the south-east, said the “key thing” is if the organisations “provide those materials for free to students from deprived backgrounds” to “even the playing field”. “They are probably damned if they do and damned if they don’t. If they do, we have this type of conversation about making money out of resource materials,” he continued. “If they didn’t, we’d have a conversation about children who aren’t prepared for a test they can’t see, and that just helps the most affluent.” Stuart Gardner CSSE told Schools Week that all its exam papers are written in-house by subject experts, without the help of third parties, with income from the sale of the most recent papers helping to “reduce costs”. It also noted that packs from 2021, 2022 and 2023 are also available for free. This means the “majority” of its practice materials can be accessed without paying. “There is no requirement for families to purchase past papers in order to prepare for the examination,” CSSE stressed. “To support wider participation and improve access to selective education, the CSSE works in partnership with Atom Learning.” The Future Stories Community Enterprise (FSCE) was one of the few providers which did not ask parents to pay for practice material. Launched in 2022 by Reading School, its papers are set to be used by 25 secondaries next year. The school believes a recent surge in customer numbers will help it break even next year, having racked up over £83,000 in losses in 2024-25. Earnings will be used to “resource schools doing the test to do social mobility initiatives in their communities,” Evans said. Evans added that FSCE wants its “unpredictable” papers – whose content “can come from any aspect of the key stage 2 curriculum” – to reward “curiosity not preparation”. Exam dates moved Among its new customers is a seven-strong group of selective schools in Gloucestershire, which have also moved their exam dates to the summer term of year 5, from the September of year 6. “Children from the least literate homes tend to regress more than children from the most literate homes over the summer,” Evans explained. “Testing in July is a neutralising factor for those who are the most disadvantaged.” Kent, England’s biggest council, administers an 11-plus test. But some of the county’s 32 grammars also have their own. Last December, the Weald of Kent Grammar School launched a consultation on plans to launch its own assessment to run alongside Kent’s own test. It signed off on a contract for Quest to provide the tests from this month. This means prospective parents can now choose to sit either – or both – of the assessments to secure a place. But trustee minutes suggest it may even move away from Kent test in the future, as academies can set their own admissions criteria independently of the council. In March, the school said its “new bespoke entrance test” will open “the door wider for local girls” by offering families “an additional route” into the secondary and focusing “on aptitude, curiosity and academic potential – not tutoring”. Minutes from its board meetings also suggest a key reason for the change was to bolster the all-girls school’s faltering pupil numbers. Comprehensive Future chair Nuala Burgess branded the move “a back‑door route to boost grammar school admissions”. Nuala Burgess During a meeting in April 2025, trustees were told the school’s headteacher “continued to reach out” to Kent council “to discuss lowering the 11+ pass mark, a small adjustment which could have little impact generally”. This was amid forecasts that the incoming year 7 “would be a form short” at the start of 2025-26. Minutes stated the “other option would be for the school to set its own admissions criteria”. The school admitted 260 children to year 7 last September – well below its capacity of 300. It has also failed to fill all its places this month. The board later questioned the “quality of selection” provided by the Kent test, after learning that 60 per cent of its year 7s “would not have passed” if they had taken a cognitive ability test instead. Admission numbers problem “The option of entry on passing either or both tests could solve the deficit of admission numbers problem but did not solve the… Kent test issues,” minutes added. “The move away from the 11+ could come at a later date. There was a need to promote the Weald test as having equal weighting to the Kent test.” Trustees agreed that the “success criteria” for their new assessment would be “a full 270 cohort with a wait list”. Weald of Kent headteacher Richard Booth stressed the new test “provides families with an additional route to grammar assessment” and did not aim to “lower the bar”. The decision came after “a detailed review of admissions, including changing demographics, the school not reaching its published admission number, and our ambition to widen access for local families and disadvantaged pupils”. Ashley Tomlin, whose school Borden Grammar also runs its own tests, argued that Kent “runs the same test pass mark across the whole county”, meaning pupils in some areas “pass the test at a much lower rate” than others. “There is an ethical question over whether more people in the local area should be able to pass the grammar school test. “A 10-year-old taking a test on one day is a high-stakes way of trying to choose the most appropriate students for the next five years, which is why we always look for additional opportunities at a second chance within our local community.” Local government reorganisation But former grammar boss Peter Read warned that the “splintering” of tests could create “enormous” problems, with dates “inevitably” clashing and the transferability of individual school success levels not possible. “An even bigger challenge lies around the corner, with local government reorganisation to come as Kent and Medway will probably break into three or four separate stand-alone councils between them.” A Kent council spokesperson said additional testing “can place extra demands on children and families”. Its assessment “is regularly reviewed and remains the best available countywide approach”. An objection by a member of the public to the Weald of Kent’s plans was later lodged with the admissions watchdog. Among other things, the unnamed person argued that the grammar failed to tell consultees “the real reason” behind its decision to introduce the test – namely, filling places. But school adjudicator Robert Cawley concluded that the school had explained in its consultation letter that it wanted to ensure a “fair, inclusive and forward-thinking” admissions process by “widening access”. He ruled the Weald of Kent “provided sufficient information to allow for intelligent consideration and response to its proposals” as he threw out the objections. A Grammar School Heads’ Association spokesperson said grammars “may adopt multiple selection methods for a variety of contextual reasons, such as ensuring equitable access, broadening opportunities for applicants, or identifying the most appropriate aptitudes and abilities”. They labelled the objection “a challenge to parental choice”. Booth said the school had “never sought to hide the fact that increasing the number of girls able to access Weald is one of the objectives of the new assessment”. He added: “Our objective has been straightforward: within Kent’s established selective education system, to maintain a rigorous grammar-school standard while giving more able girls a fair opportunity to demonstrate their potential.” But Bartley branded it “ironic” that the Weald of Kent “told the public they sought a tutor-resistant test, yet they found a provider that believes so wholeheartedly in 11-plus prep that they formed a whole company around it”.