7+ Preparation in London: What Selective Schools Look For

If you are preparing a child for a 7+ place at a selective London school, the single most useful thing to understand early is this: these schools are not only marking a maths and English paper. They are looking for a bright, curious, well-supported child who can think out loud, listen, and stay engaged in an unfamiliar room. Good 7+ preparation builds real ability and confidence across English, maths and reasoning, and it gets your child used to talking through their thinking. Cramming past papers alone rarely does it.

The 7+ is the entrance assessment for Year 3 entry at many of London's academically selective independent prep and pre-prep schools. Children sit it in the autumn or spring of Year 2, at age six or seven. Because it feeds some of the most in-demand schools in the country — names like St Paul's Juniors, Westminster Under School, Latymer Prep, King's College School Wimbledon and Dulwich College — places are heavily contested, with far more strong applicants than there are seats. That is the real context every London parent is working inside, and it is why so many families look for expert help.

What the 7+ actually tests

The exact shape varies by school, but the 7+ almost always has the same core parts. There is a written English component and a written maths component, and most schools add some form of reasoning. On top of the papers, nearly every selective school runs an interview, a small-group activity, or a taster session where staff watch how a child behaves and thinks in person.

The English side rewards the same reading and writing habits that carry a child through later selective exams, including 11+ English tuition a few years on. In English, expect reading comprehension and a piece of independent writing — a short story or a description prompted by a picture or a sentence starter. Assessors are reading for a child who understands what they read, who can answer in full sentences, and who can put an imaginative, well-punctuated few paragraphs on the page without an adult beside them. Handwriting, basic spelling and simple sentence structure all count at this age.

In maths, the papers cover the expected ground for a strong Year 2 child: number and place value, addition and subtraction, simple multiplication and division, money, time, shape, and straightforward word problems. What separates a confident candidate is not racing ahead into much older material — it is fluency and accuracy with age-appropriate work, plus the habit of reading a problem carefully and showing a method.

Reasoning, where it appears, tests pattern-spotting and logical thinking rather than taught content. Some schools use verbal reasoning (word and letter patterns), some use non-verbal reasoning (shapes and sequences), and some fold light reasoning into the maths and English papers rather than setting it separately.

What London selective schools are really looking for

This is the part parents most often miss, and it is where the best preparation focuses. A written paper measures attainment — what your child already knows on the day. The interview and group activity measure something the paper cannot: potential, curiosity and how a child learns. Selective London schools admit at 7+ knowing they will teach these children for years, so they are choosing for trajectory, not just for a single morning's marks.

In practice that means they notice the child who listens to a question and answers the one that was actually asked. The child who, when they are stuck, has a go rather than freezing. The child who is interested in things — a book, a hobby, why something works — and can talk about it warmly. The child who plays and shares sensibly in a group task. None of this is about drilling; it comes from wide reading, real conversation at home, and enough practice in a calm setting that the exam room does not feel alien.

So the honest answer to "how do we prepare?" is: build genuine ability across the papers, and just as deliberately build the composure and curiosity the interview rewards. A child who has only been drilled on paper often struggles the moment an adult asks them to explain their thinking out loud.

The schools differ — prepare for the ones you're applying to

It is worth saying plainly that London's 7+ schools are not interchangeable. They set their own papers, weight the interview differently, and look for slightly different things. Some lean harder on reasoning; some care most about the quality of a child's writing and talk; some run a longer, more playful group assessment. A preparation plan built for a general 7+ is weaker than one shaped around the two or three schools you are actually sitting.

Before you plan anything, get the current admissions information straight from each school's own registrar or website — assessment format, dates and registration deadlines change year to year, and only the school's own material is reliable. Then shape practice around the mix those specific schools use. This is exactly the kind of local, school-by-school knowledge a strong London tutor brings, and it is hard to get from a generic workbook.

A realistic preparation plan

Good 7+ preparation is a marathon at a gentle pace, not a sprint. For most families, a year of light, consistent work through Year 2 does far more than a frantic few weeks before the exam. A workable shape looks like this.

Start with reading. A child who reads widely and is read to every day arrives with a bigger vocabulary, better comprehension and more to say in an interview than any amount of exam drilling can buy. Make it the foundation, not an afterthought.

Layer in short, regular practice. Ten to twenty focused minutes on maths or English a few times a week, kept calm and positive, beats a long weekend session that leaves everyone tired. Rotate the parts — comprehension one day, arithmetic fluency another, a piece of creative writing at the weekend.

Introduce timed papers late, and gently. Familiarity with the format matters — knowing to read the whole question, to check work, to keep going — but full mock conditions belong in the final months, not at the start. The goal is a child who is used to the shape of the exam, not one who is sick of it.

Rehearse the talking. Ask your child to explain how they got an answer. Chat about the book they are reading. Practise the ordinary courtesies of an interview — listening, looking up, answering in sentences. This is the cheapest, highest-value preparation there is, and most families under-do it.

Choosing a 7+ tutor you can actually trust

For a lot of parents, the hardest part is not the maths. It is working out which tutor to trust with a young child and a high-stakes exam. Anyone can write a glowing profile and claim a wall of top-school offers. The claims are easy; the checking is the problem. Our guide on how to choose a tutor you can trust walks through this in more depth, and the same principles apply at 7+.

This is the specific thing Tutorwise is built to fix. On Tutorwise, a tutor's credibility is not a self-written bio or a star rating anyone can inflate. It is a credibility score the platform computes from real, verifiable signals — so what you are trusting is earned and checkable, not merely asserted. The platform looks at six things: the tutoring a tutor has actually delivered and the outcomes attached to it; their credentials and qualifications; their network and standing on the platform; trust signals including a verified DBS check and confirmed identity; their digital track record; and their measured impact. A tutor who has been checked and has a real history scores differently from one who simply says the right things.

For a parent hiring a 7+ tutor, the trust bucket matters most of all. Tutorwise rewards a verified DBS check and confirmed identity directly, and a tutor cannot even carry a score until they have passed identity verification or completed onboarding. That means when you compare tutors, the safeguarding basics — is this really who they say they are, have they been background-checked — are visible up front, not something you have to chase over email. Contrast that with an ordinary directory listing, where a five-star rating tells you nothing about whether the person has been checked at all.

The practical upshot: on Tutorwise you can search for 7+ and London experience, then compare tutors on a credibility score that reflects verified checks, real qualifications and delivered results — and read reviews from families who actually booked them. You are choosing on evidence you can see, which is exactly the confidence a parent wants before handing over something as important as their child's exam year.

Give your child the best chance — calmly

The families whose children do best at 7+ are rarely the ones who pushed hardest. They are the ones who started early, kept it light, built real reading and real conversation into ordinary life, and chose help they could trust. Your child does not need to be hot-housed — a question many parents wrestle with, and one we look at squarely in should I have coached my child for the 11+?. They need to be ready, confident, and used to thinking out loud, and they need the grown-ups around them to stay calm about it.

If you want expert, checkable help, you can find a verified 7+ tutor with London experience on Tutorwise, compare them on credibility you can actually see, and book with confidence.

Frequently asked questions

When should we start preparing for the 7+? For most children, a gentle year through Year 2 is ideal — light, regular practice built on top of daily reading. Starting earlier than that risks burning a young child out; leaving it to the final weeks rarely leaves enough time to build genuine confidence. The exam itself is usually sat in the autumn or spring of Year 2, so plan backwards from your schools' assessment dates.

Do we need a tutor, or can we prepare at home? Plenty of families prepare successfully at home, especially strong readers with confident parents. A good tutor adds three things that are hard to do yourself: honest, expert judgement of where your child really stands, school-specific knowledge of the format each London school uses, and structured practice that keeps momentum without turning the house into an exam factory. If you do use one, choose on verified credentials and a real track record — the same checklist parents use when they find an 11+ tutor and decide what to look for.

What are London selective schools actually looking for at 7+? Attainment in English, maths and reasoning on the papers, and — just as important — curiosity, composure and clear thinking in the interview or group activity. They are choosing children they will teach for years, so they look for potential and a genuine love of learning, not only a polished exam performance.

How do I know a 7+ tutor is trustworthy and any good? Look past the self-written profile to what has actually been checked. On Tutorwise, every tutor carries a credibility score built from real signals — a verified DBS check and confirmed identity, qualifications, delivered outcomes and genuine reviews — and no tutor can hold a score without passing identity verification first. That lets you compare tutors on evidence you can see rather than on claims anyone could make.

How is the 7+ different from the 11+? The 7+ is for Year 3 entry at age six or seven and leans heavily on the interview and how a young child engages, alongside age-appropriate English and maths. The 11+ is for Year 7 entry at age ten or eleven, covers more advanced content, and is often more paper-weighted. Preparation for the two looks quite different — the 7+ rewards early reading, talk and composure far more than heavy drilling.