7+ vs 8+ Entry: Which Route and How to Prepare

If you are weighing up a 7+ or an 8+ place at a selective London prep school, here is the honest answer first: for most families this is not a free choice between two equally open doors. The 7+ is the main entry point — a larger intake sat in Year 2, for Year 3 entry — and the 8+ is a smaller, later top-up intake sat in Year 3, for Year 4 entry, filling the occasional seats that come free. Which route fits your child depends on three things you can actually check: how ready your child is now versus in a year's time, which schools you are aiming at and whether they even offer an 8+, and how contested each intake is at those specific schools. Get those three straight and the route mostly chooses itself.

Both assessments feed the same academically selective prep and pre-prep schools — names London parents will recognise, such as St Paul's Juniors, Westminster Under School, King's College School Wimbledon and Dulwich College. And both are looking for the same underlying thing: a bright, curious, well-supported child who can think out loud, listen, and stay composed in an unfamiliar room. The difference between the two routes is less about what schools want and more about when your child meets it, and how much ground they are expected to have covered by then.

The 7+ route: the main gateway

The 7+ is the entrance assessment for Year 3 entry. Children sit it in the autumn or spring of Year 2, at age six or seven. It is the primary intake at most selective London preps, which means it usually offers the larger number of places — and it is also, for many families, the first genuinely competitive hurdle their child meets.

The shape is consistent even though the detail varies by school. Expect a written English component and a written maths component, and at most schools 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 reading comprehension and a short piece of independent writing; the maths side covers age-appropriate number, calculation and simple problem-solving. If you want the full picture of what each London school tends to assess, our guide to 7+ preparation in London goes school by school.

Because the 7+ is the main intake, it sets the tone for everything after it. A child who wins a place at 7+ is inside the school and, in most cases, will move up through it — often all the way to its 11+ or 13+ exit exams years later. That is why schools treat the 7+ as a long-term choice: they are picking children they expect to teach for years, so they weigh potential and a real love of learning as heavily as a polished exam performance.

The 8+ route: the smaller second intake

The 8+ is the entrance assessment for Year 4 entry, sat in Year 3, at age seven or eight. It exists because places come free — a family relocates, a child moves on — and schools top up the year group. That single fact shapes everything about it. The 8+ almost always offers fewer places than the 7+, and not every school runs one at all. Some fill entirely at 7+ and never assess again until the 11+. So the first job with the 8+ is not preparation; it is checking, school by school, whether the door is even open.

The assessment covers the same subjects — English, maths, reasoning, and an interview or group task — but at a visibly higher level. A year of school makes a real difference at this age, and the papers assume it. Expect longer and more demanding reading comprehension, a more developed piece of writing, quicker mental arithmetic, and more multi-step maths problems. Several schools add or lean harder on verbal and non-verbal reasoning at 8+ than they did at 7+. In short, the 8+ is not the 7+ a year later with the same content; it is a step up in what a child is expected to already know and do independently.

So which route — and can you choose?

The most useful way to think about it is that the 7+ is the plan, and the 8+ is either a first choice or a second chance, depending on your child.

Aim for the 7+ if your child is a confident, early reader who is ready to be assessed now, and the schools you want run a full 7+ intake. It is the widest door, with the most places, and it settles the question a year sooner.

Consider the 8+ in two situations. First, if your child is bright but a young seven — a summer-born child, or one who has grown quickly in the past year — an extra year of maturity can turn a near-miss into a comfortable pass, because so much of the assessment rewards composure and clear thinking. Second, if your target school only takes at 7+ and your child narrowly missed, the 8+ at a different school with a top-up intake is a genuine route back in. The trade-off is real, though: fewer places at 8+ can mean each seat is more contested, so a second attempt has to be a stronger attempt, not simply a repeat.

What you cannot do is treat the two as interchangeable and decide late. Registration deadlines fall well ahead of the assessment — often the term or the year before — and they differ by school. The practical move is to list your target schools now, note for each one whether it offers 7+, 8+ or both, write down its registration deadline, and plan backwards from there. The route is set by that list far more than by any general rule.

Preparing for each route without overloading a young child

The preparation principle is the same for both: build genuine ability and confidence in English, maths and reasoning, on top of daily reading and talking through ideas — not cramming past papers alone. What changes between the routes is the ceiling. For the 7+, a gentle, regular year through Year 2 usually does it. For the 8+, you are preparing a slightly older child to a higher bar, so the reading needs to be more stretching, the writing more developed, and the mental maths quicker — but the tone stays the same: light, consistent, and built on curiosity rather than pressure.

Plenty of families prepare well at home, especially strong readers with confident parents. Where a tutor earns their place is in three things that are hard to do yourself: honest expert judgement of where your child really stands against the bar, school-specific knowledge of the format each London school uses, and structured practice that keeps momentum without tipping into drill. The same instinct that later guides an 11+ preparation timeline applies here — early, steady, and planned backwards from real dates.

How to trust a 7+ or 8+ tutor — the part most parents get wrong

Here is where the route decision quietly becomes a tutor decision, and where London parents are most exposed. Prep-school tutoring runs heavily on private word of mouth and self-written profiles — the "secret" tutor everyone in the class WhatsApp group recommends. The problem is that a recommendation and a polished bio tell you what someone claims, not what has been checked. For a young child, working closely with an adult, that gap matters.

Tutorwise is built to close it. On Tutorwise, a tutor does not simply write a profile — they carry a credibility score that is computed from real, checkable signals: a verified DBS check and confirmed identity, their qualifications, the outcomes they have actually delivered, and genuine reviews from families they have taught. No tutor can hold a score at all without passing identity verification first — that is a hard gate, not a badge you can buy. So when you compare two 7+ tutors, you are comparing evidence you can see, not two equally confident sentences about themselves.

Concretely, that changes how a search feels. Imagine you have two names for an 8+ maths tutor. One is a friend's recommendation with a warm profile and a five-star line. The other, on Tutorwise, shows a verified DBS, a confirmed teaching qualification, a visible history of Year 3 entry preparation, and reviews tied to real bookings. The second is not louder — it is auditable. That is the whole point of a computed score: it replaces "trust me" with "here is what has been verified." If you want the reasoning behind it, we have written about how CaaS works and why verified credibility beats a five-star average.

For a decision as early and as personal as a 7+ or 8+ place, that is the difference between hoping you chose well and knowing why you did.

Getting started

Decide the route by listing your target schools and their intakes and deadlines — that list, not a rule of thumb, tells you whether you are aiming at 7+, 8+, or both. Then find a tutor you can actually verify. On Tutorwise you can compare 7+ and 8+ tutors on a credibility score built from checked signals — DBS, identity, qualifications and real outcomes — and start with the one whose evidence, not just whose profile, you trust.

Frequently asked questions

What is the difference between the 7+ and the 8+? The 7+ is the entrance assessment for Year 3 entry, sat in Year 2 at age six or seven, and it is the main intake at most selective London preps, so it usually offers the most places. The 8+ is for Year 4 entry, sat in Year 3 at age seven or eight, and it is a smaller top-up intake that fills occasional free places. They test the same subjects — English, maths, reasoning and an interview — but the 8+ sits at a higher level and offers fewer seats.

Is the 8+ harder to get into than the 7+? Often, yes, per place. Because the 8+ fills only the seats that come free, there are usually fewer of them, so competition per place can be sharper even though the overall field may be smaller. The content is also more demanding, since it assumes a further year of school. If your child is ready at 7+ and your schools run a full 7+ intake, that is generally the wider door.

My child just missed a 7+ place. Should we try again at 8+? It can be a genuine second chance, but only if your child has grown into a stronger candidate, not simply had another year pass. Check first whether your target school even runs an 8+ — many fill entirely at 7+ — and be ready to consider a different school with a top-up intake. Aim to enter the 8+ as a clearly stronger applicant, because fewer places leave less room for a marginal result.

When should we start preparing, and for which route? Plan backwards from your schools' assessment and registration dates, which usually fall the term or year before the exam. For the 7+, a gentle, regular year through Year 2 built on daily reading is ideal. For the 8+, start early in Year 3 and pitch the reading, writing and mental maths a notch higher, because the bar is higher — but keep the tone light and consistent rather than intense.

How do I know a 7+ or 8+ tutor is trustworthy and any good? Look past the self-written profile and the word-of-mouth recommendation 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.