AITUTORS.ME · 13+ COMMON ENTRANCE
13+ Common Entrance is Key Stage 3
ISEB’s own specifications are built on the KS3 National Curriculum. If your child is working through KS3 properly, you may already have most of what you need — what CE adds is a format and a date.
THE THING NOBODY TELLS YOU FIRST
The decisive moment moved to Year 6
For most selective senior schools, the place is now won at age ten or eleven: an ISEB Pre-Test sat in the autumn of Year 6, the head’s report, and a school round — an interview, a group task or the school’s own papers — leading to a conditional offer. Common Entrance, sat in Year 8, then confirms the offer or decides which set your child starts in.
The consequence, stated plainly: if your child is in Year 7 or 8 and holds an offer, CE is usually about which set they join — not whether they get in. Check what your target school actually requires; around 170 senior schools still accept CE, and their uses of it differ.
FORMAT, NOT NEW CONTENT
What CE adds that KS3 does not
Levelled maths papers
Mathematics comes as Foundation, Core or Additional. The Additional paper stretches beyond Core into topics like Pythagoras and simultaneous equations — and marks are given for working shown, throughout.
A two-source evidence question in history
Section A is an unseen, period-independent evidence exercise: two sources, weighed and corroborated. It examines a skill, not a syllabus of dates.
An OS-map paper in geography
The written paper works from an Ordnance Survey extract — location, map reading, and the physical and human geography around it — alongside a fieldwork enquiry.
Experimental method in science
At least a quarter of the science marks test experimental method — predict, observe, explain — not recall. The content itself is organised under the KS3 headings.
THE RECIPROCAL MAP
How the KS3 map covers it
Our seven tutors cover the compulsory CE papers and the most-taken options: English, mathematics, biology, chemistry and physics, history and geography — each one a subject on the 700-topic KS3 map, which is the same curriculum ISEB writes its specifications against.
- EnglishReading & Writing papers
- MathsFoundation / Core / Additional
- Biology · Chemistry · PhysicsScience papers
- HistoryEvidence question + essay
- GeographyOS-map paper + enquiry
SAID PLAINLY
What we do not do
- No rankings and no grade predictions — CE is marked by the receiving school against its own expectations, and we will not fake a number it has not given.
- No reproduction of ISEB papers, ever. The tutors work structurally similar problems we generate ourselves; your child’s own past papers stay with the school that set them.
- Latin, Classical Greek, modern foreign languages and Theology, Philosophy & Religion are not covered. If your child offers those papers, they need a human specialist.
- No dialogue inside a timed sitting. Review comes after the paper, not during it.
ASKED PLAINLY
13+ questions, answered
Is 13+ Common Entrance the same thing as KS3?
Very nearly, by ISEB’s own design: the CE mathematics specification is laid out against KS3 National Curriculum descriptors, science is organised under the KS3 headings, and the history spec says it is based on Key Stage 3. What CE adds is format — levelled papers, an evidence question, an OS-map exercise, working shown — and a sitting date.
Does CE still decide whether my child gets a place?
Usually not. Most selective senior schools now select in Year 6 via a pre-test, the head’s report and their own second round, and use CE in Year 8 to confirm the offer or to set. A handful — Harrow, Eton on one of its routes, Oundle, Brighton College — still require it. Ask your target school directly; practice varies and changes.
Which CE subjects do you cover?
English, mathematics, biology, chemistry, physics, history and geography — seven tutors, one per subject, all on the KS3 map. We do not cover Latin, Classical Greek, modern languages or TPR.
Do you use real ISEB past papers?
No — we never reproduce ISEB papers, and we never will. The tutors pose similar problems we generate ourselves, and the review loop works from your child’s mistakes without needing the paper. ISEB publishes its own past papers if the school recommends them.
My child sits the ISEB Pre-Test in Year 6 — can you help with that?
Honestly: only partly. Our child profiles currently start at Year 7, so we are built for the Year 7–8 stretch — the Common Entrance years — rather than for Year 6 pre-test drilling. The maths and English foundations are the same skills, but if you want adaptive pre-test practice, a specialist platform serves that better today.
The curriculum is the preparation
A child working steadily through the KS3 map, with mistakes reviewed after every paper, is doing the substance of CE preparation. See it in action, then look at what a place costs.