The 13+ is the longest admissions process most families will ever run — four or five years from first registration to first day. That length is its kindness and its trap. Kindness, because almost nothing on the route needs to be rushed; there is time to visit schools properly, prepare gently, and let a child grow into the process. Trap, because the consequential deadlines come early — some registration lists close when a child is eight or nine — and the consequential assessment comes in the middle, not at the end. Families who map the route in Year 4 sail it; families who discover it in Year 6 spend a year catching up on decisions that were quieter and cheaper earlier.
Here is the calendar, stage by stage. One caveat before we start, and it governs everything below: every school sets its own dates. Registration deadlines, pre-test windows, offer timing — all of it varies, and all of it changes. Treat this as the shape of the route; take the dates themselves from each school's current admissions page.
Years 3–4: looking, longlisting — and checking the early deadlines
Nothing formal needs to happen this early, with one exception that catches families out: a small number of sought-after schools close their registration lists very early — during Year 5, and in a few cases years before that. If any school of that kind might be on your list, the time to find out is now, because the only unrecoverable mistake on the whole 13+ route is missing a registration deadline for a school you wanted.
Otherwise, these are the browsing years:
- Build a longlist from geography, ethos, day/boarding, and — honestly — fit for the actual child you have, not the child the brochure imagines.
- Go to open days without commitment. Schools look different in person, and children change so much between eight and twelve that early visits are for the parents' calibration, not the child's choice.
- If your child is at a prep school, talk to the head. Prep heads place a year group every year, know the receiving schools, and will tell you — sometimes bracingly — which schools suit your child. This conversation, repeated annually, is the single most valuable input in the whole process.
Years 4–5: registering
For most families this is when registration happens in earnest: forms and a registration fee for each school on the shortlist. Registering is not committing — families routinely register for three or four schools and let the process narrow the field — but it is what puts your child on the list for the assessments to come.
Practical notes:
- Register for every school you are serious about, even tentatively. A registration fee is cheap insurance against a closed list.
- Note each school's stated assessment pattern as you register: when it pre-tests, whether it interviews, what its Year 8 condition is (Common Entrance, own papers, reports). You are assembling a private map of the next three years.
- State-primary families: the route is open to you, and this is the stage where it is easiest to join. Without a prep head managing the process, you are your own registrar — a folder, a spreadsheet of deadlines per school, and direct contact with each admissions office will do the job.
Year 6 (and into Year 7): the pre-test — where the deciding happens
The strange heart of the 13+ calendar: the most consequential assessment falls in the middle of the route, two to three years before entry. Most senior schools assess 13+ candidates with the ISEB Common Pre-Test — online, adaptive, multiple-choice, covering English, maths, verbal reasoning and non-verbal reasoning — sat once per cycle, in Year 6 or Year 7, with the result shared across every school you have registered with. Some schools run their own assessments instead or as well; your map from the registration stage tells you which.
What to know for this stage:
- The sitting itself is usually undramatic — at the child's own school, on a school day, often split across sessions. What the test is like from the inside, and what "adaptive" means for how it feels, is its own article; the short version worth telling your child is that the test is designed to feel hard when it is going well.
- Preparation is a Years 5–6 project, not a Year 6 emergency. The curriculum halves of the test — English and maths — reward exactly the steady, gap-closing work a child should be doing anyway. (This is where our tutors fit, for families who want structure: KS3-facing subject teaching, flashcards for the facts that need to stick, and an exam date on the family dashboard that the weekly plan counts down to. The reasoning sections are a different matter — we do not teach verbal or non-verbal reasoning, and format familiarity there comes from published practice materials.)
- Interviews and further assessments cluster around the pre-test at many schools — some interview alongside it, others call candidates back during Year 7.
Late Year 6 – Year 7: offers
On the strength of the pre-test, the current school's report and any interview, schools make their decisions — typically during Year 7, sometimes earlier. Outcomes come in three flavours: an offer (almost always conditional), a place on a waiting list, or a no.
- Read the condition on each offer carefully. "Pass Common Entrance at our threshold", "sit our papers in Year 8", "maintain progress and conduct" — these are different obligations, and the landscape article explains how each works. The condition in your letter is the only one that applies.
- Waiting lists move. Families hold multiple offers and release them; a Year 7 waiting-list place is far from a closed door.
- A no in Year 7 leaves real options: other schools' later assessment rounds, occasional places, and the fact that a child two years from entry has two years to grow. This is a moment for the prep head's counsel, not for a family crisis.
Once an offer is accepted (deposits usually follow acceptance), the field narrows to one or two schools, and the process goes quiet.
Years 7–8: the long middle
Eighteen months where nothing formal happens — and where the offer's condition is quietly being met or unmet. The work of this stretch:
- Ordinary school, taken seriously. Whether the condition is CE, school papers or reports, the preparation is the same: steady work across the curriculum. Where the condition is report-based, this is the exam — spread over two years.
- Scholarship candidates diverge here. Academic scholarship papers — harder, separate, often the school's own or ISEB's scholarship examination — are typically sat during Year 8, with preparation shaping the year before. Music, sport and art awards run their own calendars, generally with auditions and assessments ahead of the academic papers. The scholarship article covers the tracks.
- The Year 7 dip is real. Post-offer, pre-exam, many children sag — the goal feels achieved and distant at once. Naming the condition on the offer, without menace, is usually enough to keep Year 7 honest.
Year 8: the exams, the confirmation, the ending
The final year runs on rails laid years earlier:
- Autumn–spring: revision structured into the prep school's teaching; mocks; scholarship papers for those on that track; the level-entry decisions in maths and science made with the school.
- Summer term: the main Common Entrance sitting, for those whose schools require it — what the papers consist of is its own article — or the school's own papers. For most candidates this confirms rather than decides; scripts are marked by the receiving school against its stated threshold, and genuine upsets are rare because the selecting happened at the pre-test.
- Results and confirmation follow quickly — and then the odd, sweet anticlimax of the 13+: the process that began when your child was eight ends with a thirteen-year-old, a leavers' summer, and a uniform list.
September: Year 9
They start. The four-year process buys, in the end, an ordinary first day — which is exactly what it was for.
The whole route on one screen
| Stage | What happens | What matters |
|---|---|---|
| Years 3–4 | Longlist, visits | Check for early-closing registration lists |
| Years 4–5 | Registration | Register for every serious option; map each school's process |
| Year 6–7 | Pre-test (+ interviews) | The real selection; calm, prepared child |
| Year 7 | Offers | Read the condition; accept; deposits |
| Years 7–8 | The long middle | Steady work; scholarship track diverges |
| Year 8 | CE / school papers | Confirmation; levels chosen well; no panic |
| September | Year 9 entry | The point of it all |
FAQ
When should we register for 13+ entry?
Earlier than feels natural — typically during Years 4 and 5. Most schools' lists stay open well into Year 6, but some sought-after schools close registration during Year 5 or even earlier, so check each target school's deadline as soon as it is on your list.
When is the ISEB pre-test sat?
In Year 6 or Year 7, depending on when the senior schools on your list assess. It is sat once per cycle, usually at the child's own school, and the result is shared with every school the family has registered with.
What happens between the offer and Year 8?
Mostly ordinary school. The offer is conditional — on Common Entrance, the school's own papers, or continued good reports — so Years 7 and 8 are about steady work rather than exam panic. Scholarship candidates add separate, harder papers in Year 8.
When are the final 13+ exams sat?
The main Common Entrance sitting is in the summer term of Year 8; schools with their own papers usually also examine during Year 8. Results and confirmation follow quickly, with entry that September.
Is it too late to start the 13+ route in Year 6?
Often not, but it depends on the schools. Some lists will have closed; many remain open, and occasional places exist outside the main cycle. Ring the registrar of each school you care about before ruling anything out — the answer is frequently more flexible than the published deadline suggests.