GL Assessment 11+ tutors and paper prep

What GL Assessment is

GL Assessment is a UK educational-assessment company (formerly NFER-Nelson, and part of Renaissance Learning since 2023) that supplies entrance-test papers to grammar schools and selective independents. GL describes itself as the largest provider of 11+ tests to schools in England, delivering over 300,000 papers a year. It is not the only provider: Quest Assessments and other suppliers now hold consortium contracts that GL once held, and some areas have moved away from GL in recent admission rounds.

Crucially, GL does not run a single national 11+. They write papers to each consortium's specification, and consortiums move between suppliers. The Buckinghamshire Secondary Transfer Test and the Lincolnshire 11+ are both GL papers, but each is bespoke. The general format is consistent; the specific questions, components used, time limits, and difficulty calibration vary by consortium. Trafford's consortium test is a GL paper for September 2027 entry, but the consortium has announced that from 2028 entry the test provider changes to Future Stories Community Enterprise. Always check your own consortium's current arrangements rather than assuming the provider has stayed the same.

The components

GL offers five admissions-testing components: Verbal Reasoning, Non-Verbal Reasoning, Spatial Reasoning, English, and Maths. Each consortium chooses which combination it wants, so the number of papers your child sits varies by region. Lincolnshire, for example, tests Verbal Reasoning and Non-Verbal Reasoning only. Others add English and Maths. Papers are multiple-choice, with answers recorded on a separate machine-readable answer sheet.

English

Reading comprehension followed by language-conventions questions. Comprehension passages are usually fiction or non-fiction at age-appropriate reading level, with multiple-choice questions testing literal understanding, inference, vocabulary in context, and authorial intent. Language conventions cover spelling, grammar, punctuation, and word classification. All multiple-choice; no free-form writing in standard GL papers. Some admissions authorities add their own writing exercise alongside the GL papers, so check what your area does.

Maths

KS2-level arithmetic and problem-solving: number, place value, fractions, decimals, percentages, ratio and proportion, geometry, time, money, data handling. Questions are multiple-choice, calculator-not-allowed. The difficulty is roughly KS2 SATs harder questions, plus some lateral problem-solving. Children comfortable with KS2 maths fundamentals find the 11+ Maths paper accessible; children with shaky foundations struggle.

Verbal Reasoning

Language-based puzzle questions, most novel to most Year 5 children because VR is not directly taught in primary schools. The standard GL question types include cloze (fill in the missing word in a sentence), antonyms and synonyms (pick the opposite or matching word), analogies ("X is to Y as A is to ?"), codes (letter-substitution puzzles), rearranging letters (anagram-style questions), and word classification (odd-one-out among related words).

Non-Verbal Reasoning

Pattern-recognition with shapes, also novel to most Year 5 children. The standard GL NVR question types include sequences (what comes next in a pattern of shapes), rotations and reflections (recognise rotated or mirrored shapes), odd-one-out (pick the shape that does not fit), analogies ("shape A is to shape B as shape C is to ?"), and cube nets and spatial questions (visualise 3D structures from 2D nets).

Familiarisation and practice

Each grammar consortium publishes its own familiarisation booklet, usually free and usually downloadable from the council or grammar-association website, showing the current paper format and a sample of question styles. These are the most accurate practice for your child's specific test. GL also publishes free familiarisation material of its own.

Beyond that, there is a robust practice-paper publishing industry: CGP, Bond, Schofield & Sims, Letts, IPS Books, and others publish GL-style practice papers and topic-specific workbooks. These are useful for building question-type familiarity but will not perfectly match the bespoke regional paper. The best approach is broad practice with published books for the year leading up to September, then close practice with region-specific past papers (where available) in the final 2-3 months.

How GL prep typically runs

Most families use a 12-month prep arc. The first three months (early Year 5) focus on KS2 foundations review; without solid times tables, written methods, and reading comprehension at age level, GL prep is building on sand. Months four through nine cover topic-specific question-type practice, with Verbal Reasoning and Non-Verbal Reasoning coming first because they are the most novel, then Maths and English with targeted problem-solving and comprehension drills. The final three months are full timed papers: build stamina on the machine-marked answer-sheet format and rehearse exam-day pacing.