A mock is only useful if it rehearses the published arrangement: two papers, sections timed one at a time, four areas, and answers on a separate sheet. A centre buys the unfamiliar room. A timed paper at home buys pacing and repetition, for far less.
What does a good 11 plus mock have to replicate?
Start here rather than with the venue, because it is the only question that separates a useful mock from an expensive afternoon. A mock is a rehearsal, and a rehearsal is only worth anything if it rehearses the real thing.
The real thing is published. The West Midlands Grammar Schools consortium states that “candidates will sit two papers, each approximately 50-60 minutes long (which includes time for instructions and example questions)”, that each paper “is divided into smaller individually timed sections that test: English Comprehension, Verbal Reasoning, Mathematics, Non-Verbal/Spatial Reasoning”, and that “all questions are multiple choice and children record their answers on a separate answer sheet”. Source: West Midlands Grammar Schools, the entrance test, checked 6 September 2026.
Five things follow, and a mock that misses any of them is measuring something else.
The fourth is the one people skip, and it is the cheapest to get right. The answer sheet is a grid, one row to a question, and a child who slips out of step with it keeps answering correctly into the wrong rows. The marks are lost silently and nobody notices until it is marked. That is a mark-losing mechanism that has nothing to do with ability and everything to do with rehearsal.
A mock centre, or a timed paper at home?
Both of them work. They do different jobs, and the honest comparison is not about which is better but about what each one is actually buying you.
| An in-person mock centre | A timed mock at home | |
|---|---|---|
| The unfamiliar room | Its strongest cardA hall of strangers, a stranger reading the instructions, and no parent within reach. | Cannot reproduce itA child sits somewhere they feel safe. |
| Format fidelity | Ask, before booking, which test the paper is written for, how many options a question carries and whether answers go on a separate sheet. | Under your controlIt depends on the paper you use, which is the point. |
| Feedback | Ask what you get back and when, and whether it breaks down by question type rather than giving a score alone. | ImmediateImmediate if it is marked automatically. Slower if you mark it yourself. |
| How often you can do it | A handful of dates a year, booked ahead. | As often as you wantWhich is also the risk. |
| Cost | Per sitting, per child, plus the travel and the day. | The price of the paperOr nothing. |
| What it is best for | Nerves. Once, in the summer before the test. | Pacing, stamina and the answer sheet. Repeatedly, from earlier on. |
Whatever you book, the report is the part that decides whether the day was worth anything. A useful one carries three things: the score, a breakdown by section, and the questions your child actually missed. A rank against other candidates is interesting and a score alone changes nothing, because you cannot act on a number without knowing which questions produced it.
Our own view, and it is a view rather than a finding: one centre mock is worth doing if nerves are the thing you are worried about, and it is not worth doing four times. The unfamiliar room is a one-off lesson. Everything else on that list is learned better at home, more often, for less.
When Birmingham mocks are sat, and when the real test is for 2027 entry
Work backwards from one date. For entry in September 2027 the Birmingham, Sutton Coldfield and Walsall schools sit the entrance test on Saturday 12 September 2026, in a morning or an afternoon session, and the two Telford and Wrekin schools, Haberdashers’ Adams and Newport Girls’ High School, sit it on Monday 14 September 2026. Registration for that cycle opened on Tuesday 5 May 2026 and closed at 4pm on Friday 26 June 2026, and any request for reasonable adjustments had to be in by 4pm on Friday 12 June 2026, a fortnight earlier than registration itself. Results reach families by Friday 16 October 2026, and national offer day is Monday 1 March 2027.
Every one of those dates is published by the bodies that run the cycle, and each is sourced and dated on our West Midlands 11 plus dates page. Read that page rather than this paragraph when your own cycle comes round, because the dates move each year and a registration deadline is the one thing in the calendar that cannot be recovered from.
What that timetable means for mocks is simple. There is one sitting, on one Saturday, and nothing after it. So a centre mock booked for the spring or early summer of Year 5 still leaves a term to act on what it found, and one booked for late August leaves a fortnight and a nervous child. If you want a rehearsal close to the day, run a timed paper at home in the last few weeks rather than paying for a sitting whose report will arrive too late to use.
One source per date, each read on 6 September 2026. The King Edward VI Foundation admissions timetable publishes the Tuesday 5 May 2026 opening, the 4pm Friday 12 June 2026 deadline for reasonable adjustments, the 4pm Friday 26 June 2026 close, the Saturday 12 September 2026 sitting for the Birmingham and Sutton Coldfield schools, and national offer day on Monday 1 March 2027. Queen Mary's Grammar School, Walsall, September 2027 entry publishes the Walsall sitting on that same Saturday. Haberdashers' Adams, joining in Year 7 publishes its Monday 14 September 2026 sitting, and Newport Girls' High School, entrance test publishes its own. King Edward VI Foundation, results and offers publishes results reaching families by Friday 16 October 2026.
Finding 11 plus mock exams near me in Birmingham
We do not run a directory and we do not recommend centres, so this is about how to search rather than where to book. Most Birmingham families searching for mock exams near me are aiming at the same set of schools, because one test serves them all: the King Edward VI schools at Five Ways, Camp Hill Boys, Camp Hill Girls, Aston, Handsworth and Handsworth Wood Girls, together with Sutton Coldfield Grammar School for Girls, Bishop Vesey's Grammar School and Queen Mary's in Walsall. The Birmingham 11 plus sets out the schools and how places are allocated.
That matters more than distance. A centre a short drive away running a paper written for a different region rehearses the wrong thing, and one on the far side of the city running the right format does not. Ask the format questions below before you ask about the postcode, and remember that the test venue itself is allocated rather than chosen, so no amount of local familiarity buys anything on the day.
What should you ask a mock centre before booking?
There are six of them, and a centre that answers all six clearly is a centre worth your Saturday.
- Which test are your papers written for? The answer you want names the arrangement your child will actually sit: two papers, four areas, multiple choice, separate answer sheet.
- Are the sections individually timed? One clock across a whole paper is a different exercise from the published arrangement, and it teaches the wrong pacing habit.
- Do children use a real answer sheet? If the answers go in the booklet, the most rehearsable mechanic in the test is not being rehearsed.
- What do we get back, and when? A score and a rank tell a parent almost nothing. A breakdown by question type, with pace beside accuracy, tells you what to do on Monday.
- How is the score reported? Be careful with anything presented as a predicted standardised score. Real scores are standardised against a whole cohort for age, and a mock has no cohort behind it.
- How many children, and what age? A room of mixed year groups sitting the same paper produces a rank that means very little.
One thing no centre can offer, however good it is: a guarantee of a place. Places are decided by scores standardised against a cohort and by the oversubscription criteria the schools publish. What is a good 11 plus score covers what the published thresholds actually mean.
Want the rehearsal without the calendar? Start a free week of Pathway Eleven and the daily plan begins from a Starting Assessment across all four areas.
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Is there a free 11 plus mock test in Birmingham?
Occasionally, as an open day or a taster run by a centre, and those are worth taking when they come up. What is reliably free is the material to run one yourself, which for most families is the better deal anyway because it can be repeated.
Two published sources cost nothing. The consortium says “familiarisation questions can be found at the bottom of this page which show the style of questions to appear in the test and how answers must be recorded”, and the King Edward VI Foundation states that “a full familiarisation guide is available to download”. Source: King Edward VI Foundation, entrance test information, checked 6 September 2026. Neither is a full paper, and both show a child the layout before it matters.
For a full rehearsal, our free pack above is two complete papers with their own answer sheets and worked answers, written in house for the published format. Run one properly, under the clock, with the answer sheet, and you have done the thing a centre charges for. What you will not have reproduced is the unfamiliar room, which is the one genuine argument for going to a centre at all.
What a Pathway Eleven mock does
A mock here is a full paper in the two-paper shape of the regional entrance test, sat in one sitting with no help and no pauses, with each section carrying its own time limit rather than one clock across the whole paper. The clock stays on screen throughout, questions arrive one at a time, and the answer sheet is completed in the format the test asks for.
It is marked automatically the moment your child presses submit, and it comes back as a report rather than a score: the overall result, then subject by subject, then question type by question type inside each subject, with pace alongside accuracy and a line on what to work on next. The reports sit in the PIN-protected parent area, and the days of revision that follow respond to what the mock found. Mock day is a date you set during setup, and the paper stays locked until it arrives.
The papers are our own, written in house, with every question in the bank reviewed and approved by a qualified teacher before it is released. They are not GL Assessment papers and they are not past papers. Pathway Eleven is an independent service and is not affiliated with or endorsed by GL Assessment.
Two limits worth stating plainly rather than burying. Mocks unlock from Year 4, because a full paper any earlier measures stamina rather than ability. And full mock rehearsals are part of full membership rather than the free trial. What the trial gives you instead is the Starting Assessment, the daily plan it builds, guided teaching and timed practice, which is what a first paper needs to sit on top of. Our mock tests page goes through the report and how to read a result without panic.
Questions parents ask about 11 plus mock exams
How many mock exams should a child sit?+
Fewer than families expect, and spaced far enough apart to act on each one. A paper sat every weekend produces a plateau and a bored child, and each result tells you less than the one before. In our experience one centre sitting for the nerves, plus occasional timed papers at home, covers what mocks are actually for.
When should the first mock be?+
It depends which kind you mean, and the page above separates them. Timed full papers at home begin once shorter timed sections feel manageable, because that is how pacing and the answer sheet are learned. A one-off sitting at a centre is a different purchase, bought for the unfamiliar room, and it does its work in Year 5 when there is a real result to read.
Do mock exam scores predict the real result?+
No, and be careful with any centre that says otherwise. Real scores are standardised for age against a whole cohort, and a mock has no cohort behind it. What a mock can tell you is where the marks went: pace, misreading, or genuinely not knowing.
Are mocks included in the Pathway Eleven trial?+
No. Full mock rehearsals are part of full membership rather than the trial, and they unlock from Year 4. What the trial gives you is the Starting Assessment, the daily plan it builds, guided teaching and timed practice.
Can we run a mock at home instead of paying for one?+
Yes, for everything except the unfamiliar room. Use a complete paper, run each section to the time printed on it, use the separate answer sheet, and mark it the next day rather than the same hour. That reproduces the rehearsal; what it cannot reproduce is a hall of strangers.
What should we do with the result?+
Sort the wrong answers into three groups: ran out of time, misread under pressure, and genuinely did not know. Only the third needs teaching, and it is usually the smallest. Reacting to a low score with more content, when the marks were lost to the clock, makes the next paper worse.
Where to go next
- 11 plus mock tests online, what a mock is here and how a result should be read.
- A free full practice paper, a second one beside it and a short sample, delivered as an emailed link.
- 11 plus past papers, why none exists for this test and what to use.
- The Birmingham 11 plus, the schools, the test and the published dates.
- How to choose an 11 plus tutor in Birmingham, five questions before you book.
- 11 plus tuition cost, the published figures and the cheaper routes.
- 11 plus exam stress, what helps a child before and after a paper.
- What Pathway Eleven costs, one plan, every subject.
The plan starts with a Starting Assessment across all four areas, and the work that follows is built from what it finds.
What the test bodies publish, and the day each page was read
Every statement about the live test on this page was read at its published address on 6 September 2026. No mock centre or tutoring business is named or recommended anywhere on this site.
- West Midlands Grammar Schools, the entrance test, the two papers, the individually timed sections, the four areas, the multiple-choice answer sheet and the familiarisation questions. Checked 6 September 2026.
- King Edward VI Foundation, entrance test information, the downloadable familiarisation guide and that only the separate answer sheets are marked. Checked 6 September 2026.
- Warwickshire County Council, the 11 plus test, that the raw data is standardised and weighted to provide a total score for each child. Checked 6 September 2026.
- GL Assessment, a guide to standardised tests, the average standard age score of 100 and the age adjustment in years and months. Checked 6 September 2026.