Decide which of four jobs you are hiring for before you look: repairing a weakness, teaching reasoning, imposing a routine or rehearsing the test. TutorLab publishes a Birmingham band of forty to sixty pounds an hour. Ask five questions first, and check the free routes.
Decide what the tutor is for before you look for one
Most families start by asking who is good. It is the wrong first question, because without a job to do an hour a week can end up repeating what the child could already do, and neither you nor the tutor will have a way of noticing.
There are only four jobs a tutor is usually being hired to do, and they need different people.
- Repair a specific weakness.Fractions have never made sense; comprehension answers are guesses. This is teaching, it is finite, and it often takes six sessions rather than a year.
- Teach an area nobody teaches.Verbal and non-verbal reasoning are not on the school timetable, so somebody has to introduce the formats. Cheap to fix and easy to do badly.
- Impose a routine.The work is understood and it is not happening. A tutor here is buying accountability, which is real, and expensive per unit of accountability.
- Rehearse the test.Pacing, section timings, answer sheets, stamina across two papers. A tutor can do this and many do not, because it is not what an hour of conversation is naturally for.
Write down which of the four you are buying before you contact anybody. It changes who you should hire, how long for, and whether you need one at all.
What should you ask an 11 plus tutor in Birmingham?
Five questions, and the answers to the last two matter most.
Which test, in what format. A tutor preparing children for a paper-based, multiple-choice test with a separate answer sheet is preparing for the arrangement this region sits. One who talks only about reasoning, or about assessments taken on a screen, may be describing a different system. Our page on the difference between the two sets out why that matters.
The DBS certificate. Ask to see it, and be aware of what the system does and does not do for a self-employed person. GOV.UK states that a criminal record check can be requested by “an employer, a voluntary organisation, a third-party organisation acting on behalf of an employer or voluntary organisation to manage DBS applications and checks”. Source: GOV.UK, criminal record checks for applicants, checked 6 September 2026. A tutor working through an agency will usually have one arranged that way; an independent tutor may hold a certificate from previous employment. Either way, seeing the certificate is the check, not being told it exists.
Whose material, checked by whom. Photocopies of a workbook from a decade ago are common. So is excellent material written by the tutor. Ask, and look at a page of it.
What you will be told. Ask what you will receive and how often, and agree it before the first session. A verbal “she did well today” at the door is easy to give and hard to act on, so ask for something you can compare from one month to the next.
When to stop. A tutor who can describe the point at which your child would no longer need them is a tutor thinking about your child. One who cannot is describing an open-ended arrangement.
What are the warning signs?
None of these makes somebody a bad teacher. All of them are worth a second question.
- A guarantee of a place. Nobody can offer one. Places are decided by standardised scores against a cohort and by oversubscription criteria set by schools, and no tutor controls either.
- Past papers for this test. None is published for the shared West Midlands arrangement, so anything offered as one is a reconstruction. That is fine if it is described honestly and a problem if it is not.
- A conversion from a practice percentage to a standardised score. There is no cohort behind a home paper, so there is no conversion. It cannot be done.
- Group sessions described as one-to-one pricing. Ask how many children are in the room. Both formats are legitimate; the price should differ.
- Two hours a week with no assessment first, whatever the year. A tutor who has not found out what your child can already do is selling hours rather than teaching.
- Pressure about how late you have left it. Urgency is a sales tool. It is also, occasionally, true, which is what makes it effective.
What do 11 plus tutors in Birmingham charge?
Two public sources, both current, and they agree on the Birmingham band. The figures below are what was published on 6 September 2026, which is the cycle a family aiming at 2027 entry is budgeting against.
TutorLab, writing about 11 plus preparation in Birmingham on 1 May 2026, publishes an average of “£40-£60 per hour for qualified tutors with teaching experience”, “£45-£65 per hour” for DBS-checked professionals, “£35-£45” for newly qualified tutors and “£50-£65 per hour” for Birmingham-based tutors with school placement experience. Source: TutorLab, 11 plus preparation in Birmingham, checked 6 September 2026.
Atom Learning, in its own article on the cost of 11 plus tutoring published on 27 August 2026, states that private tutors in the UK charge “between £40 and £80 per hour” for one-to-one sessions, gives “£40-60/hr” for the Birmingham, Trafford and Lincolnshire band, and puts the annual cost in the Birmingham area at “£2,000-3,000”. The same article gives a national twelve-month figure of “approximately £2,750” for about fifty weekly sessions at around £55 an hour, and describes “a realistic all-in cost for a tutor-led preparation programme for one child” as “£3,000-5,000”. Source: Atom Learning, the cost of 11 plus tutoring, checked 6 September 2026.
| Kind of tutor | Published rate | Published by |
|---|---|---|
| Newly qualified | “£35-£45” | TutorLab, 1 May 2026 |
| Qualified, with teaching experience | “£40-£60 per hour” | TutorLab, 1 May 2026 |
| DBS-checked professional | “£45-£65 per hour” | TutorLab, 1 May 2026 |
| With school placement experience | “£50-£65 per hour” | TutorLab, 1 May 2026 |
| The Birmingham band overall | “£40-60/hr” | Atom Learning, 27 August 2026 |
The fuller breakdown, including what drives the price and the cheaper routes, is on our 11 plus tuition cost page.
Want a daily plan and a parent view for one monthly price while you decide? Start a free week of Pathway Eleven, and the Starting Assessment gives you a level to brief a tutor with if you hire one.
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Does it matter where in Birmingham the tutor is?
Less than it did, and more than families expect for one specific reason.
Harborne, Edgbaston, Sutton Coldfield and Solihull carry most of the demand, and our impression is that this shows up as availability rather than quality, with the better-known tutors in those areas booked further ahead than a family expects. We have no published figure for that and would rather say so than dress an impression as a market fact. If you intend to use a tutor, ask about availability early, and treat any pressure about how late you have left it as a sales line until it is evidenced.
It is also worth being clear about what the tutoring is aimed at. Most families using a Birmingham tutor are preparing for the King Edward VI grammar schools: Five Ways, Camp Hill Boys, Camp Hill Girls, Aston, Handsworth and Handsworth Wood Girls, together with Sutton Coldfield and the Bishop Vesey and Queen Mary schools nearby. They all take the one shared test, so a tutor preparing for that format is preparing for all of them at once. The Birmingham 11 plus sets out the schools and how the places are allocated.
Online tuition removes the travel and widens the field, at the cost of the thing an in-person session does best, which is noticing that a child has stopped concentrating. Whichever you choose, remember that the test itself is sat at an allocated centre: the King Edward VI Foundation states that “you will not have the option of choosing where your child sits the entrance test”, so proximity to a school buys nothing on the day. Source: King Edward VI Foundation, entrance test information, checked 6 September 2026.
One route worth knowing about before you spend anything: Bishop Vesey's Grammar School publishes an offer of free 11 plus preparation and key stage 2 support for pupil premium pupils on its Year 7 admissions page, and links from there to its own page about the scheme. Source: Bishop Vesey's Grammar School, Year 7 admissions, checked 6 September 2026. If your family is eligible, that is worth reading before any paid arrangement.
Where Pathway Eleven fits beside a tutor
Honestly: for some children it replaces the tutor, and for others it makes the tutor cheaper. Both are fine outcomes and we would rather say which is which.
Pathway Eleven gives each child a personalised daily plan of revision, guided teaching and timed practice, built from a Starting Assessment across the four areas the consortium names, with every question reviewed and approved by a qualified teacher before it is released. Full mock rehearsals are part of full membership rather than the trial, and they unlock from Year 4. It runs from Year 3 to the test for £49 a month, and the first week is free.
Against the published Birmingham rate of £40 to £60 an hour, one hour a week is roughly £170 to £260 a month before materials, taking a month as about four and a third weeks. So the comparison is not close on price. What a tutor gives that we do not is a person in the room: judgement in the moment, a relationship, and somebody a child will work for on a bad evening. That is worth paying for, and it is worth paying for on purpose rather than by default.
The arrangement we see working most often is both, with the tutor's hour spent on the one thing the daily plan has flagged rather than on whatever was next in the workbook. Our fuller comparison sets the two side by side, and preparing without a tutor makes the case for going it alone where that is the right answer.
Questions parents ask about 11 plus tutors
How much does an 11 plus tutor cost in Birmingham?+
TutorLab publishes an average of forty to sixty pounds an hour for qualified tutors with teaching experience, forty-five to sixty-five for DBS-checked professionals and thirty-five to forty-five for newly qualified tutors. Atom Learning gives the same forty to sixty band for the Birmingham area and puts a year of weekly sessions there at two to three thousand pounds. Every published figure we could find, with the annual totals, is set out on our 11 plus tuition cost page.
When should we start looking for a tutor?+
Earlier than most families do, if you intend to use one at all. Our impression is that demand in Harborne, Edgbaston, Sutton Coldfield and Solihull runs ahead of supply, though we have no published figure for it. Ask about availability when you first make contact rather than assuming a place will be there.
Do we need a tutor to pass the 11 plus?+
No, and plenty of children are offered places without one. What every child does need is the reasoning formats introduced, the mathematics that school has not reached yet met early, and enough timed practice that the format is not new. A tutor is one way to arrange that and not the only one.
Should the tutor be DBS checked?+
Ask to see the certificate rather than asking whether one exists. GOV.UK sets out that a check is requested by an employer, a voluntary organisation or a third party acting for one, so an independent tutor's certificate may come from an agency or from previous employment.
Is online tuition as good as in person?+
It depends on the child rather than on the format. Online widens the field and removes the travel; in person is better at noticing when a ten-year-old has quietly stopped concentrating. The test venue is allocated rather than chosen, so being near a particular school buys nothing on the day.
Can we use Pathway Eleven and a tutor together?+
That is the arrangement we see working most often. The daily plan and its parent view show what to work on, so the tutor's hour is spent on the one thing that needs a person rather than on whatever came next in a workbook.
Where to go next
- 11 plus tuition cost, the published figures and what drives them.
- Pathway Eleven or an 11 plus tutor?, the six decisions a parent is really making.
- 11 plus preparation without a tutor, what a parent can do well at home.
- 11 plus mock exams in Birmingham, centres against timed mocks at home.
- The Birmingham 11 plus, the schools, the test and the dates.
- Birmingham 11 plus standardised scores, the published thresholds.
- Two full papers with their mark schemes, and a short sample paper, all free to the email address you give.
- What Pathway Eleven costs, one plan, every subject.
A Starting Assessment tells you what a tutor would spend the first month finding out.
Where each Birmingham figure was read, and when
Every outside figure and quotation on this page was read at its own published address on 6 September 2026. No tutor or tutoring business is named or recommended anywhere on this site.
- TutorLab, 11 plus preparation in Birmingham, published 1 May 2026, the Birmingham hourly bands for qualified, DBS-checked and newly qualified tutors. Checked 6 September 2026.
- Atom Learning, the cost of 11 plus tutoring, published 27 August 2026, the UK hourly range, the Birmingham band, the annual figures and the all-in range. Checked 6 September 2026.
- GOV.UK, criminal record checks for applicants, who may request a check. Checked 6 September 2026.
- King Edward VI Foundation, entrance test information, that families do not choose the test venue. Checked 6 September 2026.
- Bishop Vesey's Grammar School, Year 7 admissions, free 11 plus preparation and key stage 2 support for pupil premium pupils. Checked 6 September 2026.