Practical guidance from the Leading Tuition team
Book a Free ConsultationBy the time the March 2025 offers arrived, most of our families had been building towards this moment for two or three years. Our 2025 cohort was our largest ever — forty students drawn from across London and the Home Counties — and the results reflected something we had been watching develop across several admissions cycles: school-specific preparation, done with enough time, is consistently outperforming generic exam practice. This post sets out the 2025 outcomes in full: what the numbers show, what our tutors observed, and what any family beginning this process now should take from it.
In the 2025 admissions cycle, we worked with 40 students sitting selective school entrance examinations at 11+ and 13+. Of those, 38 received at least one offer from a selective or independent school — a success rate of 95.0%.
We define success as receiving at least one offer from a school the family had genuinely targeted. We do not count offers from schools added as late safety options if the family's first-choice school did not make an offer.
Ten QE Boys places and seven at Henrietta Barnett, in our largest cohort so far
2025 was also our most geographically spread year, with families across North, South, East and West London working with us — and increasingly online rather than in person.
Wherever you are, a free consultation starts with your child's target schools rather than your postcode.
Book a Free Consultation Message us on WhatsApp2025 was our largest and most geographically diverse cohort to date. Families worked with us from across North, South, East and West London, as well as from Hertfordshire, Kent, and Berkshire. The common thread in our most successful outcomes was consistent, school-specific preparation — tutors who knew not just the 11+ in general, but the precise format, question style and marking approach of each individual school.
Something we saw clearly in 2025: the gap between generic 11+ preparation and school-specific preparation is widening. Schools like QE Boys and St Paul's Girls' have exam formats that are genuinely distinctive — the question style, the level of difficulty, the time pressure and even what a 'good' answer looks like differ meaningfully from GL Assessment or CEM papers. A child who has done 200 hours of GL Assessment practice but never worked on QE Boys papers is underprepared for QE Boys, even if their GL scores are strong.
These results reflect the work of our 11+ and 13+ specialists, who prepare students individually for each school's specific exam format. We're rated 4.8/5 on Trustpilot by the families we've worked with. If you'd like to discuss preparation for your child, Book a free consultation here.
We asked several families if they would share a brief reflection.
Writing to us after results day, a parent whose son gained a place at QE Boys wrote: "The tutor knew the QE exam specifically — the structure, the time pressure, the level of difficulty. That specificity was what we were looking for and what we found. Our son went into the exam knowing exactly what to expect."
Writing to us after results day, a parent whose daughter gained a place at St Paul's Girls' wrote: "St Paul's has its own paper and its own standard. We had tried a general 11+ tutor first and it was not working — the practice material was too easy and the approach was too broad. When we switched to Leading Tuition the difference was immediate. The tutor had worked with St Paul's applicants before and the sessions became much more targeted. Our daughter got her offer in March and we are still a little in shock."
If your child is in Year 4, Year 5 or Year 6, and you are beginning to think about selective school entry, the most important first step is understanding which schools and which exams are relevant to your child — and what realistic preparation looks like for each one. You can find school-specific guides on our 11+ school preparation pages, or book a free consultation to talk through your child's specific situation.
The gap between generic and school-specific preparation is still widening
That was the clearest thing our tutors saw in 2025. General 11+ workbooks produce a child who is broadly ready for an exam nobody sets, while the schools themselves keep moving further apart in format and emphasis.
We prepare children for the specific papers their schools actually use. Rated 4.8/5 on Trustpilot.
Book a Free Consultation Message us on WhatsAppWe count the proportion of students who received at least one genuine offer from a school the family had identified as a target school before the admissions cycle began. We do not include offers from schools added as late backup options.
No. We work with a wide range of students, including children who need to build foundational skills before beginning focused exam preparation. Our tutors assess each child individually and build a programme around where they are, not where they need to be.
It depends on the target school. For the most selective grammar schools — QE Boys, Henrietta Barnett, Tiffin — most of our successful students began working with us in Year 4 or early Year 5. For boarding school 13+ entry, the ISEB Common Pre-Test is taken in Year 6, so preparation typically begins in Year 5.
A specialist tutor can identify exactly where a specific child is losing marks and address that precisely. Group courses and online platforms can build general exposure to exam content, but they cannot adapt in real time to an individual child's misconceptions, gaps, or exam technique weaknesses.
When choosing a tutor for Results Season 2025 — Why School-Specific Preparation Made the Difference, the most important factors are subject expertise at the relevant level, familiarity with the specific examination format, and a structured teaching approach. A good tutor should begin with a diagnostic assessment to understand your current level, set clear goals, and provide measurable feedback after every session. Checking reviews from other students and families is also useful — Leading Tuition is rated Excellent on Trustpilot, with detailed reviews from families across a wide range of subjects and levels.
Leading Tuition offers specialist support for Results Season 2025 — Why School-Specific Preparation Made the Difference. Our experienced tutors build personalised programmes tailored to each student's target goals, current level, and timeline. Sessions combine structured teaching, targeted practice, and regular mock tests or progress assessments to keep preparation on track. Rated Excellent on Trustpilot, we have helped hundreds of students achieve outstanding results across a wide range of subjects and examinations. Book a free consultation to discuss how we can support your preparation.
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