If you are applying to independent senior schools, there is a good chance your child will sit the ISEB Common Pre-Test. It is now the most common first hurdle in independent senior school admissions, and it happens earlier than most parents expect.
What it is
The Common Pre-Test is an online, adaptive assessment administered by the Independent Schools Examinations Board. Its purpose is to give senior schools a common, comparable measure of applicants who come from many different prep and primary schools with very different curricula and reporting styles.
The critical practical point: a child sits it once, and the result can be shared with several senior schools. That is the whole idea — it replaced a situation where a child applying to five schools sat five separate tests.
When it happens
Usually in Year 6 or Year 7, depending on the school and the entry point. For 13+ entry this feels startlingly early — the test is sat two years before the child actually moves. For 11+ entry it sits within the normal admissions year.
Registration deadlines are set by the senior schools, not by ISEB, and they are strict. Each school publishes its own dates and its own testing window. If you are applying to several, build one calendar with every deadline on it, because they will not align.
The format
Four sections, all multiple choice, taken on a computer:
- Maths — 40 minutes
- English — 40 minutes, covering comprehension plus spelling, punctuation and grammar
- Non-verbal reasoning — 30 minutes
- Verbal reasoning — 25 minutes
The English and maths sections are based on the Key Stage 2 national curriculum up to the end of Year 5. The reasoning sections are designed to assess potential with unfamiliar question types rather than taught content.
Sections can be sat in one sitting or split across sessions, at the school's discretion.
How the adaptive format works
This is the part worth explaining to your child, because it behaves differently from a paper exam.
The test adjusts difficulty in real time. Answer correctly and the next question gets harder; answer incorrectly and it gets easier. Children do not all see the same questions.
Two consequences follow, and both matter:
There is no back button. Once an answer is selected and your child moves on, they cannot return to it. A question cannot be skipped either — the next button only appears once something has been chosen.
Finding it hard is normal, and is not a bad sign. An adaptive test is designed to converge on the edge of a child's ability, which means a well-performing child spends much of the test on questions they find difficult. Children come out convinced it went badly. Tell them beforehand that this is exactly how it is supposed to feel, or you will have a miserable car journey home for no reason.
Pen and paper are allowed for working out. There are no practice questions at the start of the live test.
How schools use the result
Differently, and they are not always forthcoming about how. Broadly:
- Some use it as a screen — a threshold to decide who is invited to interview or to a further written paper.
- Some use it as one input among several, alongside the current school's reference, an interview and sometimes their own paper.
- A few use it as the primary academic measure.
It is a fair question to ask at an open day: how much weight do you give the pre-test, and what else are you looking at? The answer tells you a great deal about the school's admissions culture. Our article on making the most of a school open day has more questions worth asking.
Scores are usually reported as standardised age scores, and most schools do not publish a pass mark.
Preparing sensibly
The reasonable version of preparation has three parts.
Familiarity with the format. This genuinely matters and takes very little time. A child who has never used an adaptive online test, and does not know there is no back button, is at a real disadvantage that has nothing to do with ability. An hour or two removes it entirely.
Solid Key Stage 2 basics. Times tables, mental arithmetic, and reading widely enough to handle unfamiliar vocabulary in a comprehension passage. This is built over years, not weeks, and it is by far the most valuable thing you can do.
Some exposure to reasoning question types. Verbal and non-verbal reasoning are not taught in most primary curricula, so the question types are unfamiliar by design. A modest amount of practice removes the shock without pretending you can coach potential.
The unreasonable version — months of intensive drilling — is worth resisting, and not only on principle. Schools are experienced at spotting a child whose test score sits well above everything else in the application, and an over-prepared child who scrapes into a school where they will sit at the bottom of the year is not being done a favour. Our article on whether your child needs a tutor looks at where the line sits.
If it goes badly
It is one data point, sat by a ten or eleven year old, on a computer, possibly with a cold. Schools know this. A weaker-than-expected score can be offset by a strong reference, a good interview and evidence from the current school.
It is also worth having a range of schools on your list rather than three highly selective ones. Selectivity varies enormously across the sector, and there are excellent schools that are not academically selective at all — you can see the full spread across Surrey, Hertfordshire, Berkshire and Buckinghamshire, or search the whole database on the school search.
How it relates to other exams
The pre-test is not the only assessment your child may meet:
- Common Entrance at 13+ is a separate, later set of papers, still used by some schools after a pre-test has secured a conditional place. See the Common Entrance exam explained.
- School-specific papers are set by many senior schools in addition to the pre-test.
- The 11-plus for state grammar schools is a completely separate system with its own timetable — see understanding the 11-plus.
A child applying to both grammar and independent schools may well sit all three, which is a real load. Plan the calendar early.
Next step: build a shortlist that spans a range of selectivity using the school search, and read the independent school admissions timeline to see where the pre-test falls in the year.