Every parent thinking about grammar school hits this question eventually. Should we hire an 11 plus tutor? At £40 to £60 an hour for a year or more, the maths adds up fast. Two thousand pounds, three thousand, more if you're in London. So is it money well spent, or are you paying for peace of mind?
I'll give you my honest take. No agency, no affiliate links, just what I've seen from running ReadyFor11 and talking to other parents going through the same thing.
What an 11 plus tutor actually does
A good 11 plus tutor does three jobs. They teach the test format. They drill the question types your child is weakest at. And they keep your child accountable across a long preparation window that can otherwise drift.
That's genuine value. Most parents aren't familiar with the GL Assessment format, and even fewer have time to build a proper practice schedule from scratch. A decent tutor takes that off your plate. They've seen hundreds of children prepare for the same exam. They know which mistakes are common at age 9, which ones disappear by age 10, and which ones tend to stick.
A bad tutor does none of that. They hand your child a Bond book, mark it half-attentively, and charge you £45 for the privilege. Sorting a good one from a bad one is harder than it sounds when you're juggling work and don't know what good 11 plus practice actually looks like.
The real cost of 11 plus tutoring
Let's talk numbers. Tutoring rates vary wildly by region. In Reading or Newbury you'll typically see £35 to £50 per hour. In Buckinghamshire, where super-selective schools push parents into prep mode early, it's £40 to £60. In London the going rate is £60 to £100. At the top end, specialist 11 plus tutors in Sutton or Barnet charge £150 an hour or more.
A typical preparation runs an hour a week for 12 to 18 months. So we're talking £2,000 to £4,000 for an average tutoring spend, and well into five figures if you go premium and start in Year 4. That's before mock exam fees, books, and the odd intensive holiday session.
For some families that's affordable. For most, it isn't. And the uncomfortable truth is that tutoring spend correlates strongly with grammar school admission rates. In Buckinghamshire, the proportion of grammar pupils whose families paid for tutoring sits well above the national average. Whether that's because tutoring works, or because those families had more advantages anyway, is hard to untangle.
When an 11 plus tutor genuinely helps
There are situations where a tutor is the right call. Suppose your child is sitting verbal reasoning for the first time and the question types feel completely alien. A few sessions with someone who can explain the patterns clearly is worth the money. If you're in a super-selective area like Slough or Bucks, expert coaching matters more. The difference between scoring 121 and 130 can decide whether your child gets a place.
Tutoring also helps if you and your child clash over school work. Plenty of bright kids switch off the moment a parent picks up a maths book. A neutral tutor sidesteps that dynamic entirely. Your child performs for them in a way they won't for you, and your relationship stays intact.
If your child has a specific weakness you can't fix at home, a targeted tutor is fair value. Maybe they're strong on maths but their reading speed is too slow for the comprehension paper. A tutor who specialises in 11 plus English can move that needle in a way generic prep books often can't.
When an 11 plus tutor isn't worth the money
Now the other side. If your child is already scoring well on practice papers, more tutoring won't do much. There's a ceiling on how much improvement you can squeeze out of a child who's already comfortable with the format. Past a certain point, you're paying for confidence rather than competence.
If you haven't yet established a baseline, hiring a tutor is premature. Plenty of parents start tutoring before they know if their child even needs it. That's how you end up spending £3,000 to confirm something you could have figured out for free in 45 minutes.
If your child is genuinely not at grammar level, and some children aren't no matter what the prep industry will tell you, a tutor won't change that. The 11 plus is a hard exam designed to separate the top 25 percent or so from the rest. If your child is sitting in the bottom half nationally and shows little appetite for the work, no amount of tutoring will manufacture a pass. You'll just teach a stressed child to sit through tests they're going to fail anyway.
And if you can do the work yourself, you don't need a tutor. I've written before about how to prepare for the 11 plus without one. It takes commitment and patience. But a parent who reads with their child, marks practice papers honestly, and builds a steady rhythm over 12 months can cover what a tutor would.
Questions to ask before you hire an 11 plus tutor
Before you hand over any money, ask the tutor a few direct questions. Which exam board does your child sit, GL Assessment or CSSE? How many children have they prepared for that specific exam in the last two years? Can they share, anonymously, what the spread of outcomes looked like? Do they teach to the format, or do they coach the underlying skills? Will they give you written feedback after each session, or just a chat at the door?
You'll learn a lot from how they answer. The good ones welcome those questions. The weak ones get defensive.
Try the free option first
Here's where I'd start, regardless of whether you eventually hire a tutor. Find out where your child actually sits before you spend a penny. ReadyFor11 is the free benchmark test I built precisely because I couldn't find a straight answer for my own son. It's not a sample lesson and it's not a trial — you take the test, get a score across the four 11 plus skill areas, and you know roughly where your child is.
A lot of parents find that 30 minutes on ReadyFor11 saves them months of unnecessary spending. Some learn their child is already in good shape and only needs light practice. Others find a specific weak area they can target with a few hours of focused tutoring instead of a year-long contract. Either way, you go in informed rather than panicked.
FAQs
How much does an 11 plus tutor cost in 2026?
Expect £35 to £60 per hour outside London, and £60 to £150 in London. A full year of weekly sessions runs from around £2,000 at the lower end to £8,000 or more at the top.
When should we start using an 11 plus tutor?
Year 5 is the sensible window if you're going to use one. Some families start in Year 4, but unless you're aiming at a super-selective London school, that's usually overkill. Year 6 starts are too late for most children to build the foundations, though some intensive last-minute tutoring can sharpen exam technique.
Are online 11 plus tutors as good as in-person ones?
They can be. The quality of the tutor matters far more than the medium. A great online tutor on Zoom will outperform a mediocre in-person one. Just check they have proper experience with the specific exam your child will sit.
Do grammar schools prefer tutored children?
No. Schools assess on the test result, full stop. They don't ask about preparation history. The bias, if there is one, sits earlier in the system. Families with more resources tend to prepare effectively whether they hire a tutor or not.
Want to know whether your child needs a tutor before you spend a penny? ReadyFor11 gives you a free, honest readiness benchmark across all four 11 plus skill areas. Take the test at readyfor11.co.uk.