01
Assess
We map your child against every strand of the Key Stage 2 curriculum. Not “weak at maths”, but which objectives, in which order, are holding progress back.
11+ Tuition · Trafford & Ribble Valley
One-to-one 11+ tuition for the Trafford grammar schools and Clitheroe Royal
Including the new FSCE 11+, the Trafford test from September 2027. FSCE stands for Future Stories Community Enterprise, the not-for-profit test provider the Trafford Consortium appointed in July 2026.
- Format
- One-to-one, online. Your child joins from home, so there is no travel.
- Who teaches
- The same small family team, every session. Nobody is subcontracted.
- How often
- Usually once a week, adjusted to your child’s needs and your family’s schedule.
- First step
- A free diagnostic assessment against the Key Stage 2 English and maths the new exam tests.
The assessment is free. You get a written report showing exactly where your child stands, and you’re welcome to use it to work on things at home, whether or not you book tuition. See a sample report.
Parent reviews
What 11+ parents say
Amazing tutors who helped my daughter get into grammar school, where she achieved an amazing score of 387 last year. I’ve also enrolled my second daughter, who recently sat her entrance exam and felt that it went really well for her. Thank you so much for all your help and support along the way
My daughter managed to get into her preferred grammar school with the help of this company. Thanks for your guidance! I recommend.
Makes my son feel comfortable. Great learning experience. Knows my son, makes great connection. Challenges him. He’s really grown with the tutoring
11+ Preparation · Trafford & Ribble Valley
We find the gaps that practice papers hide
The Trafford 11+ has changed. Reasoning is gone, and the new exam tests the Key Stage 2 curriculum. That rewards knowing exactly what your child has secured, not how many papers they have sat.
We map your child against that curriculum objective by objective, then teach only what the map says is missing.
The assessment is free. You get a written report showing exactly where your child stands, and you’re welcome to use it to work on things at home, whether or not you book tuition. See a sample report.
The change
Children in Year 5 sit a different exam
The Trafford Consortium is replacing GL Assessment with FSCE (Future Stories Community Enterprise). Verbal and non-verbal reasoning are removed entirely, and the test moves onto the Key Stage 2 English and maths curriculum.
That is a change of kind, not of difficulty. The question stops being how many papers your child has practised and becomes which curriculum objectives are actually secure.
Read what changes, in full- Who is first affected
- Year 5 now
- They sit the test
- September 2027
- For entry in
- September 2028
- Removed
- Verbal reasoning, non-verbal reasoning
- Tested instead
- Key Stage 2 English and maths, to the end of Year 5
Where to start
Which exam does my child sit?
Three different routes, and they are not interchangeable. Applying across more than one means sitting more than one test.
5 schools
The Trafford Consortium
Five schools, one shared test, one score. Each school then applies its own qualifying mark and its own catchment rules.
What the Consortium test involvesSeparate test
Clitheroe Royal Grammar
Its own admissions authority, and already using FSCE. The closest working example of the test Trafford families are heading towards.
See Clitheroe RoyalNot covered here
Loreto and St Ambrose
Neither is in the Consortium. Each runs its own admissions and its own entrance test, so either one means an additional exam rather than another use of the same score.
The Consortium
Five schools, one test, five different bars
One registration and one standardised score covers all five. Each school then applies its own qualifying mark and its own catchment rules, so the same score can succeed at one and fall short at another.
BoysAltrincham Grammar School for BoysSee pageGirlsAltrincham Grammar School for GirlsSee pageCo-educationalSale Grammar SchoolSee pageCo-educationalStretford Grammar SchoolSee pageCo-educationalUrmston Grammar SchoolSee page
What each school publishes
| School | Type | Year 7 places | Priority area |
|---|---|---|---|
| AGSB | Boys | 202 | WA13WA14WA15M33M23 |
| AGSG | Girls | check school | check school |
| Sale Grammar | Co-educational | 190 | check school |
| Stretford Grammar | Co-educational | 160 | M32M33M41M17M15M16M21 |
| Urmston Grammar | Co-educational | check school | check school |
Checked against each school’s own admissions policy on . Where a figure is not shown, the school does not publish it in a form we are willing to reproduce. Always confirm with the school for your entry year.
The one published qualifying score
Stretford Grammar School is the only Consortium school publishing a qualifying score on its own admissions pages: 334 out of 400 for 2027 entry. The 2028 figure, the first under FSCE, has not been published and may differ. Treat any other number you are quoted as hearsay until you have seen it on the school’s own page.
How we prepare
A system, not a session
Most tuition starts with a worksheet and a guess about what is wrong. We start with a measurement, and we do not teach a topic until we know whether it needs teaching.
02
Map
The assessment becomes a pathway: the exact sequence of skills to fix, ordered by what unlocks the most.
03
Teach
Sessions follow the pathway. Every session targets a gap we have measured rather than one we assumed.
04
Re-measure
We reassess as we go. The plan changes as your child does, and secure objectives drop out of it.
With the Trafford test moving onto the Key Stage 2 curriculum, this stops being a nice extra and becomes the whole job. We are a family practice, and the same small team teaches every session, so what we learn about your child in September still informs the session in March.
Key dates
Most 2028 dates are not published yet
The Consortium has confirmed the provider change but has not released the timetable for the first FSCE cycle. We would rather show you an empty row than a plausible guess, so this table fills in as each date is confirmed.
The one fixed point is the Common Application Form deadline, which is set nationally rather than by the Consortium.
Trafford Consortium, September 2028 entry
The first cycle under FSCE.
- Registration opens
- Not yet published. In recent cycles registration has opened in late April.
- Registration closes
- Not yet published. In recent cycles registration has closed in mid-June.
- Test date
- Confirmed as September of Year 6, so September 2027. The exact date is not yet published.
- Results
- Not yet published.
- Common Application Form deadline
- The Common Application Form deadline is set nationally at 31 October.
Find out exactly where your child stands.
A free diagnostic assessment maps your child against the Key Stage 2 curriculum, topic by topic, so preparation starts from evidence rather than a guess.
The assessment is free. You get a written report showing exactly where your child stands, and you’re welcome to use it to work on things at home, whether or not you book tuition. See a sample report.
11+ preparation: common questions
Which 11+ exam does my child sit?
It depends on the schools you apply to. The five Trafford Consortium schools share one test. Clitheroe Royal runs its own. Loreto Grammar and St Ambrose College each run separate exams of their own. Applying to schools across more than one of these groups means sitting more than one test.
When should we start preparing?
Most families begin in Year 4 or early Year 5. With the move to a curriculum-based test that timing matters less than it used to: what counts is whether Key Stage 2 English and maths are secure, and that is built over years of school rather than months of practice papers. Starting earlier mostly buys you the ability to fix gaps calmly rather than urgently.
Is my child too late to start?
Rarely, though what is realistic changes. If the test is a year away there is time to find and close genuine curriculum gaps. If it is a few weeks away, the honest work is consolidating what is nearly secure and making sure exam day goes smoothly. We will tell you which of those we think you are in after an assessment, including if the answer is that tutoring is not worth your money.
Do you guarantee a grammar school place?
No, and you should be wary of anyone who does. These schools are oversubscribed, qualifying is only the first stage, and places are then allocated on catchment and distance, which no tutor can influence. What we can do is make sure the part that is in your control, whether your child has secured the curriculum being tested, is as strong as it can be.
What happens in a free assessment?
A relaxed, spoken one-to-one session online, about 45 minutes, covering Key Stage 2 English and maths, then 15 minutes with you. The same day you receive a written report showing what is secure, what looks secure but is not, and what is genuinely missing. You get that picture whether or not you go on to book any tutoring. See a sample report.
Who actually teaches the sessions?
We do. Cartesian Tuition is a family practice and the same small team teaches every session. Your child is not passed to whichever freelancer is available that week, and what we learn in one session carries into the next because it is the same people.