Topic coverage

All four English skill areas

11+ English tests a broad range of skills that go well beyond classroom English. Comprehension questions require inferring meaning, identifying tone, and supporting answers with textual evidence. Creative writing is marked against five specific criteria examiners apply consistently.

Core skill

Reading Comprehension

Questions on unseen passages — inference, tone, character motivation, evidence. Goes beyond surface understanding.

Core skill

Grammar

Sentence structure, punctuation rules, parts of speech — at the level the 11+ actually tests, not just what KS2 covers.

Core skill

Spelling

Common misspellings, homophones, prefixes and suffixes. Vocabulary breadth matters as much as spelling accuracy.

Unique feature

Creative Writing

Real-time AI feedback as your child writes. Full score out of 40 on submission. The only platform that does this.

The AI writing examiner

Real-time feedback — the part no other platform offers

Creative writing carries significant marks in both GL Assessment and CEM English papers. It's also the area most families feel least equipped to support at home — and the area most platforms leave entirely unaddressed.

How the AI writing simulator works

Your child chooses from a range of story prompts — the kind of open-ended stimulus used in real 11+ papers. As they write, a live checklist updates every two seconds, checking their work against the five criteria 11+ examiners actually use.

On submission, they receive a full marked score out of 40, written examiner-style feedback, a list of specific strengths, and targeted improvements to focus on next time.

Every submission is saved. Progress across the five criteria is visible over time. The score feeds directly into their English mastery progression.

The five criteria examiners mark against

1Structure and paragraphs — a clear beginning, middle and end; ideas organised logically across paragraphs, each with one clear job.
2A strong opening hook — the first sentence drops the reader into an action, feeling, or image that demands to know what happens next.
3Literary devices — similes, metaphors, personification — used deliberately and integrated, not bolted on to check a box.
4Varied punctuation — colons, semicolons, dashes, ellipses — used purposefully for effect, not just for correctness.
5Emotional intelligence — conveying how characters think and feel, not just what they do. The internal dimension that connects writing to its reader.

Read the full guide to what 11+ examiners look for →

A note for parents of boys

The writing gap is real — and it's fixable

More than one in four boys leave primary school not writing at the expected level for their age. Boys are twice as likely as girls to say they actively dislike writing. By the time the 11+ arrives, creative writing can feel like the one section that's simply out of reach.

The AI writing simulator removes the environment that makes many boys shut down — no peers watching, no teacher marking with a red pen, no parent trying and failing to hide their concern. Just a prompt, a blank page, and calm, specific feedback that focuses entirely on how to improve.

The research on boys and creative writing — and what to do about it →