What is the GL Assessment?

If you've started looking into 11+ preparation, you've almost certainly come across GL Assessment. It's the most widely used provider of 11+ tests in England, covering areas including Kent, Lincolnshire, Yorkshire, parts of London, and many others. Understanding what GL actually tests — and how it's scored — makes it much easier to plan your child's preparation rather than just buying workbooks and hoping for the best.

GL Assessment is part of the GL Education Group, a commercial publisher. Unlike CEM, which emerged from academic research, GL has a long history of producing structured educational assessments, and that history shows in how the 11+ tests are designed. The papers follow consistent, learnable formats. Question types within each paper are predictable. That consistency is one of the things that makes GL preparation straightforward to plan — you know what you're preparing for.

The standard GL 11+ consists of four separate papers: Maths, English, Verbal Reasoning, and Non-Verbal Reasoning. Each is a distinct sitting, usually spread across one or two test sessions. The Maths paper covers the primary curriculum with some stretch — fractions, percentages, ratio, problem-solving, and data handling. English covers comprehension, grammar, punctuation, and sometimes creative writing or cloze tests. Verbal Reasoning tests language-based logic: word relationships, analogies, codes, missing letters. Non-Verbal Reasoning involves shapes and spatial patterns — sequences, reflections, rotations, analogies in visual form.

Within each paper, the question types are consistent and practisable. A child who has worked through enough Verbal Reasoning questions will recognise the format of a letter-code question the moment they see it. That recognition buys them time and confidence. This is where GL preparation differs meaningfully from CEM — targeted practice on specific question types genuinely pays off.

Scoring is where GL surprises many parents. Raw marks are converted to standardised scores, adjusted for a child's age on the day of the exam. A child who sits the test a few days before their birthday is effectively being compared against their peers at a slight disadvantage — and the age standardisation is designed to correct for this. A standardised score of around 111 is typically considered pass threshold for selective grammar schools, though schools and cohorts vary and you shouldn't treat any number as definitive. Scores of 121 and above are generally considered strong, but the competitive threshold at any given school depends on how other children in that cohort performed. The only reliable source for a specific school's typical intake scores is the school itself.

One thing parents sometimes overlook is that age standardisation works both ways. A summer-born child — one of the youngest in their year — can sometimes be disadvantaged in raw ability at the time of testing, even if they're intellectually capable. The standardisation is meant to account for this, but it's worth knowing that summer-born children often benefit particularly from an early start to preparation, giving them time to close any developmental gap before the test.

On timing: starting prep in Year 4 or early Year 5 gives most families enough runway to cover all four subject areas without creating unsustainable pressure. There's no need to work intensively from the moment you decide to enter — short, regular sessions over a longer period produce better retention and less burnout than cramming in the months immediately before the test. A few sessions a week from Year 5, rising to more frequent practice in the summer before Year 6, is a common and sensible pattern.

If you're weighing up GL against CEM — perhaps because the schools you're considering use different providers — the clearest difference is in how the papers are structured. GL papers are sectioned by subject, with consistent question types within each section. CEM mixes subjects throughout and changes format rapidly. GL rewards structured, topic-by-topic preparation; CEM rewards broader reasoning agility. You can read more about what CEM involves in our guide to CEM.

For families with children who have particular strengths in some areas and gaps in others, GL's subject-separated format is actually an advantage. You can identify where your child needs more work — whether that's Non-Verbal Reasoning or English comprehension — and focus preparation there without feeling like you're always covering everything at once. The structure gives you something to plan against.