How to Prepare for the ISEB Pre-Tests — Calmly

Year 5, autumn & spring · Secure the foundations

The Pre-Tests are anchored to the curriculum, so the best preparation is mastering Year 5 as it is taught: fluent arithmetic, daily reading (fiction, non-fiction and some poetry), and a growing word bank. No test-format work needed yet.

Year 5, summer term · Gentle familiarisation

Introduce the question formats little and often: cloze and shuffled sentences, letter codes, cube counting. Keep sessions short (15–20 minutes) and end on a win. Most selective-school deadlines fall in Oct–Nov of Year 6, so this summer is the consolidation window.

Early autumn, Year 6 · Rehearse the real experience

Do ISEB’s free official walkthrough so the player feels familiar. Practise on-screen, forward-only sittings under time so “no going back” becomes normal rather than alarming. One or two full-length rehearsals a week is plenty.

The final week · Taper

Light review only — a few minutes of vocabulary and mental arithmetic a day. Sort logistics: venue, arrival time, glasses. Early nights. A calm child recovers from early wobbles; the adaptive algorithm is designed to allow exactly that.

Test day

Good breakfast, arrive early, and remind them: harder questions usually mean they are doing well, nobody answers everything, and one shaky answer never decides the result. Answer, commit, move on.