You’re investing a significant amount of money in an 11+ tutor. Your child’s maths and reasoning scores are steadily improving, and they seem to be keeping up in their group sessions. Yet, when you look at their creative writing, something is missing. It’s not bad, but it’s not brilliant. It lacks the spark, the sophistication, and the technical skill you know they’ll need to stand out in the entrance exams for highly selective independent schools like JAGS, Trinity, or Alleyn’s.

If this sounds familiar, you are not alone. The hard truth is that most generic 11+ tuition centres, despite their best intentions, are simply not equipped to prepare students for the unique and varied challenges of the independent school writing exams.

Here’s why your generalist tutor might be failing your child, and what you can do about it.

The Problem: A One-Size-Fits-All Approach

The majority of the 11+ market is geared towards grammar school entrance exams. These exams are typically focused on multiple-choice questions covering Maths, English (often comprehension and SPaG), Verbal Reasoning, and Non-Verbal Reasoning. The creative writing component, if it exists at all, is often a single, predictable task.

Most tuition centres, therefore, build their business model around this format. They teach in groups, using standardised worksheets and a curriculum designed to cover the most common question types. This is an efficient and often effective model for grammar school preparation.

However, it is a deeply flawed model for preparing for the top independent schools, whose writing exams are anything but standard.

Why This Fails for Independent Schools

1. They Don’t Know the Formats

Could your tutor confidently explain the difference between the writing tasks at **JAGS** (story vs. description), **Trinity** (passage-based), and **City of London Girls** (creative + discursive)? The answer is almost certainly no. A generalist tutor teaches a generic “how to write a story” method. They are not specialists in the nuanced and varied formats of these top-tier schools. They are preparing your child for a different, simpler test.

2. Group Tuition is Ineffective for Writing

Improving creative writing is an intensely personal process. It requires a deep dive into an individual child’s work to identify their specific strengths and weaknesses. This is impossible in a group setting of 5, 10, or even 15 students. A tutor cannot give the detailed, line-by-line feedback required while simultaneously managing a whole class. Your child might get a quick tick and a “Good work!” but they are not getting the forensic analysis that leads to real improvement.

3. The Feedback is Vague and Forgettable

Because of the time constraints of a group session, any feedback given is likely to be verbal, brief, and generic. A tutor might say, “Try to use more interesting words.” But what does that actually mean to a 10-year-old? Which words? Where? Why? This advice is forgotten the moment your child leaves the classroom.

4. They Focus on the Wrong Skills

A significant portion of group tuition time is spent on the more easily teachable elements of English: spelling, punctuation, and grammar (SPaG). While important, SPaG is just the foundation. The top independent schools are looking for much more: narrative voice, character development, atmosphere, pacing, and originality. These are complex skills that cannot be taught with a worksheet.

The Solution: A Specialist for a Specialist Exam

You wouldn’t ask your GP to perform heart surgery. So why would you use a generalist 11+ tutor to prepare your child for one of the most specialist and competitive writing exams in the country?

To succeed, your child needs a specialist who lives and breathes these exams. Someone who knows the difference between the JAGS and Dulwich formats, who understands what examiners at Trinity are looking for, and who can provide the kind of detailed, personal feedback that actually makes a difference.

Our school-specific creative writing courses are the antidote to the generic 11+ tuition model. We are the specialists.

We know the formats: Our courses are built from the ground up for a single school’s exam.
The feedback is personal: Our video marking provides a 15-minute, one-to-one masterclass on your child’s own work.
The feedback is memorable: Your child can re-watch their personal video feedback as many times as they need.
We focus on the right skills: We teach the advanced techniques that separate a good piece of writing from a great one.

Stop paying for a service that isn’t designed for your goals. Invest in a specialist approach and give your child the best possible chance of success.

Explore our range of school-specific courses and see the difference a specialist can make.