The result has arrived. Here is what to do next, whatever it says.

If your child qualified

Congratulations, and then do the paperwork. A score above the mark means your child is eligible, not placed. Places are allocated against each school's own admission rules, which is why families with the same score get different outcomes.

1. Put the grammar school in your council application, in the order you genuinely want the schools, by 31 October.
2. Name other schools you would be happy with too. Ranking a realistic school lower down never counts against a higher preference.
3. Read that school's oversubscription criteria: distance, catchment, siblings and banding decide who gets a place among qualifiers.
4. If there is a second stage test or an interview, keep practising in short sessions rather than long ones.

Between now and September, the useful work is not more 11 Plus practice. It is arriving in Year 7 confident in the topics secondary school starts with.

If your child did not qualify

First, the thing worth saying out loud in front of them: a mark on one morning in September does not measure a child. The 11 Plus is a test of a narrow set of skills under timed conditions, sat at ten years old, against a cohort that includes children who were coached for two years.

Then, the practical part. You still have choices, and they have a deadline.

1. Apply by 31 October for the schools you do want, in honest order of preference. This is the single most important thing you will do this month.
2. Ask your council how waiting lists work locally. Places move in March and again over the summer as families accept other offers.
3. Ask whether the school has a review or appeal route and what its deadline is. Appeals are usually heard in the spring and are decided on the case you make, so gather evidence early.
4. Look at the schools you have not looked at yet. Parents often discover the one down the road is doing better by children like theirs than the one they were fixed on.

What helps more than an appeal

Whatever school your child walks into next September, they will be graded on what they know then, not on what happened in Year 6. The gap that shows up in Year 7 maths and English is usually a handful of specific topics, and those are fixable in weeks once you know which ones they are.

Find the actual gaps, free, in about fifteen minutes

WAJD is free for every child: no cost, no ads and nothing sold on. Start with the free assessment. Your child answers questions that adapt as they go, and you get a plain report naming the topics they have mastered and the ones they have not, rather than a percentage.

From there they get a teaching pathway for their level: a written lesson to read, then practice with instant marking and a worked answer every time they get one wrong. KS3 is the level most of this year's Year 6 children need next, and every one of its 169 topics now has a lesson.

No sign up is needed to read the papers or to practise. An account only saves progress.