Every diagnostic below is free, ours, and yours to print. Twenty questions, about an hour, no calculator. It is not a test to pass — the wrong answers are the useful part, because each one is written to reveal a particular misunderstanding rather than just to be wrong.
Grades below are a starting point, not a verdict. Most grades have two papers because the interesting question is not whether a child is at grade level — it is which ideas underneath are secure. Start with the one at their grade; if it is uncomfortable, drop to the one below.
Nothing automatic. Bring it to a consultation, or send it with a registration, and a tutor reads it — the pattern of errors, not the score. Placement is decided by a person looking at the working, and never by a mark out of twenty.
Deliberately. A marked-out-of-twenty at the kitchen table is the one reading of this paper we would ask you not to take, and it is also the reading a key invites. Send us the working instead and we will tell you what it shows, free, whether or not you go on to enrol.
Choose a paper
Two papers for most grades: the level usually taught at that grade, and the one before it. If you are unsure, the earlier paper tells you more.
A child working comfortably above their grade should try the paper above instead. Nothing here is a ceiling: we place by what the working shows, which is why the ten levels are named for mathematics rather than for school years.
Sitting the paper
A blank says “I have not met this.” A guess says nothing at all. We would far rather see an honest gap than a lucky mark.
The method tells us more than the answer. A right answer by a fragile method is the thing most likely to collapse next year.
Not a hint, not a nudge. Anything explained at the table is a gap we will not find, and will meet later anyway.
It can be finished another day. This is a picture of understanding, not a race, and a tired child’s paper misleads everybody.
Next step
Send it to a free consultation and we will tell you what it shows — which ideas are secure, which are fragile, and which level we would place your child in. If we are not the right help, we will say so.
