The Glendower 4+ Assessment Report (2026 entry)

We prepared 5 girls for their 4+ at Glendower. I’m still waiting to hear from one of my clients but so far all girls (4) have been offered a firm place to study at Glendower (2026 entry).

They all had between 3 -16 months of 4+ Assessment preparation. My recommendation is 12 months of 4+ assessment preparation.

It is not ‘easy’ to pass the 4+ assessment at Glendower and if you think this, you are so wrong. With a 1:5 chance of passing this 4+ assessment (they assess 200 girls each year), your daughter will need thorough preparation.

Three key reasons for success at Glendower:

• Girls who perform highly across the board (in all 7 areas of the EYFS curriculum)

• Regular communication between parents and teacher during the week between the lessons.

• Consistent daily activity - Girls completing all of the home learning sent every single day in preparation for this assessment.

It is important to note that all of our girls’ parents put in hours of dedicated focused learning with their daughters over the course of their time preparing them for this assessment. They worked hard. They dedicated their time and attention to their daughters. They persevered when it got hard. They trusted in the learning process and despite a lot of negativity from their nurseries/friends/families, they continued. I admire their dedication. They are my ideal clients. They are the clients we want to be working with.

Key reasons for not being successful.

All of our girls have passed so far but do not take this to mean that passing the 4+ assessment at Glendower is ‘easy’. Far from it. With a 1:5 chance of passing, it is really not an ‘easy’ assessment to pass. It is also 100% not an ‘easy’ assessment. So do get that thought out of your heads. I have personally spoken to several parents who have called me to tell me that their daughters have not passed the Glendower 4+ assessments (not my clients) or have called me to tell me that their daughter has been waitlisted.

• Girls not thoroughly prepared in the 7 areas of the EYFS curriculum.

• Girls who were not able to answer questions at the level expected from Glendower.

• Girls who need to further develop their communication and language skills.

It is important to note that all of our girls’ parents put in hours of dedicated focused learning with their daughters over the course of their time preparing them for this assessment. They worked hard. They dedicated their time and attention to their daughters. They persevered when it got hard. They trusted in the learning process and despite a lot of negativity from their nurseries/friends/families, they continued. I admire their dedication. They are my ideal clients. They are the clients we want to be working with.

Glendower is a highly competitive school at 4+ and we are delighted to have supported 5 beautiful girls this year for this school. Will all 5 go to Glendower? Let’s wait and see shall we? We are still completing other assessments currently and patiently awaiting results.

Well done to our beautiful girls who have been offered a place to study at Glendower in September 2026. You are all amazing and we are delighted and thrilled for you all.

Preparing for Glendower for 2027 entry and beyond? Book your Sample Lesson Today.

How to FAIL for 4+ assessment success- part 2

What if you made a conscious decision way before the 4+ assessments take place that even if your child does ‘fail’ an assessment that you will still be fully there for yourself and for your child. That you won’t make it mean a single thing about your child and about yourself.

There is 100% nothing wrong with your child if they do not pass a 4+ assessment.

It’s just that there will be hundreds of children that will NOT pass a 4+ assessment. If you are aware of this ahead of time, you will go into the process with a lot more calm.

What if you made a conscious decision way before the 4+ assessments take place that even if your child does ‘fail’ that you will still be kind, loving and respectful to yourselves. What if you decided that even if your child does ‘fail’ that you will not QUIT. Instead you will keep going?

So many of you (sadly) stop taking action completely because you are so afraid of this presumed ‘failure’.

But it is really important to remember this.

In order to have success, you must have failure.

Failure builds strength and confidence in both yourself and your child.

The more you fail, the more willing you will be to fail.

As a child and a young adult, I was super resistant to failure and it really held me back in more devastating and catastrophic ways than you can ever imagine. As I said, I do not dwell in the past. Rather I learn from it.

When I worked in schools, I saw this trait in many of my colleagues. They did not want to fail. Whatever that meant for them. In turn they did not want their students to fail. They would get cross with me when I would encourage their students to fail more! They simply didn’t like it or understand it!

I was the opposite (not initially however!). I failed fast. I failed often. My students did the same.

My classes were always the top classes with the best results. And do you know why?

Simply because we learnt to embrace failure.

Come out of your fake comfort zones and fail more. It doesn’t feel good in the moment. But your lives will be far more interesting and fulfilling with greater levels of failure.

And if your child ‘fails’, as in if your child is not offered a place at one of your dream schools? Don’t STOP. Keep moving. Keep going. Keep learning. There will be other chances to try again.

But guess what? If you STOP - most likely there won’t be.

Join my FREE Webinar - The 4+ Success Engine on Saturday January 31st at 3pm to learn the TRUTH that could change everything (you think) you know about the 4+ assessments.

As part of joining the FREE Webinar, you will also receive the opportunity to meet with me daily in your very own Private Live Q&A’s which will take place every day from WC 26/1/26.

Do not miss out! I rarely do these - and for FREE.

Learn how to FAIL for 4+ assessment success- PART 1

Most parents don’t achieve their 4+ dreams because they don’t want their child to ‘fail’.

Most parents don’t achieve their 4+ dreams because they have too much ego to admit to others that their child was ‘unsuccessful’.

Most of us do not like to fail.

I do not like to fail!

But…

I’ve learnt over the years to embrace failure. To become friends with failure. To sit with failure daily.

Failure simply means that something did not turn out as you expected it to.

Many parents lower their 4+ expectations because they want to avoid failure. And that’s up to them of course! No judgement at all. I didn’t send my son to one single 4+ assessment either (not because I was afraid of him failing however). Many parents do not want to feel the feelings that they will have to feel if their child ‘fails’.

One of my clients put it very well in a conversation we had last week.

She very wisely said this.

‘If she didn’t pass it is simply because the school is not right for her.’

So true. Their loss. 100%.

We are in charge of how we feel. If you go into this process knowing this, you are golden.

‘If you want success, you need to double your rate of failure’ - Thomas Watson.

The better you become at failure the better you’ll become at meeting your expectations.

And what an amazing life skill to teach your children.

Failing.

I guarantee they will be far more successful than the children who are taught to get things right all the time.

That’s what I was taught and guess what?

I only started being successful when I let go of that ridiculous notion.

I don’t look back. I look forwards. And I know that at the rate I fail, I will be incredibly successful. Just as my students who ‘fail’ every single day will be.

Book your FREE Assessment Consultation Discovery Call today

A single thought can sabotage your 4+ assessment success

Here are just 10 top thought saboteurs that can completely derail your 4+ assessment success...

1. I don’t need to prepare him/her

2. It’s just a 4+ assessment

3. He/she is only 2/3/4

4. How hard can it be?

5. My child will be just fine

6. He/she won’t need to know how to read

7. He/she won’t need to know how to write

8. They will see just how amazing he/she is.

9. Why should I spend money preparing my 2/3/4 year old for a silly little assessment.

10. This is just ridiculous.

I could give you 100 more but I simply don’t have time!

The reason our students have the incredible success that they have in their 4+ assessments is because we take action. We don’t waste our time on pointless thoughts. We don’t procrastinate and we definitely do not listen to mumsnet or our neighbour down the road. We have too much to do to waste time on that nonsense.

Taking massive action is what truly sets us apart from other parents embarking on this 4+ journey.

It really is very simple. How you think about 4+ assessment success will determine how successful your child will be - and then obviously how your child does on the day!

The thoughts you have about the 4+ will either be your driving force or they will completely stall you.

You must really pay attention to your thoughts along this 4+ assessment prep journey.

You need to think about how you can use your thoughts to drive you forwards and create the success your child deserves to have.

Thoughts like the following 3 can be far more helpful than the ones above:

1. I understand that this process is highly competitive and I will go all in to make sure that my child will go into any assessment and truly shine.

2. I will make a clear and structured plan that will support my child with their learning every single day.

3. I will allocate 3.5 hours per week to work on my child’s learning.

Do not sabotage your chances for success.

Take time to understand this highly complex process and then go all in to prepare your child.

Book your Sample lesson today.

You cannot prepare for the 4+ assessments the day or the week before.

Parents keep contacting me and asking me which activities they should be doing with their children in preparation for the second round assessments this week and next week.

That’s not how it works.

If that was how it works, I would have week long programmes rather than year long programmes.

Parents all over the country right now are frantically trying to find out what has come up in the 4+ assessments and quite frankly, it won’t help them.

Cramming never works.

People can tell you - ‘Reading came up, cvc words came up, writing came up and numbers to 20 came up!’ for example and so what?

What will you do with this information?

Get out some books and read to your child?

Show them some random cvc words and get them to read them?

Get them to write?

Get them to practise numbers 1-20?

Will that really be helpful?

Think carefully about it.

It won’t be. In fact it will probably just irritate your child. I’m here to build a love for learning across this country and not an annoyance towards it.

Learning is slow and steady. Learning is definitely not a sprint.

Especially at this very young age. Learning can also be very mood dependent at the age of 3 and 4. My son might be in the mood to do learning one day and really not on the next day. I never force learning. I let it flow very naturally.

Preparing for the 4+ assessments the day or the week before for top schools will never work. And if it does work for you, you are the exception and not the rule. And to be honest, I wouldn’t brag about it either. And if it does ‘work for you’, it’s because your son or your daughter was already more than ready for their second round 4+ assessment and definitely not because of the last minute learning you did with them.

All the best to all of our amazing clients patiently awaiting their 4+ assessment results. We have a few more next week and then we are done. Now to prepare our new cohort of students, many who started a whole year ago!

There is no GUARANTEE your child will pass their 4+ assessments.

It’s interesting because people rarely shout about the fact that their children have not passed their 4+ assessments and obviously all of these tutoring agencies want to show you how amazing they are and the results that they get. No one is really out there shouting about the children who have not passed their 4+ assessments.

But I’m here to tell you that children actually do not pass their 4+ assessments.

Shocking?

No. Not really.

If you truly understand this process, you will know that this is not shocking at all. This is a highly competitive process. This is a very complex process and one that needs dedicated and focused time and attention.

So when I speak to parents (I speak to at least 10 parents a day now and my team speak to some too!) and they tell me that they do not need to prepare for the 4+ assessments, it makes me very confused.

What makes them think this?

I think it’s because it is a well guarded secret when children are not successful in their 4+ assessments. After all, none of us want to openly speak about our children being ‘unsuccessful’. Many parents don’t even tell anyone that they are going through this process - which is wise by the way! I believe it’s fine to speak about my child being successful and being unsuccessful because I believe that life will always be 50/50. It is 50/50 for me and it will be 50/50 for him.

I think it’s important we speak the absolute truth about the 4+ assessment process so that parents can truly understand how difficult and highly complex this process is and prepare their children in the best possible way.

Know that there are children who pass.

And there are children who do not pass.

Then go all in to ensure that you do everything, and I mean everything in your power to prepare your child to go into any 4+ assessment and have the highest possible chances for success.

The biggest problem I've seen with 4+ Assessment Preparations this Year (2026 entry)

This year has been really eye-opening for me.

You see. this beautiful business grew to levels I didn’t even envision.

We have supported even more parents to be incredibly successful with their children’s 4+ assessments (over 100 children last year).

Preparing for the 4+ Assessments takes a lot of:

TIME

EFFORT

DEDICATION

5% of you are willing to invest in all three of these.

95% of you would prefer to delegate these to someone else.

And it just doesn’t work that way.

You say you put in the work to prepare your child for their 4+ assessments but what you perhaps did was hire an early years teacher who lived local to you and had the ability to come to your home once a week and ask them to prepare your child. Were you in there with your child and this teacher observing exactly what was going on? Were you in there making sure that all 7 area of the EYFS curriculum were being covered? Were you making sure your child had enough learning to get on with during the weeks between seeing your teacher?

YOU have to be willing to put in the work.

Obviously your teacher needs to be putting in the work too - but not just them. This is a team effort.

So when I speak to parents who tell me - ‘I just don’t have time to sit with my child every day!’ and ‘I work and they are at nursery every day!’ those are my red flags. Those parents will never be clients of CMT.

Listen up - I work every day and my son is pretty much at nursery every day full time AND I choose to put in the work to do quality learning with him every single day. It is my choice. And ultimately, it it the choice that over one hundred clients have made this year who have worked with us to prepare their children to be beyond ready for their 4+ assessments.

Book your Sample Lesson Today.

There will be THOSE THAT PASS and THOSE WHO DO NOT.

And if you don’t like that, then do not send your child to a 4+ assessment.

I chose not to send my son to a 4+ assessment (he is currently 3.5 years old and will be 4 in July). He would have also been 2026 entry. Not because I was afraid of him not passing (I knew that would be a possibility!) but because I will be home educating him at least in his early years.

I get it though. I take rejection very personally when it comes to my boy - and I know many of you (in fact most of you) do too.

Careful.

I see some rather unpleasant sights at the moment.

I also see humility. I see parents whose children have not passed their 4+ assessments and they take it as a learning experience. They don’t take it personally. There isn’t all this ego around it as I see around some of you. I also see humility from some of you whose children have passed but you don’t go around boasting about it. You keep it to yourselves and this is how it should be- to be quite frank.

Some of you are taking the rejection very personally.

You take it to mean that there is something wrong with your child. There is not.

You are wrong there. There is absolutely nothing ‘wrong’ with your 3 or 4 year old child.

It’s just that this is a competition.

A very complex and difficult competition and sadly one that some of you (most of you) don’t really care about trying to understand.

I will continue to try my best to teach you about it and if you want to listen to me, you will learn more about it and at the very least be empowered by having that knowledge.

Preparing your child to the best of your ability is the best way to guarantee success in the 4+ assessment process.

Can you guarantee that your child will pass? Of course not.

That will be up to your child and how they do on the day. Will they meet the threshold percentage to pass the assessment that they attended? Only they can do that.

But they can only do that by being supported with having the skills that they need to be able to demonstrate in order to ultimately be able to pass and be offered a place.

The JAGS 4+ Assessment Update 2026

The Jags 4+ assessment was last week.

We prepared 3 girls for their 4+ at this very popular school.

I strongly believe that they have all done incredibly well.

Our girls who attended their 4+ had varying time frames of tuition ranging from 3 months to 12 months of 4+ assessment preparation. Based on how challenging the assessment was this year, I strong recommend that you have the full 12 months of Assessment prep for Jags. So the time to start is now!

Fascinating that everything that came up in the JAGS 4+ assessment was everything that our students had covered with us apart from one word that they were asked to read, everything else that we covered in our bespoke Curriculum Programmes came up.

Do you know why that is?

It’s because we have prepared our girls for the 4+ at JAGS for nearly 20 years.

So what actually came up in the JAGS 4+ assessment?

Do you really think that I would reveal that here? Absolutely not!

But what I will reveal is this…

Your daughter MUST cover all 7 areas of the EYFS consistently and frequently over the course of 12 months at a minimum. If you can have longer- better.

Book your Sample Lesson and Sample Week Today.

Don't get lost in the 4+ maze of LIES and DECEIT

Deceiving someone means to conceal or to misrepresent the truth.

There’s a lot of that going on currently in the 4+ world.

This is just sad. Very sad. Heart breaking actually.

One of my clients told me yesterday that it was a ‘blood bath’. Another client told me that parents were flat out lying, deceiving and being fake.

I want no part of this.

And I feel compassion for every single one of you who is going through this 4+ assessment process because ultimately all you truly desire is the best of the best for your child. I do too. And I fully know how hard this is and how confusing it can be and how completely overwhelming you might be feeling. I feel it too.

But there are too many lies going around and I will be blocking and deleting certain followers who have insulted myself and my clients deeply with some of their vicious lies. It is wrong. I will have no part of it.

Listen up, if you want to listen to someone who has supported thousands of children to gain entry into top schools such as Habs (boys and girls), NLCS and South Hampstead at 4+ (to name very few), listen very carefully. If a child passes their 4+ assessment (at most schools) it is because they have shown exceptional academic and behavioural capability and capacity.

Merely setting foot into a 4+ assessment does NOT guarantee a place at that school. These top schools will have their own complex criteria that your child has to meet in order to pass their 4+ assessment at that school. Your child will need to meet a certain percentage threshold in order to actually pass their 4+ assessments.

And careful as people will literally lie to you and tell you that their child has passed when really they have not. Call it pride or whatever you want, this is so wrong. You are deceiving parents - stop it. Tell the truth.

People will lie to you and tell you to send your child in unprepared. You are deceiving parents - stop it. Tell the truth.

Please will lie to you and tell you that because of VAT these schools are desperate for kids (heads up, they’re not desperate for anything or anyone). You are deceiving parents - stop it. Tell the truth.

Don't get lost in the 4+ maze of LIES and DECEIT.

Work with teachers who actually know how to support all of their students to have tremendous success in their 4+ assessments.

Book your Sample Lesson today.

The South Hampstead 4+ Assessment Update 2026

We prepared a lot of girls for the 4+ at South Hampstead this year.

Way more than ever before.

Some who didn’t pass, I’ll be honest - it was a surprise to us. We believe that some of our girls should have passed. At the end of the day it simply highlights this to us…

This is a competition.

And a fierce one at that with only 24 places on offer. And if you don’t like that, do not apply for this school. It really is very simple.

I spoke to many a heart broken parent after the first round at SH. Clients who worked and continue to work with CMT were upset but not heart broken. Why? Because they fully understood the assessment process at SH. They had worked with us. We have been preparing for SH historically for nearly 20 years now. The only difference is that now we are preparing a much larger number of girls and it will only become more and more as the years go on.

The girls who we prepared who did not pass SH have passed the likes of Westminster (Round 1). That’s just to highlight to you how high the competition was this year (and is every single year).

I say this to make you aware that people can sugarcoat these assessments as much as they want but the 4+ at SH will not be a walk in the park. Many of our girls have passed round 1 but this really doesn’t mean anything. They still need to pass the second round. We have been studying and taking massive action all through the December break. But it’s still a competition.

SH will take the best of the best and there will be a slight preference towards girls with siblings (they still need to perform exceptionally well) but this is what I’ve seen to be the case anyway.

What does ‘best of the best’ even mean? Work only with teachers who can support you with truly understanding what this means and how to support your daughter to have the highest possible chances of success in her SH 4+ assessment.

Book your Sample Lesson today.

The Glendower 4+ Assessment Update 2026

My 2025 results are incorrect. You see both of our girls were offered a place and not just 1! I just hadn’t heard from my client until way after the results were published!

Well, both girls that we prepared passed last year are currently studying in Year 1 at Glendower.

I am still personally working with one of these girls and I am still in touch with my other client.

Both girls are thriving there and making beautiful progress. Both girls are very happy there. Both girls are bright, confident and vibrant individuals.

Glendower only provide a very small paragraph of information about the 4+ assessments on their Website. I’ve written 5 or 6 very detailed blogs so do search for them if you’d like to inform yourselves better about this 4+ assessment.

At nearly £32k per year, this is one of the more expensive schools that we prepare for. If your daughter studies at Glendower up until Year 6, you are looking at a minimum at an investment of £220k (if pricing increases which it does every year, you are looking at more than this).

If you are preparing for the 4+ assessment at Glendower, our average client invests 2k into preparing their child for their assessments.

At the end of the day, if you are preparing for the Glendower 4+ assessment, your daughter will need to be prepared.

And no - a nursery alone will not prepare your daughter.

And no - a pre- school alone will not prepare your daughter.

And no - not practising the skills needed to be demonstrated in her 4+ assessment will not prepare your daughter.

And no - it is not true that you do not need to prepare for this 4+ assessment.

And no - Just because she goes to the Little Glendower Nursery does not mean that she will automatically be offered a place there.

We are preparing 8 girls for their 4+ assessment at Glendower this year. 6 of these girls have completed the full 12 month programme with either myself or one of of my Assessment Specialist teachers. 2 of these girls have completed the 3 month programme. I will share my results once I have them.

All of our girls have made so much progress. They are all beyond ready for their 4+ assessments and I am so excited to see how they get on!

Preparing for the 4+ at Glendower for 2027 entry and beyond? Now is the exact time to start your 12 month programme with us.

Join our Waiting List Today.

Book Your Sample Lesson Today.

Bute House Confusion

Having prepared several girls for this assessment, I’m very well aware of what is involved. I’m very well aware of the standards expected by Bute House and I’m very well aware of the calibre of girl who is offered a place to study at Bute House.

My client sent me a mumsnet post the other day and I found it fascinating and also utterly destructive to other parents reading her experience and most likely believing what she is writing.

Obviously, you are free to believe whatever you want to believe!

This mother writes that her daughter was offered a place at Bute House (7+) and she writes about how proud she is that she ‘didn’t tutor her daughter’.

Listen up, she 100% did tutor her daughter. She taught her herself (supposedly!). So she tutored her! Why is tutoring such a dirty word? Tutoring just means teaching. They are the exactly same, identical thing. So if you are teaching your child yourself, you are tutoring them. Understand that. All this nonsense I hear from parents who tell me ‘I didn’t tutor my child.’

Yes you 100% did.

After going on about her daughter not being tutored she then goes on to speak about all of the learning her daughter did each week at home in preparation for her Bute House 7+ Assessment. So she was tutored!

She goes on to tell her readers that Bute House doesn’t do ‘formal written assessments’ and instead invite girls to a ‘day at school’. Complete and utter nonsense and very misleading to parents who will believe what she is writing! Yes, it’s a day at school. But your daughter will complete ‘formal written assessments’. Specifically a maths paper, a reading paper and a writing paper. Bute House also write that they ‘do not follow a traditional paper based format’ - not sure what they mean by this or what it implies.

So yes, it will be a lovely day at school for your daughter but really no body is interested in the fact that your daughter had a ‘lovely time’. If her daughter passed, it’s because she passed each aspect of this 7+ Assessment. It’s because she met the high academic threshold, it’s because she was able to demonstrate confidence and exceptional capabilities in her 7+ Assessment. It is because she was very well prepared.

Bute House also say not to have your daughter tutored because she will then not be able to keep up with the academic standards of the school further down the line. I think tutoring has been completely misunderstood by some. Tutored girls are the ones who will pass their 7+ Assessment at Bute House. Those who are not, will not stand a chance. At the end of the day, your daughter needs to meet a percentage point in order to pass. Also, most of our girls who pass Bute continue with us. Bute is not the end goal. The 11+ is the ultimate end goal!

Simple.

Oh and by the way, don’t let anyone tell you not to have your daughter tutored. Even if your daughter is successful at Bute House, having tuition is just a beautiful complement to that.

Preparing for Bute House for 2027 entry and beyond?

Join our Waiting List today or Book your Sample lesson and sample week.

'I'm scared this will be damaging to my child.'

Oh please.

Do, calm down.

You’ve totally misunderstood what we are doing here.

The only thing that could be ‘damaging’ to your child would be your attitude towards their learning.

Show a negative attitude and guess what?

Your child will not love learning.

Show a positive attitude and poof, just like that, your child will experience something completely different.

What we do will never be damaging to your child.

You see, what we do is the following:

We instil a deep love for learning that will stay with your child long after their assessments are complete.

We provide our clients with our full support with supporting their children with their learning.

We accelerate learning in a way that you won’t even imagine possible.

We build the best relationships with our students where they truly look forward to seeing us and learning with us.

So you see, what we do can never be damaging to your child.

And also, please do think carefully before you speak.

My son is definitely not damaged. My child is deeply loved and I do 30 minutes of learning a day with him. My child loves his childhood and he does maths and english with me every day. My child is the happiest boy I know and he learns how to cut, complete puzzles, draw, write, build lego creations and make things with play doh. My child is deeply curious and highly inquisitive and he can answer level 4 questions about anything.

Ultimately, if you’re sending your child to a 4+ assessment, your child needs a full year of assessment preparation. So really if you are reading this now and your child’s assessments are in 2026/2027, you are already starting late.

Just get started.

Our year long programmes continue to have exceptional results.

Let’s go.

Book your Sample Lesson with an assessment specialist today.

How is perseverance assessed in a 4+ assessment?

I was asked this question last week and I thought it was a brilliant one.

I often speak about perseverance with my clients who are sending their children to a 4+ assessment.

Perseverance to me means trying your best. Perseverance means not giving up. Perseverance means having a go even when it is ‘too hard’.

I hear many of you right now!

‘But my kid is 2/3/4!’

Yeh, and what?

Perseverance will be assessed in your child’s 4+ assessment.

Your child will be given a task or tasks that are simply too challenging for them to complete.

Will your child have a go or will your child simply say no?

Will your child have a go or will your child say ‘I don’t know!’

Will your child have a go or will your child walk away to an activity that they prefer?’

Think about it carefully.

Which child will they choose?

They will 100% choose the child who gives it a go.

And if they get it wrong I hear you say?

It doesn’t matter. They’ve given it a go.

No on is looking for a robot who gets everything right.

What these top schools are looking for is for children who have a natural curiosity for learning. They are looking for children who actually want to learn and who they do not need to persuade to learn. They are looking for children who will persevere.

The way it will be assessed is super simple.

The assessor/s will provide your child with a task that your child will deem too hard. This could be a larger puzzle than they are used to, this could be a tricky obstacle course that they need to navigate a car around, this could be a tricky lego creation that they are asked to build. It could be any activity that the assessors decide upon.

The child who perseveres will be the child who has a go.

The child who does not persevere will do the opposite.

Simple.

The 7 Fundamentals of 4+ Assessment Success

Jim Rohn defines fundamentals as those basic principles on which all accomplishment is built.

Fundamentals are where we start in our 4+ assessment preparation process.

The 7 fundamentals are the keys to our 4+ assessment success.

The 7 fundamentals to 4+ assessment success have always been the same. They’ve not changed.

When I talk about 4+ assessment success, I am actually not only referring to my students passing their 4+ assessments. Of course, I consider this to be success but honestly, this is just the starting point. Fundamental success is success that lasts. Fundamental success is built on a solid foundation.

The only one thing that you need to do in order to have success in the 4+ assessments is to consistently work on these 7 fundamentals over the course of at least 12 months.

Stick to these 7 fundamentals and the success of your child will be inevitable. Not only in their 4+ assessments but in their development of their love for learning. Their hunger for learning. Their desire to want to learn.

This is no small thing.

This is huge.

What is your true commitment to study and truly support your child with these 7 fundamentals?

Are you willing to ‘sacrifice’ at least half an hour a day (split up as you wish) to spending that time teaching your child?

I spoke to a parent once who said to me, ‘I don’t have time to sit with her for 30 minutes a day - I work!’

I said to her, ‘You won’t be my client then.’

And that’s ok.

Only by supporting your child with each one of these 7 fundamentals consistently and daily, will you have 4+ assessment success.

So before starting out on your 4+ assessment journey, ask yourself this one question…

What are the 7 things that I can do that will make the most difference to my child’s ability to have the success that I want them to have with their learning?

If you don’t know, speak to someone who does.

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The three learning behaviours that I have observed in the last 20 years.

The three learning behaviours that I have observed in the last nearly 20 years.

I’ve worked with thousands of children and this is totally my opinion. One that you 100% do not need to agree with. You can of course have your own opinion about this!

There is a pattern that I see in children that I teach. I see three learning behaviours in the children that I teach.

Keep in mind that I’ve taught across London in Private Schools, State schools and academies. I now teach children privately as a teacher for my own company and I work exclusively on a 1:1 basis with children from the ages of 17 months all the way to the age of 11. This blog refers to children of all ages.

I am referring to children who do not have diagnosed learning difficulties in this blog.

Here are the three learning behaviours that I see on a daily basis and that I have encountered working in schools across London.  

1.        Enthusiastic and mot ivated learners.  

2.        Hard to engage learners.  

3.        Those who do not have the desire to want to learn.

Enthusiastic and motivated learners are obviously the easiest to teach. They want to be in the lessons with me. They are hungry to learn and they want more, more, more. A dream to teach.

Hard to engage learners are the children that I need to work harder to maintain their focus and attention. They are the children who kind of want to learn but haven’t quite made up their mind about it. Perhaps they’d rather be outside playing with their friends or perhaps they’d just rather do something else, but they do on occasion try their best and on occasion choose not to.

Learners who do not have the desire to want to learn are obviously the hardest to teach initially. They  just don’t want to be there. They do not find what I have to teach very interesting. They would prefer to do anything but be there with me. Children who do not have the desire to want to learn will often cry as a way to not have to do what I have asked them to do or they simply will steer the conversation in a different direction to avoid having to actually do much of what I had planned to do with them.

I have a very strong ability of supporting all of my students to become enthusiastic and motivated regardless of which learning behaviour they demonstrate when they start working with me.

You see to me it isn’t a problem that they are hard to engage and for me it isn’t a problem if they don’t have the desire to want to learn (initially). I take full responsibility as their teacher to support them to become students who truly love learning and who truly want to learn. I will be the one to support them to become enthusiastic and truly passionate about their learning, with the full support of their parents of course.

With the correct support from my clients, with their full belief in my process and with their trust, most often than not I am successful.

That is what I do.

That is what we do here at CMT.

The clients who understand us and what we offer are the ones who know this one thing.

We are so much more than just a tutoring agency.

What we provide goes so far above and beyond what anyone else offers on the market it actually surprises me sometimes that I offer everything that I do here at CMT.

We offer so much more than just one lesson once a week.

First of all, we create a personalised and bespoke curriculum plan for each of our students based on all of the areas of learning that they need to cover in order to be successful in their assessments – whichever assessments these may be.

Second of all, we update these curriculum documents every single week to reflect how our students are doing and the curriculum they are covering.

Next, we provide our students with home learning which targets all of the areas of learning on their curriculum plans.

We also provide learning that will support our clients to fill any gaps that their children might have or support them to gain mastery in that area.

We are available to our clients every single day to answer any questions that they might have.

We have such beautiful relationship with our students and our clients and the relationships we build with them is so incredibly important to us.

We are so much more than just a tutoring agency.

We will be there for our clients every step of the way. Always. You see- their success is our success.

Most of our clients continue to work with us long after the assessments have completed for their children. They see the immense value that we offer. They see the progress their children make each week/each month/each year. They see the deep love for learning that their children acquire through working with us.

Most of our clients will stay with us for 4-5 years.

That’s how we are so different.

We are truly passionate about what we do and we only want to work with parents who are truly passionate about supporting their children to have a true passion for learning that will go far beyond any assessment and follow them into their later years.

Parents who don’t see that will not be our clients for very long and that’s just fine.

Is 'correct' pencil grip really so important for the 4+ assessments?

When a child has the ‘correct grip’ of a pencil, they will enjoy the ‘writing’ process so much more than if they have the ‘incorrect grip’.

If your child can master the ‘correct grip’, they will have strong stability in their pencil hold. Your child will have more range and freedom of movement as they make marks on their page.

This is exactly why my bespoke year long programme of study includes tonnes of fine motor skills development. This is why we work on things like play doh, lego, beading and puzzles consistently and daily from a very young age (17 months - 3 years of age). Supporting your child with their fine motor skills will help them to develop the ‘correct grip’. I can tell immediately by looking at how a child hold their pencil if they have strong fine motor skills or not.

An ‘incorrect grip’ will inevitably lead to frustration, discomfort, fatigue, a lack of desire to write/draw/mark make and ultimately untidy handwriting in their later years.

You cannot rush a child into developing their ‘correct’ pencil grip so never, ever do this. If they haven’t mastered it and you have your 4+ assessments coming up in the next 3-4 weeks, support your child very gently by providing them with lots of fine motor activities such as play doh/lego/ puzzles and show them daily how you’d like them to try to hold their pencil. Do what your can. That’s the most your can do.

In a 4+ assessment, having the ‘correct’ pencil grip is very important in my humble opinion not because of the grip itself but because it reveals a lot about the child’s development in other key areas of learning.

I don’t really care about 4+ assessments when it comes to pencil grip. What I care about is instilling a love for writing/drawing/mark making in my very young students that will follow them into their older years and remove a load of completely unnecessary problems.

Build strong foundations. See incredible results.

Who are the girls who have passed the 4+ Assessment at NLCS?

If you truly want your daughter to go to NLCS from Reception, you need to know exactly what NLCS will be looking for in the 4+ Assessment. If you don’t know this, how will you ever prepare her to go in and pass?

Your daughter will need thorough and bespoke preparation for NLCS. You absolutely must only work with a teacher who has real and actual experience with this school otherwise you really are wasting your time.

NLCS is one of the hardest schools to get into at 4+ (and 7+!) but today I am talking about the 4+.

Don’t ever underestimate how hard it will be to get into this school.

This school is so overly subscribed each year. Hundreds of parents want their daughter to go to North London Collegiate School. At least 500 girls will be applying to do their 4+ Assessment for 2026 entry. There are 40 places on offer! You do the math!

Having visited it several times myself and even having lunch there once with the teachers, I have seen exactly what it is like to be at this school. Their facilities are exceptional and the grounds are just divine. I get it!

I have prepared hundreds of girls for the 4+ Assessment at NLCS over the last nearly 20 years and what I’ve learnt is this. Passing the first round is very challenging. As in, it’s very hard to pass!

If your daughter does pass, passing the second round is also challenging but not as challenging as the first round (if you have the right support in place!)

If your daughter makes it to the second round, it’s because NLCS have seen that she is the right fit for their school. They have seen through assessing her that she will be able to thrive at their school. In the second round, they will be assessing her further, deeper and more thoroughly (way smaller groups than the first round).

NLCS have a very specific Assessment criteria in the sense of what they are looking for. Of course, I’m not going to give that away here!

The girls who have passed the 4+ Assessment at NLCS have been girls who are calm, very mature for their age, a delight to teach, ‘easy’ to teach, kind, sociable, excellent listeners, highly intellectual and just genuinely a pleasure to be around.

Preparing for 2027 entry? Join our Waiting List today. Once joined, I will be personally in touch to choose your preferred days and times to begin from January/February 2026. The Waiting List fee will make up your registration fee once you start your Curriculum Programme.