11+ Test CoachYou're in charge. Here's the manual.
11+ Test Coach gives your child a friendly, self-contained place to practise — and gives you a PIN-protected Parent Mode with full control over how they practise, how much help they get, and what they're working towards. This page walks through all of it, with real screenshots.
Getting set up
Setup takes a few minutes and the app does the thinking for you:
- Add your child — name, age, and a profile they'll recognise. You can add more than one child and switch between them anywhere in Parent Mode.
- Pick your target schools from the built-in database of 248 grammar and selective schools. The app automatically limits practice to the subjects those schools actually test — no wasted effort.
- Choose your 4-digit PIN. Everything parent-facing sits behind it: settings, progress, rewards, data. The child side stays simple and safe.
- Set up PIN recovery. Email yourself a one-time recovery code (Tools → Support → PIN recovery). Forget the PIN later? After five wrong attempts the app offers a reset that accepts that code — how it works.
From then on, opening the app lands on a friendly profile picker: your child taps their name and goes straight to practice; you tap Parent Mode and enter your PIN.
The starting assessment
Before the daily missions begin, each subject offers a starting assessment: 20 questions covering ten topics, two questions per topic, so the app can work out where your child actually is — topic by topic, not as one average. It is deliberately not a test: there is no timer, no pass mark, and Taco stays quiet so the picture is honest.
The second question on each topic depends on the first. Get the first one right and the next steps up; get it wrong and the next steps down — never up. That single rule is what separates a child who has the basics but not the standard question from one who has neither, and it means nobody is handed a harder question moments after getting one wrong.
It matters because everything afterwards is built on it. The result sets the difficulty your child's practice starts at, so the first week is neither demoralising nor pointless. It takes about 15 minutes per subject.
You control whether it happens: switch on Taco invites your child in Parent Mode → Starting Assessments and Taco does the asking. Until a subject's assessment is done, every route into that subject's practice leads back to it — so it can't be skipped by accident.
What your child sees
Twenty questions, one at a time, with a progress bar and no clock. Reading questions come with their passage attached, and maths and verbal reasoning keep the squared-paper notepad for working out. There is no Back button: their answer chooses the next question, so it moves forward only — as an exam does.
They can stop at any point. Tap Quit and the app offers Save and Exit — their place and every answer so far are kept, and the assessment is waiting exactly where they left it next time they open the app. Even if the phone is closed mid-question, nothing is lost. Discard is there for an assessment started by mistake.
Nothing about it is scored in front of them. The screen at the end talks about where to start, not what they got wrong.
What it tells you
The finish screen is deliberately gentle with your child and genuinely useful to you:
- A level for every topic — Ahead, Secure, Building or Needs support — and the app immediately starts that topic's practice there. Fractions can begin at the top level while geometry begins at the bottom, because they were measured separately.
- Work on these first — the weak topics, weakest first, with the two questions that decided each one.
- Already secure — what they can genuinely do, so you know what not to spend the evenings on.
The topic-by-topic breakdown lives in Parent Mode → Starting Assessments. The assessment is recorded exactly like a completed mission, so its 20 questions flow into your progress charts, subject accuracy, weekly summary and PDF reports, and every question they got wrong is waiting in Mistakes to practise again. Your child earns XP for it too — effort counts, whatever the score.
Assessments can be retaken after a fortnight if you want a fresh read, from Parent Mode → Starting Assessments.
Master a Skill
The starting assessment finds your child's level in each topic. Master a Skill is how they climb it: pick one topic — fractions, say — and work on nothing else for ten questions. Three correct answers in a row secure the current level and step the questions up; a wrong answer never steps up, and two wrong step gently back down. It is the same ladder the assessment uses, now with your child doing the climbing.
Every answer is marked on the spot, because this mode is for learning rather than testing — your child sees each rung as they take it. Taco's hints are welcome throughout, but here is the part worth knowing before you praise a badge: a hint-assisted answer doesn't count towards the climb. The ladder is your child's own work.
At the top waits the trophy. Mastered means proven — 8 of the last 10 answers correct at the hardest level, without hints. It can't be earned by grinding, and once earned it is never taken away. Each mastered topic also pays a one-off 50 XP bonus.
Why one topic at a time
Children like beating one boss before the next — and it works. Securing a level immediately raises that topic's difficulty everywhere in the app, so the daily missions follow the climb straight away. A child who masters fractions this week is practising harder fractions in tomorrow's mission, not repeating what they've already proven.
The map remembers everything: each topic shows its rungs filling in and the star waiting at the top, so "5 of 12 topics mastered" becomes a goal your child can see and chase. Your child finds it under Subjects → any subject → Master a Skill; each subject offers the topics its question bank can support all the way to the top level.
In Parent Mode, Tools → Skill Mastery shows you the same map in plain language — which topics are mastered, which are mid-climb, where each topic's practice sits — plus Good next climbs: topics the starting assessment flagged as weak, so the diagnosis and the treatment point at each other. One topic at a time works best; a finished climb is worth more than three abandoned ones.
A little every day, guided by Taco
Each subject gives your child a daily mission — around ten questions, mixed across the topics that need attention, sized to take about eight minutes. Finishing earns XP, keeps their streak alive and unlocks treats for Taco, the app's endlessly encouraging hamster coach.
- Quick Quiz for a fast burst on any topic.
- Beat the Clock mode to build exam pace, gently — running out of time never blocks an answer.
- Mock tests in the real format when you decide they're ready.
During any set of questions, Taco walks along the progress bar at the top — a step forward with every answer, with the bar catching him up at the finish. It's a small thing that gives children a reason to see a mission through (there's more on it in the kids' guide).
Every question has a clear explanation afterwards, and children can report any question that seems off — reports arrive in your Parent Mode.
What kind of coach do you want Taco to be?
Families disagree about hints — some want a tutor at their child's elbow, some want exam conditions. So the help level is your setting, not ours. In Parent Mode → Manage Child → Taco Help settings you choose how much help Taco offers, per child:
The encourager
Two escalating clues and a worked example on every practice question. Great for building confidence early in the journey.
The balancer
A single nudge per question, then your child is on their own. The independent-answer XP bonus quietly rewards not asking at all.
The exam-ready
Practice under test conditions. And whatever you choose here, mock tests always run with help off — scores are always honest.
The Parent Overview
Unlock Parent Mode and you land on a one-screen answer to "how's it going?" — today's XP, anything due, whether the daily plan is done, this week's activity, and per-subject accuracy from recent work.
- Exam countdown — set the exam date and the app keeps pacing in view.
- Parent tips — small, practical ideas (like Holiday Mode protecting the streak while you're away).
- Child switcher — one tap to flip between children, everywhere in Parent Mode.
Deeper dives are one tap away: a four-subject readiness overview and a full detailed dashboard with topic-by-topic accuracy and skill insights.
The toolkit
The Tools tab is mission control. Everything is a tap away:
- Assignments — set specific tasks (topic practice, retry mistakes, even a scheduled mock) with your own message, difficulty, time limits, recurrence and help policy.
- Practice Plan — shape the weekly routine and daily question targets per subject.
- Daily Plan — see and adjust what today's missions contain.
- School goals — change target schools; subjects re-sync automatically.
- Progress — the readiness overview, skills and trends.
- Baseline — a gentle first assessment to find the starting level.
- Rewards — real-world treats tied to XP (full walkthrough below).
- Mistakes — every wrong answer organised by subject and topic.
- Reminders — practice notifications on your schedule, plus Holiday Mode.
- Export Report — a shareable PDF progress report.
- Manage Child — profiles, help levels, adaptive difficulty.
- Data & Backup — export or restore everything; it's your data.
Rewards, step by step
XP and streaks keep practice fun inside the app. Rewards connect that effort to the real world — you decide the treat, you decide the price:
- Open Tools → Rewards and tap +.
- Name the reward — a cinema trip, a new book, a day out, a bike. Anything your family cares about.
- Pick the XP it costs (presets from 100 to 2,000, or type your own) and tap Add reward.
Your child sees a progress bar filling towards something real. You can also switch on Goal rewards — a treat for hitting an XP target within a week or a month. There's deliberately no failure state: an unmet goal simply rolls forward, so rewards stay motivating and never punishing.
How XP works — fair by design.
XP drives everything your child unlocks: Taco's outfits, weekly goals and the real-world rewards you set. So the rules are built to be fair — effort always earns something, but getting questions right earns far more, and gaming the system doesn't work.
Practice questions
1 XP for answering a question, right or wrong — effort is never worthless. A correct answer adds +6, +8 or +11 depending on difficulty, and +2 more if it was solved without Taco's help. So a child who gets 6 of 7 right earns several times more than one who rushes through guessing.
Retries that mean something
New questions pay in full. Retry a question you got wrong today and beat it — the full correct bonus is yours, because fixing a mistake is exactly the learning we want. Re-answering something already right today pays nothing, so repeating easy wins can't farm XP.
Session bonuses
A perfect session of 5+ questions earns +10. And a session that would otherwise show zero (all repeats, nothing new beaten) still shows a small "kept practising" award — honest work never reads as worthless.
Mock tests
Sitting a mock pays 1 XP per question of its length — a 50-question paper is worth more than a 20 before accuracy even counts. Each correct answer adds +4, and accuracy milestones pay the same at any length: 50% +15 · 70% +25 · 85% +40. Only the first two mocks per subject each day earn XP.
Showing up
Finishing a daily plan earns +25, an on-time assignment +30, and weekly goals (questions, practice days, mocks) +30 each. Consistency compounds — a child who practises a little every day steadily out-earns a weekend crammer.
Fully transparent
Every results screen shows the exact breakdown — questions answered, correct answers, bonuses — so your child always knows why they earned what they earned. Same performance, same XP, every time.
Mock tests and real readiness
When you're ready, schedule real-format, timed mock tests in any subject — 20 to 50 questions, no hints, honest scores. The Mocks tab tracks best and average scores per subject and keeps every attempt one tap from a full per-question report.
The Readiness overview is deliberately careful: each subject only unlocks a reliable score after 50 questions, the mock trend appears after three mocks, and consistency tracks practice days — so what you see is evidence, not guesswork.
Mistakes are the curriculum
After every quiz, the review screen shows each question with your child's answer beside the correct one — for visual subjects, as pictures — plus a plain-English explanation, the key skill, and the common trap they fell into. Taco can read explanations aloud.
Behind the scenes, every mistake is saved. The child side offers a wrong-first practice session per subject that rebuilds confidence on exactly the questions they missed, then similar ones, then their weakest topics. On your side, Tools → Mistakes organises everything by subject and topic so you can see patterns at a glance.
Reports to share. Data that stays yours.
Export Report creates a clean PDF of progress you can share with a tutor, a partner or a school. Data & Backup lets you export or restore everything the app knows. And all of it — profiles, progress, mistakes, rewards — lives only on your device: no accounts, no ads, no tracking, ever. Read the full privacy policy.
Questions this page didn't answer?
We're happy to help — and the pricing page covers the free trial and family plan.
Email help@11testcoach.co.uk