Dunottar School 11 Plus (11+) Entrance Exam Information 2026

Introduction

Dunottar School is an independent co-educational school for pupils aged 11 to 18. It was established in 1926 and is located in Reigate, Surrey. The motto of Dunottar School is Do ut Des (I give that thou may’st give), reflecting the school’s aim to provide pupils with all the skills and compassion they need to be able to go out into the world as young adults who can contribute to society and make a difference.

Pupils at Dunottar School receive an excellent academic education. The school is a member of United Learning, a family of schools dedicated to ensuring all its pupils progress academically and have high expectations for themselves. Dunottar’s most recent ISI report comments on its effective and knowledgeable teachers and the good progress pupils make.

Warrior Learning is an approach to learning developed by staff members at Dunottar School to ensure that pupils develop holistically. It recognises that pupils need to be equipped with more than just strong examination results; they also need to be aspirational, creative, curious, tenacious, independent, collaborative and inclusive. For this reason, Warrior Learning focuses on these attributes.

Pastoral care is at the heart of school life. All pupils have a tutor who gets to know them well, putting them in a perfect position to offer support and guidance when needed. In 2023, Dunottar was awarded the Wellbeing Award for Schools, a testament to its prioritisation of the wellbeing of both pupils and staff.

To learn about Dunottar’s Year 7 admissions process, please read on.

Admissions Process for 11 Plus Entry to Dunottar School

Dunottar holds Working Open Mornings on various dates throughout the school year, enabling you to see the school in action. You and your child will be able to observe lessons, have a tour of the facilities and listen to a presentation given by the headmaster. 

To apply for a place, you can then follow either of the following routes:

1. Year 5 Early Offer Admissions Process for Entry to Year 7

If you take this route, you must register your child by mid-January of Year 5 if you want them to attend the school’s Taster Morning and by the deadline in early February if they will not be attending the Taster Morning. Registering will involve filling out the online registration form and paying the £150 registration fee.

Your child will then be invited to attend a Taster Morning at the end of January, provided you have registered by mid-January. This will allow them to meet other prospective pupils, participate in fun activities and learn more about life at Dunottar.

All registered candidates will then participate in Warrior Learner assessments, be interviewed and take academic assessments at the end of February in Year 5.

A reference will be sought from your child’s current school and reviewed as part of the admissions process, too.

Offers will be made at the beginning of the summer term of Year 5. Accepting an offer will involve paying a £1,000 deposit and completing an acceptance form.

2. Year 6 Admissions Process for Entry to Year 7 (Standard Route)

If you take this route, you must register your child by early May of Year 5 if you want them to attend the school’s Taster Morning and by the deadline in September of Year 6 if they will not be attending the Taster Morning. Registering will involve filling out the online registration form and paying the £150 registration fee.

Your child will be invited to attend a Taster Morning in mid-May of Year 5, provided you have registered by early May. This will allow them to meet other prospective pupils, participate in fun activities and learn more about life at Dunottar.

All registered candidates will then participate in Warrior Learner assessments, be interviewed and take academic assessments in October of Year 6.

A reference will be sought from your child’s current school and reviewed as part of the admissions process, too.

Offers will be made towards the end of the autumn term of Year 6. Accepting an offer will involve paying a £1,000 deposit and completing an acceptance form.

Dunottar School: Scholarships and Bursaries for Year 7 Entry

The following scholarships are available for Year 7 entry:

• Academic 
• Art
• Music
• Performing Arts
• Sports

If you decide to take the Early Offer route, scholarship assessments will take place in March, when your child is in Year 5. If you take the standard route, scholarship assessments will be in November, when your child is in Year 6.

Please note that there are no assessments for academic scholarships, as they are awarded based on performance in the entrance assessments.

Scholars are expected to excel in their chosen area, be committed to developing their skills and serve as role models to other pupils.

Scholarships carry a small fee reduction.

For more information about scholarships, please visit this link.

A limited number of bursaries are available at Dunottar, although none cover 100% of the school fees.

Households with an annual income over £70,000 will not be eligible for a bursary.

If you are considering applying for a bursary, it is advisable to contact the admissions department to discuss this further (contact details are given earlier in this post). 

Dunottar School: Entrance Assessments for Year 7 Entry

Dunottar’s Year 7 assessment day will comprise the following:

Warrior Learner Assessments

These assessments are designed to evaluate your child’s creativity and their ability to interact and work collaboratively with other children as part of a team. They will comprise both individual activities and group activities.

Academic Assessments

The academic assessments consist of the following:

1. A maths paper: The maths paper will cover topics your child has been taught at school: arithmetic, number, measurement, geometry and statistics. Your child will need to apply their mathematical knowledge and use their mathematical reasoning to answer questions.

2. An English creative writing paper: The English creative writing paper will assess your child’s ability to produce an engaging piece of work that is well-structured, follows the task, uses a wide vocabulary and demonstrates a high standard of spelling, punctuation and grammar.

3. An online Quest assessment: The online Quest assessment will evaluate your child’s verbal and non-verbal reasoning skills.

The verbal reasoning questions will use written information (such as letters, numbers and words) to evaluate your child’s problem-solving skills and ability to make logical deductions. They can expect to answer questions on codes, puzzles, letter sequences and advanced vocabulary. 

The non-verbal reasoning questions will assess your child’s spatial awareness and proficiency in solving problems that utilise visual information (such as pictures, graphs and diagrams). 

The assessment is adaptive, meaning that questions will become more challenging if your child consistently answers them correctly.

To ensure that overall scores are fair, the difficulty level reached by candidates will be taken into account, and scores will be age-standardised.

Interview

The interview will be a friendly, informal chat with a member of staff. The interviewer will want to get to know your child better to help them decide if Dunottar is the right school for them.

Your child is likely to be asked about their hobbies and favourite school subjects. 

We know that you will want to help your child approach the assessment day feeling calm and confident. For this reason, we have compiled some tips for the preparation process.

Tips to Help Your Child Prepare for the Dunottar School Year 7 Entrance Assessments

The following tips will help your child’s preparation period go smoothly and be effective:

• Keep study sessions to around 30 minutes, as research has shown that children can typically maintain their concentration for 2-3 minutes per year of their age.
• Schedule plenty of breaks so that your child can rest, recharge and assimilate the information they have learnt.
• Continue with hobbies and extra-curricular activities, as the preparation process should be a part of your child’s life, not take it over. Additionally, extra-curricular activities will be beneficial for the Warrior Learning assessments and give your child plenty to discuss at their interview.
• Encourage your child to read regularly. Not only will this expand their vocabulary, but it will also help with their spelling, punctuation and grammar. Additionally, it will spark their imagination, which will prove useful for the creative writing paper.
• Test your child’s arithmetic skills and times tables knowledge. You can do this while out on a walk or during a car journey. See how many questions they can get right in a row, and then challenge them to beat their record.  
• Discuss current affairs and topical issues appropriate for your child’s age. This will help them become accustomed to expressing their thoughts in words, which is crucial for the interview. 
• Use flashcards for the key facts your child needs to know, as this will make their revision feel much more manageable than reading through pages and pages in an exercise book.
• Use practice tests so that your child knows what to expect on the assessment day. There is nothing like familiarity to take away anxiety. They can develop a deep understanding of the question types, format and timings of the academic assessments. They can also get better at answering questions quickly and accurately while under time pressure, learning from their mistakes along the way.

Please refer to the section below for the resources we recommend to assist your child in being fully prepared for Dunottar School’s 11+ entrance exam.

Dunottar School: 11 Plus (11+)/Year 7 Entrance Exam Practice Tests and Resources

Dunottar School 11+ Online Practice Tests

Our Dunottar School 11+ Online Entrance Assessment Practice Tests are available on our other website, Pretest Plus, and provide realistic and highly accurate preparation for the actual exam. Each full mock test replicates the modules, timings and question types used in the real assessment, ensuring your child becomes familiar with the format and expectations. Covering Maths, English, Verbal and Non-Verbal Reasoning, these tests are all pitched at the same difficulty level, allowing you to benchmark your child’s progress, track improvement and identify key areas for further practice.

11+ Dunottar School Practice Test 1

11+ Dunottar School Practice Test 2

11+ Dunottar School Practice Test 3

11+ Dunottar School Practice Test 4

✅ You can now purchase a bundle of all of our recommended resources for the Dunottar School 11+ Online Test at a large discount. These are available on our other site, Pretest Plus. Click the button below to learn more:

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Dunottar School 11+ Skill Practice

The following Skill Practice exercises focus on one module that will come up in the Dunottar School 11+ Online Test, allowing you to target the specific exam sections that your child finds challenging.

11+ Dunottar School Mathematics

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Please do contact us if you have any questions about our resources. We will do our best to help you. We want to take this opportunity to wish your child all the best in their entrance assessments for admission to Dunottar School.

The information provided about Dunottar School was believed to be correct at the time of publishing. However, please be aware that there may be future changes. We advise you to contact the school directly if you need clarification on anything. School contact details are provided within the post.

Please note that Exam Papers Plus is an independent publisher of practice tests and is not affiliated with or endorsed by the publishers of the Quest online assessments or any other test publisher.