Private Tutors in Birmingham
Where the grammar-school question dominates Year 5
Birmingham is the most consequential 11+ city in England outside London, and it works differently: a single consortium entrance test, sat early in Year 6, decides entry to eight of the country’s most oversubscribed selective schools. That one morning shapes the tuition market for the whole city. Around it sits a young, enormously diverse population — Birmingham is repeatedly described as one of the youngest major cities in Europe — and a school system where a family’s ambitions are frequently bilingual as well as academic.
8 grammars
Selective schools
One consortium paper
Entrance test
September, Year 6
Sat in
£30–45/hr
Typical GCSE rate
Local knowledge
What you are actually preparing for in Birmingham
One test, eight schools
Birmingham’s selective schools share a single entrance test, taken in the September of Year 6, with results issued in October in time for the national secondary application deadline of 31 October. Because it is one paper for eight schools, the bar is set by the whole city’s cohort at once, and the difference between an offer at your first-choice school and no offer at all can be a couple of marks. Registration opens in the spring of Year 5 and closes in the summer — missing that window is the single most common, and most avoidable, mistake families make.
The independent route
King Edward’s School and King Edward VI High School for Girls, both on the Edgbaston foundation site, run their own entrance assessments at 11+ with substantial means-tested assistance. Solihull School and Edgbaston High School for Girls add further options, each with its own papers and interview. These are separate processes from the grammar consortium test, on their own timetable, and a family pursuing both needs a plan rather than two sets of homework.
Community languages, taken seriously
Birmingham has one of the largest Pakistani, Indian, Bangladeshi and Caribbean heritage populations in the UK, and a real share of enquiries here are for Urdu, Punjabi, Bengali, Gujarati or Arabic alongside maths and science — sometimes for a GCSE entry, often for a grandparent. It is the part of the brief that generic national agencies simply do not staff for, and it is the part we are best placed to.
How consortium prep works when the tutor is online
Worth being straight about, because 11+ is the case where a person in the room helps most. The paper is sat on paper, so we do it on paper: you print the timed paper, your child sits it to the clock away from the screen, and the lesson is spent on the marking — where the marks went, which question types are costing them, how to leave one and come back. A shared whiteboard the tutor can watch live covers the working out. What online cannot do is read a child’s body language across a desk, so we ask you to sit in early on and tell us what we are missing.
Schools named here are for orientation — we are not affiliated with any of them, and we do not claim results at them. Admissions criteria and test dates change every cycle, so always confirm the current year directly with the school or the local authority.
Coverage
63 areas across Birmingham
Grouped the way Birmingham actually works rather than alphabetically, because the reason an area is on this list matters more than the name. Each group says what families there are usually preparing for.
South-west Birmingham
12 areasThe traditional tuition heartland. Edgbaston and Harborne sit within walking distance of the King Edward’s foundation, so 11+ demand here starts earlier and runs harder than anywhere else in the city.
South-east Birmingham
13 areasMoseley, Kings Heath and Hall Green feed Camp Hill and Five Ways in real numbers. Sparkhill and Sparkbrook bring a strong mix of 11+ ambition and GCSE grade-push work, frequently alongside a community language.
North Birmingham
11 areasHandsworth Grammar and King Edward VI Handsworth School for Girls anchor this side of the city, and Perry Barr’s proximity to Aston University makes it one of the easier areas to staff well.
Sutton Coldfield & the north-east
10 areasBishop Vesey’s and Sutton Coldfield Grammar School for Girls make this the most 11+-saturated postcode in the West Midlands. Expect preparation to begin in Year 4 among families here.
Solihull & the Black Country edge
11 areasAdministratively separate boroughs, but the same tuition market and the same tutors. Solihull is independent-school and high-performing-comprehensive territory; Bearwood, Smethwick and Oldbury are predominantly GCSE and A Level work.
City centre & inner core
6 areasA growing apartment population of younger families, plus the sixth-form and access market around the universities. Online lessons dominate here — a spare room is the scarce resource.
Not on the list? It makes no difference to whether we can teach your child — lessons are online, so there is no radius and no travel time to work around. These areas are here because what a family is preparing for genuinely changes between them, not because one is in reach and the next is not.
What Birmingham asks us for most
- Birmingham consortium 11+ — maths, English and reasoning
- GCSE maths and combined science, grade 4 → 6 and 6 → 8
- A Level biology, chemistry and maths for medicine applicants
- Urdu, Punjabi, Bengali, Gujarati and Arabic
- Year 7 transition support after a near-miss at 11+
- Functional skills and GCSE resits for post-16 students
The dates that actually matter
Spring, Year 5
Registration for the Birmingham consortium entrance test opens. Diarise it — the deadline is early summer and there are no late entries.
September, Year 6
The consortium entrance test is sat, usually in the first half of the month.
October, Year 6
Results are issued, in time to order preferences before the national deadline.
31 October
National secondary school application deadline for entry the following September.
1 March
National Offer Day for secondary places.
Typical rates in Birmingham
What families in Birmingham are usually quoted, per hour, for one-to-one lessons. Your own rate is confirmed in writing before a first lesson — no joining fee, no compulsory package, no tie-in.
Boards & stages
Tell us which board the school entered your child for — it changes the set texts, the required practicals and the command words.
Every tutor in Birmingham clears the same checks
Nobody comes to your home
Every UK lesson is online. No adult we introduce you to is ever in the same room as your child, and no address of yours is ever given to a tutor. That is the single biggest thing that changes the risk, and it is worth being plain about rather than burying it.
A lesson you can walk into at any moment
Lessons are held on a link the parent holds too. You can join, sit in, or watch any lesson unannounced, from the first one to the last, and you never have to explain why.
No private channel to your child
Tutors do not get your child’s number, email or socials. Scheduling, rescheduling and progress notes all run through you — so there is no route by which an adult ends up in a one-to-one conversation with a child outside a lesson.
Birmingham families
Tell us the year group and we will tell you straight
Lessons are online and running now, so a person reads this and answers it properly: whether we have a teacher who genuinely covers your child's subject and exam board, or that we do not. Your area in Birmingham does not come into it.
Useful to include: the school, the exam board where you know it, and what the last report actually said. It is the difference between a good match and a guess.
Or email uk@thehometuitions.com.
Birmingham — questions parents ask
Is the Birmingham 11+ really one test for all the grammars?
Yes — the selective schools share a single entrance test rather than setting eight separate papers, and you then express school preferences. It makes the process simpler to prepare for and considerably less forgiving, because one morning’s performance is the only academic evidence considered. Confirm the current year’s registration dates directly with the consortium: they move slightly each cycle and they are strictly enforced.
When should we start preparing?
The start of Year 5 for most children, giving roughly a year of steady work before a September Year 6 test. Families in Sutton Coldfield and Edgbaston often begin in Year 4, which is more about building reading stamina and mental arithmetic than about papers — and that is the right use of that extra year.
What happens if our child does not get a place?
It is worth planning for, because most candidates do not. Birmingham has a number of strong non-selective schools, and the useful work in Year 7 is consolidation rather than more testing. We will say plainly if we think a child is better served by that than by another year of reasoning papers.
Can you tutor in Urdu, Punjabi or Arabic?
This is genuinely a strength rather than a box we tick. Bilingual tutoring matters for two different reasons here — a GCSE entry in the language itself, and a child who understands a concept faster when it is first explained at home. Tell us which of the two you need.
