Is it too late to prepare for the entrance exam?

No, but the work changes nature. A few weeks out, you no longer catch up on core material: you practise the format, the timer and the question types. A child who knows their Grade 5 material but discovers the format on exam day loses points that a single timed practice would have saved.

How much practice per day in the final weeks?

20 to 30 minutes a day, a few times a week, is enough. Weekend cramming tires kids more than it prepares them. The one exception: a full timed dress rehearsal, one or two weeks before the real date.

What should we do the morning of the exam?

Nothing new. A normal breakfast, arrive early, and remind your child of the one rule that matters during the exam: never stay stuck on a question. About one minute per question; if it does not come, move on and return at the end.

Private school entrance exams: a plan for the final weeks

If your child is aiming for a private collège for Secondary 1 in 2027, the window is shorter than most families expect. This fall, applications close between September 10 and 30 depending on the school, and the first exams happen as early as the weekend of September 19. The verified dates, school by school, are on our entrance exam guide.

That leaves two to four weekends, depending on the school. Here is how to use them without turning the house into a training camp.

First: the application, not the preparation

It sounds obvious, but every year families prepare for the exam of a school where no application was ever filed. Check the deadline of every school on your list today. Some close very early: Jean-Eudes on September 10, Sainte-Anne on the 14th, Collège Laval on the 17th at noon. And several schools no longer hold an exam at all; the report cards decide, which completely changes what there is to “prepare”.

What still pays off at this point

The format. The entrance exam is almost always multiple choice, at a pace of about one question per minute, in French. That is a rhythm Grade 6 students have never experienced at school. A timed practice teaches them the most valuable skill of the exam: moving on instead of staying stuck.

Logical reasoning. Sequences, analogies, short reasoning problems: it is the least familiar section, and the one where a few practice sessions make the biggest difference, precisely because nobody teaches it in class.

The dictée. Several schools include one. For a child from an English or bilingual school, two or three dictées at home, corrected together, beat abstract grammar review by a wide margin.

What is no longer worth it

Learning new material. The exam covers Grade 5 content; what is not mastered now will not be mastered in ten days, and trying drains the child’s confidence at the worst moment. If a core notion is genuinely shaky, it can be worked on after the exam, during the year. Last-minute cram weekends mostly produce tired kids on Saturday morning.

The plan, weekend by weekend

Four weekends out: a free practice exam (in French, like the real thing) under real conditions, timed, no help. Not for the score, for the picture: which sections flow, which ones catch.

Two or three weekends out: short 20-to-30-minute blocks on the weak sections identified, a few times a week. A dictée or two.

The last weekend: one full dress rehearsal, then the books close. The night before the exam, no studying; sleep wins.

What about stress?

The best thing to tell an 11-year-old before this exam: there is a second chance. Several schools run a second admission round in the winter, and the selective public programs are excellent. A child who knows the door does not slam shut on Saturday morning works better than one carrying the whole fall on a three-hour exam.

Is your child writing an entrance exam this fall? Start with the free practice exam under real conditions. For the full at-home dress rehearsal with a tutor, the entrance exam simulation is described with its prices on the guide page.