The Last Six Weeks Before the SEAG Transfer Test
Here is the honest starting point. Six weeks is not enough time to learn a year of the curriculum, and it does not have to be. The assessment is built on the Northern Ireland Curriculum at Key Stage 2, which your child has been sitting in class since P5. What is left to do now is narrower than it feels, and most of it is not revision.
51 days until Paper 1 (Saturday 14 November 2026). Paper 2 follows on 21 November.
What is actually left in the calendar
Registration and Access Arrangements applications both closed on 24 September 2026, after SEAG ran a short late window. Nothing else in the process needs anything from you until the papers themselves.
| When | What happens |
|---|---|
| 9 October 2026 | Pupil Cards available to download, check and print |
| 14 November 2026 | Paper 1, sat at your chosen Assessment Centre |
| 21 November 2026 | Paper 2, same format, same level of difficulty |
| 23 January 2027 | Statement of Outcomes released online |
Download the Pupil Card the day it appears rather than the week of the test, and read it properly. It carries your child's details and their Assessment Centre, and October is a much easier month in which to query something than November. The full picture is in the 2026 SEAG dates guide.
Know what the paper actually is
A surprising number of families reach October without having seen the shape of the thing. It is worth ten minutes, because it changes what practice is for.
Each paper opens with a short practice section, 5 English (or Gaeilge) questions and 5 Maths questions. It is not timed and it does not count towards the outcome. It exists so a child can get used to the paper and to filling in the answer sheet before anything counts.
Then the main test: 28 English (or Gaeilge) questions and 28 Maths questions, in 60 minutes. That is 56 questions in an hour, so a little over a minute each. Both papers have an identical format and are set at the same level of difficulty.
What is assessed is set out in SEAG's own specification. English or Gaeilge covers comprehension, spelling and punctuation, grammar and syntax, and vocabulary. Maths covers numbers, measurements, shape and space, money, probability and data representation. Nothing outside the statutory Key Stage 2 curriculum appears, which is worth remembering the next time somebody recommends a harder book.
A shape for the six weeks
This is a shape, not a timetable. Families run at different speeds and a plan nobody can keep is worse than no plan. The logic behind it is that the useful work moves from diagnosis, to timing, to protecting confidence, in that order.
| Stage | What it is for |
|---|---|
| Weeks 6 and 5 | Find the genuinely weak topics. Short mixed practice, and pay attention to what your child gets wrong on the first attempt rather than what they eventually get right. |
| Weeks 4 and 3 | Full-length timed practice, once a week at most. This is where pace gets built and where a child learns that leaving a hard question and coming back is allowed. |
| Week 2 | Taper. Shorter sessions, mostly on topics that have already improved, so the last thing your child remembers is getting things right. |
| The final week | Almost nothing. Normal bedtimes, normal food, a practical run through where the Assessment Centre is and how long it takes to get there. |
The one piece worth being strict about is the difference between a topic your child cannot do and a topic they can do slowly. Those need opposite responses, and a raw percentage score hides which is which. If your child keeps arriving at the right answer on the third attempt, that is a timing problem wearing a knowledge problem's clothes.
The week between the two papers
This gap catches families out, because it feels like a second chance and it is not one.
No result is published between 14 and 21 November, so there is nothing to react to. Your child will have an opinion about how Paper 1 went and that opinion is not evidence. Children routinely come out of an assessment certain they have done badly, and the two papers are the same format at the same level anyway.
Four things to leave alone
- Starting a new topic. Six weeks out, an unfamiliar method is more likely to cause a wobble on the day than to earn a mark.
- Hunting for past papers. There are none. SEAG publishes two official practice papers, with answer sheets and a Parents' Guide, and does not release real papers from previous years. Anything advertised as a SEAG past paper is somebody else's practice material. See what is actually available for free.
- Comparing practice scores with other families. Different material, different conditions, no shared scale. The real outcome is standardised for age against the whole cohort, which no home score can replicate. There is more on how that works in the guide to what a good SEAG score is.
- Doing more because there is less time. The instinct is understandable and it usually backfires. A tired eleven year old loses more marks to rushing than a rested one loses to a gap in their revision.
If you are reading this later than you meant to
Plenty of families start properly in October. If that is you, do not try to compress six weeks of plan into two. Pick the two things above that matter most, which are almost always a timed paper and sleep, and let the rest go. A calm child who knows what the paper looks like is in a better position than an exhausted one who has done twice the work.