Start with the official guidance
Registration, dates, access arrangements and the format of the assessment are set by SEAG, not by tutors. Read the official guidance first and use it as your reference point for anything that matters administratively.
Tuition and registration are separate things. A tuition place does not register a child for the assessment, and registering does not require tuition. Keep the two apart in your planning so nothing is missed.
What preparation usually covers
Preparation tends to work across two strands. The first is literacy: reading carefully, understanding what a question is really asking, vocabulary and comprehension. The second is numeracy: secure number work, reasoning and multi-step problems.
Alongside the content there is a practical strand that matters just as much. Working steadily under a time limit, moving on from a question that is not coming, checking an answer, and staying calm when something looks unfamiliar are all skills that can be practised.
How much practice is enough
Short and regular beats long and occasional. Twenty focused minutes several times a week is usually more useful than a long session at the weekend, and it is far easier to sustain across a year.
Practice is most useful when it has a purpose. Rather than working through papers for the sake of it, pick the two or three things that came up last time and practise those until they feel ordinary.
Keeping it calm at home
Children pick up far more from the atmosphere around preparation than from the preparation itself. If every conversation becomes about the assessment, the pressure builds quietly.
Protect ordinary life. Keep the hobbies, keep the weekends, and separate practice time from family time so there is somewhere for a child to stop thinking about it.
Praise the effort and the method rather than the score. A child who learns to say what they tried is building something far more durable than a mark on a practice paper.
When to ask for help
Ask for help when practice at home has started to create friction, when you are not sure what to work on next, or when the same kind of question keeps going wrong and you cannot see why.
A good tutor should be able to tell you specifically what they are working on and why. If you cannot get a clear answer to that, keep asking.
Use the official SEAG guidance for anything administrative, keep practice short and purposeful, and protect ordinary family life while you prepare.
