IGNITE preparation strategies: a three-phase study plan

The South Australian IGNITE assessment rewards methodical preparation over six to twelve months rather than a short burst of cramming. Braintree Coaching Australia structures IGNITE preparation as three phases, each with clear success markers, so your child moves on when ready rather than when the calendar runs out. This page sets out that plan, the weekly hours to budget, and the techniques we teach for each part of the paper. For the wider context, see our IGNITE program preparation hub, and for the structure of the paper itself, our IGNITE assessment format guide.

When should we start preparing for the IGNITE assessment?

Start six to twelve months before the sitting. Six months is usually enough for a child already working near the top of the year group; a child still building foundations needs twelve months or more. The first decision is which school to nominate, because that choice fixes the sitting date the whole plan hangs off.

The IGNITE program runs at three South Australian public high schools: Glenunga International, The Heights and Aberfoyle Park. All three carry the IGNITE label on the Department for Education's list of special-interest programs (opens in a new tab). Ask the school you are nominating for its sitting date, and ask it directly how many schools a family may nominate in one application cycle, because that answer decides whether the choice is reversible. Then work backwards from the date. How far back you start depends on where your child sits in their year group now.

Current school performance	Recommended lead time	Weekly study commitment	Focus
Consistently top 10%	6 months	4 hours	Refining technique and pace across each component.
Consistently top 20–30%	9–12 months	5 hours	Building vocabulary, reasoning patterns and writing sophistication.
Middle of the year group	12+ months	6 hours	Foundational skill-building, extended practice and gradual difficulty progression.

Those hours are our recommended maximum, not a target. Our Academic Panel caps core selective and IGNITE preparation at five to six hours a week in Years 5 and 6 with class time included, and asks families to adjust down if sleep, mood or family time suffers. We schedule study around a protected nine to eleven hours of sleep a night for children aged five to thirteen, following the Australian Government's recommendations for children and young people (opens in a new tab), never over it.

Spread the practice across the week. We ask for 30 to 60 minutes most weeknights and one longer block at the weekend for a timed sectional or a full mock paper, because short daily sessions hold up better across a year than one long Saturday.

Do all three IGNITE schools sit the same paper?

No. Glenunga International and Aberfoyle Park use ACER's HAST paper for IGNITE entry, while The Heights sits a dedicated ACER IGNITE assessment, held in late February each year. Confirm the paper, its structure and its date with the school you nominate before you build the plan around them.

That distinction matters for practice material. Where the HAST paper is used, ACER names four components at primary level: reading comprehension, mathematical reasoning, abstract reasoning and written expression. The plan below trains all four, because those skills carry across both papers, but ask The Heights what its own assessment covers rather than assuming the HAST structure applies. ACER publishes component names rather than component detail, so treat any question count or section timing you read elsewhere as unconfirmed until the school gives it to you in writing. Our IGNITE assessment format guide sets out what is actually published about each component, and our IGNITE questions and answers covers the eligibility and nomination questions families ask most.

What does each preparation phase cover?

The plan runs three phases, then a taper: foundations, component practice, full mocks, and a final fortnight of consolidation. Each phase ends when your child reaches its success markers, so a child who is ahead can move on and a child who is behind can hold position and consolidate.

1. Foundations (months 1–4). Sit a full-length, timed diagnostic in week one using an official ACER sample paper. Mark it carefully, identify the weakest components, and design the early weeks around closing those gaps. Build a daily routine: wide reading across fiction, non-fiction and visual texts to grow inferential vocabulary; daily mental-math drills of around ten problems for calculator-free fluency; weekly abstract-reasoning matrices; and one short creative or discursive writing task each week.
2. Component practice (months 4–8). Increase the difficulty of practice and start tracking time per question. Complete weekly timed sets in each component with structured error analysis, so your child can explain why an incorrect answer was incorrect before moving to the next question. Mark writing against our rubric, using the plan-write-edit rhythm we teach, in timed writes of 25 to 30 minutes.
3. Full mocks (final 8 weeks). Move into monthly full-length mock papers under exam timing, using official ACER HAST and IGNITE sample materials as the benchmark. Mark written expression each time, refine pacing across each component, and compare every mock against your child's own earlier papers rather than against a raw score or a percentile.
4. Taper across the final fortnight. Reduce to light vocabulary, mental-math and abstract-reasoning review, and introduce no new material in the last two weeks. Protect sleep, keep the routine ordinary, and confirm the logistics with the school.

How should the week be structured?

Build the week around one skill focus a day, one timed paper at the weekend, and one day genuinely off. A typical component-practice week looks like this:

• Monday. Abstract reasoning practice, 30 minutes, naming each pattern type before scanning the options.
• Tuesday. Reading comprehension, two timed passages with full question sets, followed by mistake review.
• Wednesday. Mathematical reasoning, 45 minutes focused on the weakest strand identified in the diagnostic.
• Thursday. Mixed reasoning and mental-math drills under time pressure, with one short reading passage at the end.
• Friday. A timed write against a practice prompt, followed by self-assessment against the rubric.
• Saturday. One full-length sectional or mock paper, sat in real conditions.
• Sunday. Review of the week's mistakes and patterns, plus a light vocabulary refresh.

Keep one day each week genuinely off. Fatigue accumulates over a year, and a tired child loses marks they would otherwise hold. Our IGNITE practice tests and resources page lists the materials we draw on for each of these sessions.

What strategies work best in each IGNITE component?

Each component rewards a different habit: naming the pattern in abstract reasoning, checking the text in reading, drawing the problem in maths, and planning before writing. These are the techniques we teach in class.

Abstract reasoning. Identify the pattern type first, whether rotation, reflection, progression or a combination, then check each item against five attributes in turn: size, shape, shading, position and number. We ask for five to ten matrices a day so the opening items of a set feel familiar rather than disorienting. Aim for roughly 30 seconds per question, and skip rather than stall when the rule has not surfaced.

Reading comprehension. Read the questions before the passage, then read the passage with the questions in mind. Return to the text to verify every inference answer, because specific textual evidence beats a plausible interpretation. Eliminate options containing absolute words such as "always", "never" and "only" that the passage does not directly support.

Mathematical reasoning. Draw a diagram for every geometry and word problem, and sanity-check the answer against what the question actually asks. We build mental-math speed so your child is not dependent on a calculator, and we ask families to confirm permitted materials with the school before the sitting. Working backwards from the answer choices is often faster than algebra.

Written expression. Split the time into planning, writing and editing. ACER states that on the HAST paper the multiple-choice items are machine scored while written expression is assessed by qualified human markers, which makes writing the part of the paper most responsive to rubric-based feedback. We mark writing on structure, idea quality, language control and mechanics, and each of those responds to weekly practice with feedback. The same techniques apply across the national HAST family, so our HAST test preparation strategies cover the component-level detail in depth.

What are the most common IGNITE preparation mistakes?

Five habits undo months of work: leaving the school choice late, practising strengths instead of weaknesses, leaving items blank, under-preparing written expression, and cramming at the end. Each one is avoidable with a fortnight's attention.

• Choosing the school late. The school sets the sitting date and the paper, so the choice shapes the whole calendar. Decide early, and ask the school whether a nomination can be changed once it is lodged.
• Practising strengths instead of weaknesses. Lifting a weak component from the 60th percentile to the 75th moves the overall result far more than lifting a strong one from the 90th to the 95th.
• Leaving items blank under time pressure. We teach your child to commit to an answer on every item rather than leaving blanks, and to ask the school beforehand whether the paper applies any penalty for incorrect answers.
• Under-preparing written expression. It is assessed by a human marker rather than machine-scored, and it is the component that improves fastest with weekly feedback against a rubric.
• Cramming at the last minute. Reasoning skills build slowly across months, which is why the plan tapers into the sitting instead of peaking on the day before it.

What should we do next?

Pick the target school this week, ring the school office to confirm its sitting date and the paper it uses, then book a full-length timed diagnostic so month one starts from evidence rather than a guess. Our IGNITE practice tests and resources page has the sample material we set for that diagnostic, and our IGNITE assessment day guide covers what to organise in the final fortnight.

Hold the weekly schedule, review every mock paper carefully, and protect sleep through the taper. You can read what is published about the HAST and IGNITE assessments on the Australian Council for Educational Research site (opens in a new tab), but the sitting date, permitted materials and nomination rules that apply to your family come from the school itself, so confirm them there before you set the calendar.