The South African school year runs in four terms, with examinations in the middle and at the end. Grade 12 adds preliminary examinations in the third term. Dates differ by school and by province, so confirm yours with the school. This guide shows where a diagnostic fits in each of them.
Jakobus Kits, Founder·Last updated 13 September 2026
The exam year, in order
A Grade 10 to 12 year typically has three points where a full paper counts: the June examinations, a third-term test or examination — the prelims in matric — and the November finals. Schools and provinces set their own dates, so confirm the calendar with your child’s school.
June examinations. A full series of papers in most schools, usually at the end of the second term.
A third-term test or examination. In Grades 10 and 11 this varies by school. In Grade 12 it is the preliminary examinations, usually written in the third term.
November finals. The papers that go on the record, and in Grade 12 the National Senior Certificate or IEB examinations, written on a timetable set nationally.
What each set of papers is for
June papers are usually the first full rehearsal of the year. Prelims are typically the last full rehearsal before the National Senior Certificate examinations, and their marks are often used for provisional admission and bursaries. Finals are the papers that go on the certificate.
June is for finding out. It is the first time in the year that a full paper, covering months of work, is written under time. Treat the mark as information rather than as a verdict.
The third term is for changing something. Whatever June showed, this is the term in which there is still room to act on it.
Prelims are a rehearsal that counts. In matric they are the last full run before the finals, and many universities and bursary schemes accept them as provisional evidence.
Finals are for executing. By then the work is what it is. What still moves is how the paper is written.
Where a diagnostic fits
Before a set of papers, not after. A diagnostic written weeks before June or the prelims leaves time for what it finds to change how the next paper is written. Written afterwards, it explains a mark you already have — useful, but one paper later than it needed to be.
Three or four weeks is enough. That is long enough for a report to arrive, for the two or three habits it names to be practised, and for a follow-up paper if you want one. It is short enough that the paper your child writes is close in content to the one the school is about to set. If you would rather run the timed paper properly yourself, the rules are in Running a timed exam at home .
One paper, one pupil, and no claim beyond it. What it illustrates is why the timing matters: those recoverable marks were sitting in the way the paper was written, and that is the part of a mark that can still change in the weeks before the next one.
Term by term, Grades 10 to 12
The shape of the year is the same in all three grades; what changes is what the papers are worth. The table below is the plan in four rows. Confirm every date in it against your own school’s calendar, because terms and examination weeks differ by school and by province.
Every date and school practice below has to be checked against your own school’s calendar.
Term
What happens
What to do about it
Term 1
Classes and school-based assessment, usually without a full examination series.
The cheapest term in which to find a technique problem. Nothing has counted yet and there is a full year in which to change how your child writes.
Term 2 (June)
Mid-year examinations in most schools, the first full papers of the year.
Measure early in the term, so that June is not the first honest measurement of the year. Confirm the examination dates with the school.
Term 3 (prelims)
A third-term test or examination; in Grade 12, the preliminary examinations, usually written in this term.
Work from what June showed. In matric, a diagnostic immediately after the prelims catches the questions that lost marks while they are still fresh, and the finals are still ahead.
Term 4 (finals)
November finals; in Grade 12 the National Senior Certificate or IEB examinations, on a timetable set nationally.
By now the work is revision and technique. Change how the paper is written, not what is in it. Confirm the timetable with the school or the examining body.
Grade 10. The first year of full subject papers under exam conditions. The mark matters less than the habit it reveals, and a habit fixed here is worth three years of marks. See Grade 10 papers .
Grade 11. Many universities make provisional offers on the Grade 11 final marks, so the November papers carry more than a school report does. See Grade 11: the year universities see .
Grade 12. Prelims are the last full rehearsal before the finals, and the last point at which a strategy problem can still be fixed in time. See Grade 12 papers .
What a diagnostic adds
Exam Diagnostics ZA is a South African service that marks a full Grade 10–12 mock exam paper mark by mark and reports every lost mark, with a strategy report and a video walkthrough, within 24 hours. In a plan like this it is the measurement taken before a set of papers, not a report on the set that has gone.
There are no fixed dates, which is what lets it fit around a school calendar. Your child needs 3 uninterrupted hours, a calculator, a quiet room and a phone, and writes whenever it suits you. Marks come back within 1 hour and the full report within 24 hours, by email and WhatsApp. The five steps are on how it works .
The mark, and the mark that was in reach on the same script.
Every lost mark, sorted into one of five reasons, two of which mean the method was right.
The recoverable marks question by question, the concepts behind them, and a video walkthrough of what to fix first.
A single paper is R299. Mark Recovery, both papers of a subject and a follow-up paper, is R749. Finals Ready, three subjects, is R1,990. A paper that turns up fewer than 10 recoverable marks is refunded. Every price is on the pricing page .
If you do one thing
Pick the next set of papers on your child’s calendar. Count back three or four weeks. Write one diagnostic in that window and use what it finds on the paper that counts. Confirm the dates with the school, because the calendar is the one part of this you cannot take from a website.