Year-by-Year 11+ Preparation Timeline

When to Start: Year 3, 4, or 5?

There is no universally correct answer. The right start time depends on your child’s current attainment, the exam board used by your target school, and your family’s capacity for sustained structured practice. Here are the three realistic options:

Year 3 (Ages 7–8): Foundation Building

No past papers. No exam conditions. No subject-by-subject drilling. Year 3 preparation is about building the underlying capabilities that formal 11+ prep will later develop — and doing it in a way that children actually enjoy.

Reading habits

The single most valuable thing a Year 3 child can do for 11+ preparation is read every day. Not graded readers, not books punching well below their ability — challenging books that expand vocabulary, expose them to complex sentence structures, and build the reading stamina that comprehension sections require. Aim for 20 minutes of independent reading per day. Read to them as well: books slightly above their independent level expose them to vocabulary and syntax they wouldn’t access alone.

Maths fluency

By the end of Year 3, a child preparing for the 11+ should have rapid recall of all multiplication tables to 12×12 without counting on fingers. Times tables are not a Year 4 or Year 5 problem to solve — they are the floor on which every 11+ Maths question is built. Ten minutes of mental arithmetic practice daily (tables, addition, subtraction) is enough at this stage.

Beyond tables: fraction concepts (half, quarter, third), place value to at least 1,000, and basic word problems. Nothing exotic — Year 3 national curriculum Maths, done well.

Spatial reasoning and puzzles

Non-Verbal Reasoning is often the subject that surprises parents most — many children have never seen pattern matrices or spatial rotation questions before beginning formal prep. In Year 3, the foundation-building equivalent is puzzle books: tangrams, optical illusion books, logic puzzles, and visual brain teasers. These build the spatial intuition that NVR questions test without making it feel like exam practice.

Year 4 (Ages 8–9): Introduction to 11+ Format

Year 4 is when formal preparation begins. Not intensive preparation — introduction. The goal is format familiarity, establishing a study routine, and identifying which subjects need the most work before Year 5 arrives.

First steps: identify the board and establish a routine

Before buying anything, confirm which exam board applies to your target school: GL Assessment or CEM (or a school-specific format — check directly). Then establish a daily routine. Twenty to thirty minutes, at a regular time, five days per week. Consistency at this stage matters more than intensity. A child who does 25 minutes every day for a year will outperform one who does two hours every Sunday.

Subject-by-subject starter plan

Introduce one subject at a time rather than all four simultaneously. A practical sequence for a GL school:

• Term 1: Maths — one topic per week using a topic workbook. Focus on number, fractions, and word problems. Do not worry about speed yet.
• Term 2: Add Verbal Reasoning — learn the question types one by one. For GL: work through analogies, letter codes, word codes, and sequences. For CEM: focus on vocabulary and reading-based tasks.
• Term 3: Add English — comprehension passages, grammar and punctuation topics. Continue Maths and VR in rotation.
• Ongoing: Non-Verbal Reasoning — ten minutes of NVR puzzle or question-type work two to three times per week throughout the year.

Introducing timed practice

In the second half of Year 4 — roughly from January onwards — begin introducing timed conditions for individual topic sets. Not full papers: set 10 questions and give a time limit. The goal is to make time pressure a familiar sensation rather than a shock when full timed papers arrive in Year 5. Children who have never worked under time pressure often freeze when they encounter it; children who have experienced it regularly adapt quickly.

Identifying weak areas by the end of Year 4

Before Year 5 begins, run one short diagnostic in each subject — a mixed set of topic questions rather than a full paper. The result is not a score to worry about: it is a map. Which subject topics produced the most errors? Those are Year 5’s priority targets. Year 4 is too early to remediate weaknesses; it is the right time to identify them.

Year 5 (Ages 9–10): Intensive Preparation

Year 5 is when preparation becomes intensive. The exam is approximately twelve months away at the start of Year 5, and the structure shifts from broad introduction to targeted, timed, tracked practice. Below is a month-by-month breakdown.

September – November: All four subjects in rotation

Daily sessions increase to 40–50 minutes. Work all four subjects in rotation across the week — for example, Maths and VR on alternating days, with English and NVR on remaining days. Continue using topic workbooks rather than full papers: the goal is still building subject competence in each area before combining them under timed conditions.

By November, review the diagnostic you ran at the end of Year 4. Are the weak areas improving? Allocate extra session time to subjects where progress is slow. If fractions remain a consistent stumbling block, do not reduce fractions time to add something new — consolidate the fundamentals first.

December – February: First full timed papers

Introduce full timed past papers from December. At first, this feels alarming — children frequently score lower than on individual topic practice because the format, time pressure, and subject-switching are all new simultaneously. That is normal. The first three or four full papers are diagnostic, not performance indicators.

For each paper: mark together, go through every wrong answer, and identify whether the error was a knowledge gap, a time management issue, or a careless mistake. Each category has a different fix:

• Knowledge gap: Return to topic workbooks for that area.
• Time management: Practise skipping and returning — do not freeze on hard questions.
• Careless mistake: Build a checking habit for the last two to three minutes of each paper.

March – May: Paper practice and error analysis

One full timed paper per subject per fortnight. After each paper: one hour of targeted revision on the specific topics that produced wrong answers. This error-analysis loop — paper, review, targeted practice, paper — is the most effective structure for this stage. Avoid the temptation to run paper after paper without detailed review. Volume without analysis teaches children to repeat their mistakes at speed.

June – July: Mock exam weekends and consolidation

From June, introduce mock exam sessions that simulate the actual test experience: full papers, timed, starting at the same time of day as the real exam, with the same break structure. One mock exam weekend per month. These serve two purposes: performance data in realistic conditions, and practice for the logistical and emotional experience of exam day itself.

Use June and July to consolidate weak areas rather than introduce new topics. If a particular VR question type is still producing consistent errors, drill it specifically. Do not attempt to learn a new topic category six weeks before the exam — consolidation of known material is higher value at this stage.

The Summer Before the Exam

The summer holidays (late July to early September) are the final push before most exam dates. The approach here is different from the rest of Year 5: the goal shifts from skill-building to performance reliability under pressure.

Daily practice schedule

Maintain a daily practice session of 30–45 minutes minimum, even during family holidays. Interrupting all practice for two or three weeks in August and restarting the week before the exam is one of the most common avoidable mistakes. Shorter daily sessions maintained through the summer are significantly better than a full break followed by a panic-practice week.

A practical summer daily structure: 20 minutes on the current weakest subject, 15 minutes of mixed timed questions across other subjects. Not always full papers — sometimes targeted sets of 15–20 questions in a specific area are more productive than another complete paper.

Mock exam weekends

Two or three mock exam weekends during the summer, spaced several weeks apart. Simulate the real conditions as closely as possible: same start time as the real exam, same break structure, exam-hall rules (no talking, no looking at adjacent papers). The first time a child sits in exam conditions should not be the day of the actual exam.

After each mock: a debrief session that is calm and analytical, not emotionally charged. Focus on patterns in errors rather than the overall score. A child who is making consistent errors in the same two or three areas is better served by a targeted hour on those areas than by running another full paper immediately.

Tapering before the exam

In the final two weeks before the exam, reduce intensity rather than increase it. The skill is already built; the risk is now anxiety and burnout, not inadequate preparation. Shorter sessions, more familiar content, less timed pressure. The night before the exam: no practice. Preparation, sleep, and logistics only.

Managing parent stress

Children absorb parental anxiety about the exam. If sessions have become tense, if marking wrong answers produces upset rather than analytical conversation, the dynamic is undermining the preparation. The exam is one day. The habits of mind developed during two years of structured practice — persistence, systematic thinking, working under pressure — are permanent.

Exam Day Tips

All the preparation is done. The role of exam day management is to make sure it does not undo the preparation.

Logistics: what to bring

• Multiple pencils (sharpened) and a rubber. For multiple-choice GL papers: HB pencil for the answer sheet, nothing else needed. For CEM papers that include written answers: also bring a pen.
• A watch with no smart functions. Many exam rooms permit analogue watches but not smartwatches. Confirm with the school beforehand. A watch allows the child to pace themselves without relying on a clock that may be hard to see.
• Water and a snack if permitted. Check the school’s rules. Some allow water on the desk; others do not. Exam-day hunger is avoidable.
• A test centre letter or admission slip if the school sends one. Know where it is the night before.
• A familiar routine morning. The same breakfast, the same wake-up time, the same get-ready sequence that preceded the mock exams. Novelty on the morning of the exam adds stress. Routine reduces it.

Time management in the exam

The most important timed-paper habit: never spend more than 60 seconds on any single question. If a question is not yielding after a genuine attempt, mark it, move on, and return at the end. Multiple-choice papers penalise leaving answers blank (no answer scores zero); they do not penalise wrong answers more than no answer. A reasoned guess on a difficult question is always better than a blank.

For comprehension-heavy sections: read the questions before reading the passage. This sounds counterintuitive but helps children read the passage with specific targets in mind rather than trying to retain everything and then hunting for answers.

Handling nerves

Some nervousness before an exam is normal and mildly helpful — it sharpens focus. Severe anxiety is not. If your child has been consistently anxious about mock exams throughout preparation, consider a conversation with their teacher or GP before the actual exam. Anxiety that prevents performance during preparation will be worse on exam day without intervention.

A simple technique that helps many children: before the exam starts, three slow breaths (in for four counts, hold for four, out for four). Practice this during mock exam sessions so it is familiar on the day. It is not magic — it is a learned habit that interrupts the panic-freeze cycle.

After the exam: do not debrief immediately. Let the child eat, rest, and decompress first. The debrief can happen the next day and should be calm. Focus on what they felt went well. There is nothing actionable from the debrief if the result is weeks away — and a distressed child remembering every question they found hard is not a useful outcome.

Starting Late? Compressed Timeline for Year 5

If you are beginning 11+ preparation at the start of Year 5 or later, the approach needs to be different: more intensive, more selective, and more honest about what is achievable in the time available.

First: assess where you are

Before starting any practice, run a diagnostic in each subject. Not a full past paper — a 20-question mixed topic set. The goal is identifying your child’s current baseline in each area. A child who is strong in Maths and English but has no experience with VR or NVR has a very different priority order than one who is strong in reasoning but weak in written subjects.

Prioritise ruthlessly

With limited time, you cannot prepare all four subjects equally. For a GL school: Verbal Reasoning and Non-Verbal Reasoning are typically the biggest differentiators — core school curriculum builds Maths and English, but VR and NVR are genuinely unfamiliar formats for most children. Prioritise them unless the diagnostic reveals a serious Maths or English weakness.

For a CEM school: Maths fluency and reading comprehension are the highest-value investments. CEM’s combined paper rewards breadth and speed; if your child is a strong reader and confident with mental arithmetic, VR and NVR will be more accessible than they would be for a child with weaker foundations in these areas.

Compressed timeline (12-week plan)