Ask this question in any parent group and you will get answers ranging from 'Year 2, obviously' to 'six weeks is plenty' — usually delivered with equal confidence. After 10+ years of preparing children for entrance exams, here is the honest answer: structured preparation should begin at the start of Year 5, with gentle groundwork in Year 4. Earlier than that risks burnout for marginal gain; later than that is recoverable, but the options narrow. Here is what that means in practice, year by year.
When to start 11+ preparation: the short answer
- Structured 11+ preparation should begin in the autumn term of Year 5 — roughly twelve months before the test.
- Year 4 is for groundwork only: wide reading, vocabulary and secure maths. No practice papers, no timed tests.
- Year 3 and below need nothing labelled '11+'. Starting here buys almost no advantage and risks the one thing you cannot buy back — a child who still enjoys learning.
- Most selective areas sit the test in the first half of September in Year 6, with registration closing the previous June. Check your own region's dates; they are not negotiable and they are easy to miss.
- Starting late is recoverable. A focused six-month run-up works well; even six weeks can improve a score through technique alone.
The year-by-year 11+ preparation plan
Read this as a sequence of phases rather than a countdown. Each phase builds the thing the next one depends on, which is why skipping ahead — going straight to practice papers in Year 4, for instance — reliably produces a plateau rather than a head start.
- Y3
Year 3 (age 7–8) — nothing labelled '11+'
Read together daily, play word and logic games, keep times tables sharp. Curiosity is the curriculum. Formal preparation at this age has to be sustained for three years to pay off, and almost no child sustains it. The families who start here are the ones most likely to arrive at Year 6 with a burnt-out child.
- Y4
Year 4 (age 8–9) — gentle groundwork
Wide reading is the single best verbal reasoning preparation that exists, because vocabulary breadth cannot be crammed and decides a real share of the marks. Add vocabulary habits, puzzle books your child actually enjoys, and secure core maths. Visit prospective schools casually so the goal feels like a place, not a test.
- Y5
Year 5 autumn (age 9–10) — structured preparation begins
This is the start line. Learn the question types for your region's test — most selective areas, including Birmingham, Trafford, Bradford and Gloucestershire, use GL Assessment-style papers. Weekly focused practice, working systematically through verbal and non-verbal reasoning families so nothing in the exam is a stranger.
- Y5
Year 5 spring and summer — from skills to papers
First full papers in spring, untimed at first, so the goal is accuracy rather than speed. Timed papers by the summer term. This is also the point where a diagnostic paper per subject earns its keep: it tells you which two question families deserve the remaining months.
- ☀
Summer before Year 6 — technique phase
Timed papers under real conditions, the two-pass answering method, answer-sheet discipline, and targeted work on the two weakest question families only. Do not teach new content in the final fortnight, and do not let the exam swallow the whole summer. Rested children rank higher than crammed ones.
- Y6
September of Year 6 — the test
Most regions sit the test in the first half of September. Light review, early nights, calm parents. At this point confidence is worth more than one more paper, and a panic-bought marathon of last-minute tuition does more harm than good.
What actually moves the score
- Wide reading, started early and never stopped
- Systematic coverage of every question family before any timed work
- Little and often — 20–40 minutes beats weekend marathons
- Diagnostic papers used to choose what to practise next
- Answer-sheet accuracy drilled until it is automatic
- Sleep in the final week
What wastes the year
- Practice papers in Year 3 or 4, before the skills exist to use them
- Timed tests before the question types are known
- Buying every paper on the market, then having none left for clean mocks
- Daily drilling that turns reading for pleasure into a chore
- Teaching new content in the last fortnight
- Booking a tutoring marathon in the final month
How many hours a week, by year
The most common preparation mistake we see is not starting too late — it is doing too much, too intensely, too early, and running out of willing child before the exam arrives. These are the weekly totals that work in practice.
Total weekly preparation time, including any tutoring. Consistency matters more than the number.
Year 4
- Weekly total
- Reading only
- What it should look like
- Daily reading plus occasional puzzles. Nothing scheduled, nothing timed, nothing called revision.
Year 5 autumn
- Weekly total
- 1–1.5 hours
- What it should look like
- Two or three short sessions learning question types. Untimed. Accuracy over speed.
Year 5 spring
- Weekly total
- 1.5–2 hours
- What it should look like
- Question-type practice plus one untimed paper section a fortnight.
Year 5 summer
- Weekly total
- 2–2.5 hours
- What it should look like
- First timed sections. Diagnostic paper to pick the final focus areas.
Summer holiday
- Weekly total
- 2.5–3 hours
- What it should look like
- Full timed papers weekly, spaced out. Long breaks between them are part of the plan, not a lapse.
September, Year 6
- Weekly total
- Under 1 hour
- What it should look like
- Light recall only. Protect sleep. The work is done.
Total weekly preparation time, including any tutoring. Consistency matters more than the number.
| Stage | Weekly total | What it should look like |
|---|---|---|
| Year 4 | Reading only | Daily reading plus occasional puzzles. Nothing scheduled, nothing timed, nothing called revision. |
| Year 5 autumn | 1–1.5 hours | Two or three short sessions learning question types. Untimed. Accuracy over speed. |
| Year 5 spring | 1.5–2 hours | Question-type practice plus one untimed paper section a fortnight. |
| Year 5 summer | 2–2.5 hours | First timed sections. Diagnostic paper to pick the final focus areas. |
| Summer holiday | 2.5–3 hours | Full timed papers weekly, spaced out. Long breaks between them are part of the plan, not a lapse. |
| September, Year 6 | Under 1 hour | Light recall only. Protect sleep. The work is done. |
What to prepare, subject by subject
Two of the four 11+ subject banks are barely taught in primary school, which is why they dominate preparation time. The other two are familiar in content and unfamiliar only in pace.
Where the year's hours should actually go:
- Verbal reasoning — the largest single time investment, because it is almost never taught in class and vocabulary breadth decides a real share of the marks. Start with reading in Year 4; work through the question types in Year 5.
- Non-verbal reasoning — unfamiliar at first sight but the most coachable paper on the test. Once the pattern families are learned, scores move quickly. Do not skip it because it looks like a puzzle book.
- Maths — content is KS2 material your child has largely met. The gap is speed under pressure, so fluency work beats new topics. Many bright children simply run out of time on their first full paper.
- English — comprehension, spelling, punctuation and grammar. Inference questions separate the top scorers, and inference grows from wide reading rather than from drilling — which is why Year 4 reading is not a soft option.
Work backwards from your region's dates
Preparation timing is set by an administrative calendar most families meet only once, and the registration deadline is the one that catches people out. It falls in the summer term of Year 5 — months before the test, and well before most parents feel the exam is close. Miss it and there is no preparation plan to make.
Registration typically closes in late June of Year 5, with the test sat in the first half of September in Year 6 and the local authority preference form due by 31 October. Birmingham and Gloucestershire both followed this shape for the September 2026 test. Dates shift year to year and vary by consortium, so treat this as the pattern to plan around and confirm the exact deadlines on your target school's own admissions page — not on a forum thread.
Starting late? Here's the honest triage
If you are reading this in the spring or summer of Year 5, you are not too late — but skip the leisurely phase.
Go straight to:
- 1One diagnostic paper per subject to find the true gaps
- 2Targeted work on the weakest two question families
- 3Timed technique from six weeks out
A focused six-month runway produces strong results every year. A six-week runway can still improve ranking — but only through technique and timing, not new knowledge, so spend it there.
- 6m
Six months out — full plan, compressed
Diagnostic paper first, then question families in priority order, then papers from month four. This is close to the standard runway and produces strong results routinely. Do not try to also add the Year 4 reading phase; it is too late to compound, and the time is better spent on question types.
- 3m
Three months out — triage only
Two weakest question families, timed technique, answer-sheet discipline. Accept that some question types will not be mastered and make sure your child knows to guess decisively and move on rather than stall.
- 6w
Six weeks out — technique, nothing else
No new content. Full timed papers, the two-pass method, and a hard stop on preparation a few days before the test. Technique alone can move a score meaningfully, because a large share of lost marks come from timing and answer-sheet slips rather than from not knowing the material.
The signs you've started too early
Tears before practice, 'I'm stupid' language, gaming the tick-count rather than thinking, or a child who can do the questions but has stopped reading for pleasure — all mean the schedule is ahead of the child. Pause for a month. A Year 5 child who likes learning will overtake a Year 4 child who has learned to dread it, every single time.
Is my child ready to start? A readiness check
The plan above answers when. This answers whether — and it is the question that actually decides how the autumn of Year 5 goes. Formal 11+ preparation assumes a set of things are already in place, and starting on top of a gap in any of them turns practice papers into a weekly demonstration that your child cannot do them.
Before the first practice paper, most of these should be true:
- 1They read fluently and by choice — anything, in any format, most weeks. Every paper in this process is a reading test wearing a different hat
- 2Times tables to 12 are recalled rather than worked out, and number bonds are automatic
- 3They can work alone at a table for twenty minutes without an adult sitting beside them
- 4They can be told an answer is wrong without the session ending — this one matters more than any topic
- 5Their handwriting keeps up with their thinking for a page, if the test has a written element
- 6They can hold a two-step instruction in their head and still be on task at the end of it
Anything unticked is the work for this term, and it is not 11+ work. A child who is not yet fluent in tables should be doing ten minutes of tables a day, not a verbal reasoning paper. A child who cannot yet sit alone for twenty minutes needs that habit built on something they enjoy first. This is not a delay in preparation; it is preparation, and it is the part that makes the rest of it work.
The one sign that says stop rather than adjust: a child who has started saying they are stupid, or who cries at the sight of the folder. Whatever the timetable says, that costs more than a place is worth, and it is recoverable now in a way it is not in a year.
Which cycle are you actually in?
Worth doing the arithmetic once, because almost every parent gets a year out at some point. The test is sat at the very start of Year 6, not the end of it — so a child beginning Year 5 this September sits the test about twelve months later, in the September of Year 6, and starts secondary school the September after that.
Working forward from the school year your child is in now
Year 5
- Test sat
- September of Year 6, roughly twelve months from now
- Preference form
- 31 October of Year 6
- Starts secondary
- The following September
Year 4
- Test sat
- In two years, at the start of Year 6
- Preference form
- 31 October of Year 6
- Starts secondary
- Two years after that
Year 6 (now)
- Test sat
- Already sat, or within weeks
- Preference form
- 31 October — this term
- Starts secondary
- Next September
Working forward from the school year your child is in now
| Year group now | Test sat | Preference form | Starts secondary |
|---|---|---|---|
| Year 5 | September of Year 6, roughly twelve months from now | 31 October of Year 6 | The following September |
| Year 4 | In two years, at the start of Year 6 | 31 October of Year 6 | Two years after that |
| Year 6 (now) | Already sat, or within weeks | 31 October — this term | Next September |
The trap inside that table is registration, which closes months before the test — commonly in the June before, and in some areas earlier. It is a form, not an exam, and missing it ends the process for that cycle regardless of how well prepared the child is. Find your own area's registration date before you plan anything else in Year 5.
One regional note
Preparation should always be tuned to your region's specific test — question types, timing and scoring all vary. Most TutorMint regions use GL-style papers today, but providers do change: Gloucestershire's consortium, for example, moves to a new provider (FSCE) from September 2028 entry. If your child is currently in Year 3 or 4, build flexible skills rather than format tricks — vocabulary, reasoning and calm timing transfer to any test a region adopts.
Our free demo lesson includes an honest assessment of exactly where your child is on this timeline.
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Sources
- TutorMint founder — 10+ years preparing children for UK entrance exams
Written by TutorMint Founder
10+ years of classroom and one-to-one teaching experience. Facts checked 31 August 2026.
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