How to Prepare for the 11 Plus in Year 5: A Month-by-Month Guide

Why Year 5 is the Most Important Year for 11 Plus Preparation

The 11 plus exam is sat in September of Year 6. That single fact changes everything about how to plan preparation. It means that by the time your child returns to school in September of Year 6, the exam is only weeks away. There is virtually no preparation time left in Year 6 before the test.

This makes Year 5 the primary preparation year. A child who begins structured practice in September of Year 5 has roughly 12 months before the exam. A child who begins in September of Year 6 has, in reality, only three or four weeks. The difference in outcomes between those two groups is significant and consistent across the research on selective school success.

The case for Year 5 as the sweet spot goes beyond timing alone. Starting in Year 3 or Year 4 with formal exam papers carries a real risk of burnout. Children in Year 3 are only seven or eight years old. Exposing them to timed practice papers and exam pressure that early can erode motivation and create anxiety long before the exam itself. Year 5 children, by contrast, are ten years old, developmentally ready to understand goals that are 12 months away, and capable of sustained structured learning in a way that younger children are not.

The exam itself also demands skills that school does not teach. Verbal reasoning question types, such as word codes, letter sequences, and compound words, are almost entirely absent from the national curriculum. Non-verbal reasoning, which tests spatial pattern recognition, is similarly outside normal classroom learning. These skills take months to acquire and cannot be crammed. A Year 5 child learning one or two VR question types per week from November onwards will have encountered and practised the full range of question formats well before the exam. A Year 6 child starting in September will not.

Finally, Year 5 preparation allows for proper diagnosis. You will have time to identify your child's weakest areas, target them systematically, and re-test before the actual exam. That kind of iterative improvement is only possible when you are not racing against a deadline.

What Your Child Should Be Able to Do at the Start of Year 5

Before beginning any 11 plus specific practice, it is worth taking stock of where your child is academically at the start of Year 5. The 11 plus exam assumes a solid grip on Key Stage 2 curriculum content. If that foundation is shaky, 11 plus preparation will feel harder than it needs to be and results will plateau despite effort.

In mathematics, your child should be confident with all times tables up to 12x12. This is non-negotiable. Almost every area of 11 plus maths, from fractions and ratio to percentages and algebra, depends on quick, accurate times table recall. If your child is still counting on fingers for 7x8, address that before anything else. They should also be comfortable with four-digit arithmetic: adding, subtracting, multiplying and dividing larger numbers with reasonable accuracy. Basic fraction work, including finding fractions of amounts and comparing fractions, should be in place.

In English, your child should be reading at or above their age-expected level. The 11 plus comprehension questions across all exam boards reward children who read widely and fluently. If your child is reluctant to read or struggles with longer texts, building that habit now is more valuable than any amount of practice paper work. They should also be broadly comfortable answering questions about texts they have read, explaining what happened, why a character acted in a certain way, and what a word or phrase means in context.

If either of these areas is not yet solid, spend September and October addressing the curriculum gaps first. Year 5 preparation that sits on a weak foundation will be far less effective than preparation that begins a little later but starts from a stable base.

September to October (Year 5 Autumn 1): Foundation Building

The single biggest mistake families make in September of Year 5 is opening a practice paper on day one. Resist that impulse. The first half-term of Year 5 is about building the underlying skills that will make everything else easier, not about simulating exam conditions.

In mathematics, run a times tables audit in the first week. Time your child on each table separately and identify which ones are slow or unreliable. Focus daily practice specifically on those weak tables rather than cycling through all of them uniformly. Alongside times tables, spend time on mental arithmetic: quick addition and subtraction within 1000, doubling and halving, and basic multiplication of two-digit numbers. These are the building blocks of speed in the exam hall.

In English, the priority is daily reading. Thirty minutes every day is the target. The genre matters less than the habit. Fiction, non-fiction, newspapers, even graphic novels, all count. If your child resists, try audiobooks alongside print, or agree on shorter sessions more frequently. Talk about what they are reading: ask them to summarise a chapter, predict what will happen next, or explain why a character made a decision. These conversations build the comprehension muscles that the exam will test.

Vocabulary is worth specific attention from September onwards. Buy a small notebook and encourage your child to write down unfamiliar words they encounter in reading, along with a short definition and a sentence using the word. Even three new words a week adds up to over 150 words by the time the exam arrives.

This is also a good time to introduce the concept of the 11 plus without attaching anxiety to it. Explain what it is, which schools it could lead to, and that you will be practising together over the next year. Keep the framing positive and matter-of-fact. Consider a baseline assessment in one or two subjects to understand where strengths and gaps lie before structured practice begins.

November to December (Year 5 Autumn 2): First Introduction to VR and NVR

November is the right moment to introduce verbal reasoning and non-verbal reasoning for the first time, but the approach matters enormously. Do not hand your child a full VR paper and a stopwatch. Instead, introduce one question type at a time, explain the logic behind it, and practise that single type until it feels familiar before moving on.

For verbal reasoning, begin with the most commonly tested types. Word codes are a good starting point: they test pattern recognition and logic rather than vocabulary, which makes them accessible. Letter sequences come next: spot the rule in a sequence and fill in the missing letter. Analogies, where your child completes a relationship (hot is to cold as light is to...), are a third good early type. Spend two to three weeks on each before introducing a new one.

For non-verbal reasoning, start with sequences and matrices. These involve spotting a visual pattern and identifying which shape comes next or which shape is missing from a grid. Rotations and reflections of shapes can follow in December. Keep NVR sessions visual and game-like at this stage: there are online tools and apps that present these as puzzles rather than exam questions, which reduces pressure and builds familiarity simultaneously.

Session length should be 15 to 20 minutes, three to four times per week. Short and consistent beats long and sporadic every time at this stage of preparation. End each session on a positive note: celebrate correct answers and treat errors as puzzles to work out together rather than failures.

Over the Christmas break, keep things light. A little daily reading and some maths games (Times Tables Rock Stars, card games involving arithmetic) are enough. Give your child a genuine rest. Burnout in November or December of Year 5 is a serious risk if the pace is too intense too early, and you still have nine months of preparation ahead.

January to February (Year 5 Spring 1): Building Momentum

January marks the point at which preparation should become more consistent and slightly more demanding. Increase session length to 30 minutes and aim for four to five sessions per week. Your child has now had two months of light introductory work and should be comfortable with the basic idea of VR and NVR practice.

Expand the range of VR question types covered. The types introduced in November and December should now be feeling more secure, which means it is safe to add new ones. Hidden words (finding a word hidden across two adjacent words in a sentence), compound words (joining two words to make a new one), and odd word out (identifying the word that does not belong in a group) are all good additions for this half-term. Work through one new type per week and revisit older types to maintain fluency.

For non-verbal reasoning, add rotations, reflections, and odd one out to the sequences and matrices already introduced. Rotations in particular trip up many children early on because the spatial reasoning required is genuinely unfamiliar. Spend extra time here if needed: it is better to slow down and build genuine understanding than to rush through question types at surface level.

Crucially, all of this should still be untimed at this stage. The goal in Spring 1 is familiarity and understanding, not speed. Introducing a stopwatch too early causes children to panic and guess, which builds bad habits rather than good technique. There will be plenty of time for timed work from March onwards.

In February, towards the end of this half-term, you might sit one untimed, single-subject practice paper for familiarisation purposes only. Read the instructions together, let your child work through it at their own pace, and then go through it together afterwards discussing each type of question. This is a diagnostic exercise, not a test. Do not attach a score or a grade to it.

March to April (Year 5 Spring 2): First Timed Practice

Spring 2 is when timing enters the equation for the first time. This is an important milestone: the 11 plus exam is a timed test, and managing time is a skill that takes practice to develop. However, the introduction of timing should be gradual. Full timed papers come later. Start with timed topic blocks.

For mathematics, try 20 questions in 15 minutes. For verbal reasoning, try 15 questions in 10 minutes. These are not exam conditions, but they introduce the experience of working against a clock without the pressure of a full paper. After each timed block, review every question together: which ones were rushed, which were skipped, which were genuinely too hard? This analysis is where real learning happens.

Use the results of these timed blocks to identify which subjects need the most attention. A child who is fast and accurate on VR but slow and uncertain on maths needs a different plan from a child who is strong in maths but struggles with NVR. This is also a good time to start tracking progress, even informally: a simple chart showing accuracy by topic over time is a useful motivational tool.

March and April are also the months when administrative tasks require attention. Many grammar schools and selective academies open their registration windows between April and June. Check the admission pages for every school your child might sit the exam for and note the registration deadlines. Missing a registration deadline can mean missing the exam entirely, regardless of how well prepared your child is.

It is also worth confirming at this point which exam board your target school uses. GL Assessment, CEM, CSSE, and ISEB all have different question formats, timing structures, and weighting between subjects. GL tests are standard multiple choice across four subjects. CEM tests are faster paced and combine subjects. ISEB papers are used by independent schools and include a writing component. Knowing this now allows you to focus practice materials appropriately over the remaining months.

May to June (Year 5 Summer 1): Building to Full Papers

By May your child has been preparing for eight months. The range of question types covered should now be approaching completeness, and accuracy on timed topic blocks should be improving. May and June are the months for stepping up to full practice papers for the first time.

Begin with a single subject paper, timed correctly according to the exam conditions for your target exam board. Sit it under proper conditions: no interruptions, at a desk, with only the allowed materials. Mark it together afterwards and then analyse the results by question type rather than by overall score. An overall score of 60 percent is far less useful to know than the fact that your child got 90 percent of maths questions right but only 40 percent of the ratio and percentage questions. The latter tells you exactly where to focus.

Increase the difficulty of practice materials through these months. If early materials felt easy, seek out harder sets. Seek out materials described as Bond Plus or Challenge level rather than standard. The exam will be sat alongside children who have been preparing equally hard, so practising at the top of difficulty is more useful than repeatedly scoring well on easier materials.

Keep the reading programme running throughout this period. It is easy for reading to drop away as structured practice increases, but comprehension questions in both GL and CEM papers, and in ISEB English papers, reward children who have read widely. Aim for 30 minutes daily minimum, and actively choose books that stretch vocabulary: authors like Philip Pullman, Frances Hardinge, and Neil Gaiman write at a level that is appropriately stretching for a Year 5 reader preparing for selective entry.

In maths, use May and June to close out any remaining gaps. Ratio, percentage, and basic algebraic thinking (finding a missing value, continuing a sequence with a rule) are the areas most commonly tested at 11 plus that fall towards the top of the Year 5 curriculum. Make sure these are covered.

July (Year 5 Summer Term End): Consolidation Before Summer

July is the last month of the school year and marks a natural milestone in preparation. Use it as a deliberate consolidation point before the summer break rather than letting preparation tail off informally.

In the first two weeks of July, sit a full mixed mock: a complete set of papers covering all subjects that your target exam board tests, timed correctly, with a proper break between papers. This is the most realistic simulation of exam day that Year 5 can provide. Treat it as a learning exercise rather than a dress rehearsal: your child is not expected to be fully ready yet, and a poor performance now is far more useful than a poor performance in September.

After marking the mock, identify the three weakest areas clearly. Write them down. These become the priority targets for the summer holidays. Having specific targets for summer is important: without them, summer practice tends to become unfocused, and families either over-work (leading to burnout) or under-work (losing momentum gained during the year).

Spend the final weeks of July reviewing and reinforcing those weak areas, then ease off in the last week before summer. Your child has worked hard all year and deserves a proper rest at the start of the holidays. A week of no structured practice at the end of July is entirely reasonable and will not cost them anything in the long run.

Acknowledge the progress made over the year. Year 5 preparation is a genuine achievement. A child who started September knowing no VR question types and finishes July having sat full timed papers across all subjects has come an enormous distance. That progress is worth recognising explicitly.

August (Summer Holidays Before Year 6): The Critical Final Push

August is the most important month of the entire preparation journey. The exam is in September, which means August is the final push. After a recovery week or two at the start of summer, preparation should build to its most intensive phase.

Aim for four to five sessions per week throughout August, each lasting 45 to 60 minutes. This is the longest and most frequent practice schedule of the entire year, but it is sustainable because the end is now visible. Sessions should include full timed papers wherever possible: at this stage, the goal is exam simulation rather than new learning.

After each paper, maintain the discipline of detailed analysis. Where did the time go? Which question types were rushed or guessed? Which topics are still causing errors? The answers to these questions should be driving the choice of what to focus on in each session. A child who consistently misses marks on NVR rotations should be doing extra NVR rotation practice, not repeating strong subjects for confidence.

August is also the time to focus explicitly on exam technique. Skipping a question that is taking too long and returning to it later is a skill that many children need to be taught and practised. Checking answers in remaining time, rather than sitting passively after finishing, is another. Managing nerves in a timed environment is a third. These are not trivial: a child who panics and freezes on hard questions will score lower than their knowledge would otherwise allow.

Aim for 80 percent or above accuracy on practice papers before September arrives. This is a reasonable benchmark for a child who is genuinely ready. If accuracy is consistently below 70 percent in a subject, that subject still needs targeted work rather than full paper practice.

Finally, look after your child's emotional state. Discuss the exam calmly. Normalise not knowing every answer. Remind them that the purpose of the process is to find schools where they will thrive, not to pass a test at any cost. A calm, well-rested child on exam day will outperform an anxious, exhausted one regardless of how much practice they have done.

How EdifyPod Nexus Supports Year 5 Preparation

EdifyPod Nexus is built around the kind of structured, progressive preparation that Year 5 demands. Rather than presenting every question type at once or generating random practice papers without regard for where your child currently is, Nexus adapts to your child's performance and ensures they are always working at the right level of difficulty.

Progress is tracked at the level of individual question types within each subject. That means you can see not just that your child scored 65 percent on a verbal reasoning paper, but that they are strong on analogies and word codes, and weak specifically on letter series and hidden words. That level of detail is what makes targeted practice possible.

Nexus also generates a Readiness Indicator Score, which is calibrated against the typical performance required for entry to your child's specific target school. A child aiming for a highly selective grammar school in Buckinghamshire needs a different benchmark than a child aiming for a less oversubscribed selective academy. The Readiness Indicator Score reflects that difference, which means you can interpret your child's results with real context rather than guessing whether their scores are good enough.

The month-by-month approach in this guide maps directly onto how Nexus is designed to be used. Foundation mode in September and October, type-by-type VR and NVR introduction from November, timed topic blocks from March, and full paper simulation from May are all supported within the platform.

EdifyPod Nexus is available with a 30-day money-back guarantee. If your Year 5 child starts now and it is not the right fit, you can cancel within 30 days for a full refund. There is no risk in starting early and every reason to do so.