A Year 5 11 plus plan, term by term
Your child has just started Year 5 and the test is next September. That is roughly a year, and it is enough if you spread the work sensibly. Here is how to divide it across the three terms and the summer holiday so nothing is crammed and nothing is forgotten.
The shape of the 11 plus year
In most grammar school areas, the 11 plus is sat in the first two weeks of Year 6, around the middle of September. That means the preparation window is Year 5 and the summer holiday after it, and nothing else. There is no Year 6 term to fall back on. Confirm the current arrangements with your admissions authority, because a few areas use a different calendar, and the main exceptions are covered at the end.
A year is enough. The trouble comes when families treat it as one long block and either start too heavily and burn out by Easter, or drift through the autumn and try to make it up in August. A plan by term stops both.
The daily amounts below match our guide to how much 11 plus practice a child needs each day. They are a ceiling, not a target. A willing, focused child can do less and still arrive well prepared.
Autumn term: build the habit and cover the ground
The autumn term has one job, and it is not exam technique. It is turning practice into something that happens most days without a negotiation. Fifteen to twenty-five minutes a day, five or six days a week, at the same time and with the same cue. After tea, before screens, whatever fits your house.
The content is breadth. Across the term your child should meet every subject the test covers: maths, English, verbal reasoning and, where your area tests it, non-verbal reasoning. Do not linger on the topics they find easy and do not camp on one weak area yet. The aim is for nothing on the paper to be a surprise, and for you to have a first rough sense of where they are stronger and weaker.
No mock papers this term. A full paper in October mostly measures how much your child has not yet been taught, which is not useful and can be discouraging. If you want a feel for the ground, our guides to the maths topics on 11+ papers, in order and what the English paper tests will tell you more than a mock would.
Two habits are worth setting now: reading every day, anything they enjoy, because it builds vocabulary and comprehension without feeling like work; and revisiting wrong answers a few days later rather than immediately, so the correction has to be recalled rather than copied.
Spring term: consolidate and start naming weak areas
By January the habit should be in place, and the daily amount stays at fifteen to twenty-five minutes. What changes is what you do with the information. After a term of practice you can say something honest about weak areas: not “maths is shaky” but “fractions of amounts and reading timetables keep going wrong”. That is the level of detail a plan can act on.
Spend the spring term going back over the ground with that list in hand. Two or three sessions a week on named weak areas, the rest keeping everything else warm. Vocabulary and spelling reward little and often, so keep them in the mix even when the focus is elsewhere.
This is also the term for a first gentle taste of the clock. Not a full paper: a single section, or twenty minutes of one subject, timed, then marked together without any fuss about the score. The point is for your child to learn what working against time feels like while the stakes are zero. From around March you can nudge the daily amount up if your child is coping comfortably.
Summer term: step up, monthly mocks and a vocabulary push
From around Easter, practice steps up to twenty-five to thirty-five minutes a day, still five or six days a week. Your child knows the formats by now and has a habit, so a longer session is achievable rather than a battle. Keep weekends lighter than weekdays; the weekday sessions are the ones that survive.
One full mock paper a month, on a weekend morning, at a table, timed, then marked together. Monthly is enough. Its job is to check pace and stamina and to refresh the weak-areas list, not to be the main event. If a mock goes badly, look at which questions went wrong before deciding anything. A poor score usually means two or three topics, not everything.
The summer term is the vocabulary push. Verbal reasoning and English both lean on word knowledge, and vocabulary keeps improving right up to the test if you keep feeding it. A few new words a day, with a sample sentence and a return visit a few days later, is worth more than a long list learned once. Our guide to the verbal reasoning question types shows how many of them turn on knowing the words.
The summer holiday: the final month before the test
For most families August is the final month, and it is the only window where heavier practice is genuinely useful. Thirty to forty-five minutes a day, six days a week, plus a full mock paper most weekends. The aim shifts from learning to exam fitness: pacing, moving on from a stuck question, filling in the answer sheet cleanly, and keeping going through the last section when tired. Morning sessions, before the day fills up, are far easier to hold than ones squeezed in at bedtime.
Then ease off. In the last four or five days before the test, drop to a short session or nothing at all, sleep well, and do something enjoyable. A child who walks in fresh does better than one who walks in exhausted, and nothing learned in the final week will outweigh being rested. If your child shows the signs of doing too much (resistance, rushing, tears, worse scores as the workload rises), scale back straight away.
If your child’s test is later
Not every child sits in September. Many independent schools test in January of Year 6, and some grammar areas run their own dates. If that is you, the order of the plan holds and the calendar stretches: the habit still starts in September of Year 5, the step-up can wait until the summer term, and the autumn term of Year 6 becomes the final push, with monthly mocks through the autumn and a heavier fortnight before the test. Check the date and format with each school, because independent papers vary more than grammar ones do.
Gloucestershire: a different calendar from 2027
The seven Gloucestershire grammar schools are moving their entrance test from GL Assessment to a new provider, FSCE, from the test sat in summer 2027, which decides entry in September 2028. The test also moves from September of Year 6 into the summer term of Year 5, so a child starting Year 5 in September 2026 sits it before the summer holiday and the window is roughly a term shorter. Children sitting in September 2026 for 2027 entry are unaffected. Our post on the Gloucestershire move to FSCE has the detail; confirm the current arrangements with the schools before you plan around them.
The year on one page
| Term | Daily practice | Mock papers | Focus |
|---|---|---|---|
| Autumn (Sept to Dec) | 15 to 25 minutes, 5 to 6 days a week | None | Habit, breadth, daily reading |
| Spring (Jan to Mar) | 15 to 25 minutes, 5 to 6 days a week | One gentle timed section | Named weak areas |
| Summer term (Apr to Jul) | 25 to 35 minutes, 5 to 6 days a week | One a month | Step up, vocabulary push |
| Summer holiday (Aug) | 30 to 45 minutes, 6 days a week | Most weekends | Pace and exam fitness, then ease off |
Where 11+ Daily fits
11+ Daily is built for the daily half of this plan. The Today screen picks one subject and one skill each day, based on what is weak, what has not been touched for a while and what your child is making progress on, so the autumn breadth and the spring focus happen without you planning them. Sessions are short, around seven to ten minutes. The parents area shows days studied, how many skill areas have been covered and accuracy by subject and skill, which is where the spring term’s list of named weak areas comes from.
It does not do full mock papers. For those, pair it with a set of practice papers from the summer term onwards. The 14-day trial is free, every feature unlocked, no card needed.
A calm year beats a frantic one
The plan above is not clever. It is the ordinary shape of a year of practice: habit first, then focus, then pace, then rest. Most families who struggle with the eleven plus are not doing too little; they are doing the right things in the wrong order, with mocks in October and the habit starting in June. Get the order right, keep the daily amount modest, and let the twelve months do the work.
Questions parents ask
When should a Year 5 child start 11 plus preparation?
How much 11 plus practice should a Year 5 child do each term?
When should a Year 5 child start doing 11 plus mock papers?
Does the Year 5 plan change if the 11 plus is sat in January?
Try 11+ Daily with your child.
Daily 11+ practice that knows what to revise next. English, Maths, Verbal Reasoning and Non-Verbal Reasoning on laptop, tablet or phone. Real progress parents can see.