When should my child start preparing for the 11+?

The Year 5 norm is popular for a good reason: it balances readiness with breathing room. Start much earlier and there may not be enough curriculum content to work with; leave it much later and the habit-building has to be rushed.

The date of your child's actual test shapes everything, and it is not the same everywhere. Some regions test early in Year 6, others later, so check your region's test details and count backwards from there rather than assuming a national timetable.

The distinction that matters is between building foundations and doing exam prep. Reading together every night, playing with numbers, and encouraging curiosity are wonderful at any age and will pay off enormously later.

What tends to backfire is treating a seven or eight year old as if the exam were imminent. Years of low-level pressure can dull a child's enthusiasm, which is the very thing you most want to protect for the sprint that actually counts.

In practice a Year 5 start looks unhurried. The first stretch is about building the habit and filling obvious gaps, with plenty of room to go at the child's pace. Nothing has to be crammed, because there is time to let skills settle.

As the year turns, you shift gently from learning topics to practising them under mild time pressure. Because you started early, that shift feels like a natural next step rather than a sudden change of gear.

Honesty helps here. A later start means choosing what not to do, and that is fine. Chasing every topic thinly usually achieves less than doing the important things properly.

Keep the pressure down even though time is short. A frantic Year 6 does more harm than good, whereas a focused, steady one, with feedback on every mistake, can move a child a long way in a few months. You can start practising the core subjects straight away and let the mistakes guide where the limited time goes.

Early on, the work is quiet and foundational: reading widely, firming up number skills, and meeting the question types without any clock. This is where confidence is built.

The middle phase is the heart of it. You work through topics, spot the ones that keep going wrong, and turn those into the next week's focus. Feedback after every question is what makes this phase pay off.

Later, you add timed papers to build pacing and calm familiarity, then ease right off in the final weeks. The end of a good plan is restful, not frantic, because the learning is already done.

This is why two families can sensibly start at different times. It is not that one is keener; it is that their exams fall differently and cover different things.

Before you fix your timeline, confirm the specifics. You can check what your region's 11+ includes and when it falls, then count backwards to a start date that gives your child room to prepare gently. The broader complete preparation guide then shows how to fill that time well.