A month-by-month plan for Year 5, from September through to the end of the summer holiday, designed for parents managing the preparation themselves.
September–October: Foundations
Light topic work in mental arithmetic, vocabulary and reading aloud. No formal practice papers yet. Goal is to establish the rhythm of working at the kitchen table for fifteen minutes a few evenings a week, not to cover content.
Read aloud at bedtime if you have not already started — this is the highest-leverage preparation possible, and it costs you twenty minutes a day.
November–December: Topic introduction
Begin gentle topic-by-topic work using a workbook in each subject. Twenty-minute sessions, three or four evenings a week. No timed work yet; the goal is to introduce question types without time pressure.
Christmas holiday: nothing 11+. The break is more valuable than two weeks of additional practice.
January–February: Continued topic work
More structured topic sessions, beginning to add light timing. Try a single subject section under timing once a week to introduce the concept gently. Continue daily reading and mental arithmetic.
By the end of February, your child should be familiar with all major question types in all subjects, even if not yet fast at any of them.
March: First baseline
Sit one full paper in each subject under realistic conditions, on different days. Mark them together a day later. The output is a ranked list of weak topics, not a score.
This is the moment when the preparation goes from broad to focused. Use the baseline to set priorities for April through July.
April–June: Focused topic work
Drill the three weakest topics from the baseline in fifteen-to-twenty-minute sessions, four times per week. Sit one partial paper per fortnight to track improvement on the drilled topics.
Easter holiday: light continuation, not intensive ramp-up. The big push is the summer; the holiday should preserve energy for it.
July–August: Full timed papers
Full timed papers at fortnightly cadence. Off-week dedicated to reviewing the marked paper. By the end of August, your child should have sat six to eight full mocks under realistic conditions and you should have a clear sense of the trajectory.
Build family time into the summer deliberately — the 11+ should not consume the holiday. Two days off per week, minimum, no exceptions.