Every parent asking "when to start 11 plus prep" gets the same useless answer: as early as possible. That sounds sensible until you realise it translates to "spend money now and worry about whether it was the right call later." Some tutoring companies will happily sign up a Year 3 child. That tells you more about their business model than your child's needs.
The honest answer is that it depends on where your child is right now. Not where the neighbours' kid is. Not where the Mumsnet consensus says they should be. Where they actually are, measured against what the exam will ask of them.
The exam timeline you need to know
Before talking about prep, you need to understand the calendar. In most grammar school areas, children sit the 11+ in September of Year 6. That means the exam happens about three weeks into the school year. Registration usually closes in June or July of Year 5, depending on the area.
So when parents talk about "11 plus year 5 preparation," they often mean the window from September of Year 5 through to the exam the following September. That's twelve months. For families in areas where testing happens in Year 5 itself (parts of Kent, for example), the timeline is even tighter.
This catches people off guard. If your child is in Year 4 and you're just starting to think about grammar schools, you're not behind. But you don't have as long as you think.
What Year 4 actually looks like
Year 4 is reconnaissance, not boot camp. Your child is eight or nine years old. They're still figuring out long division. Sitting them down with a stack of Bond 11+ papers at this stage is a recipe for tears and resentment.
What's useful in Year 4 is understanding the lay of the land. Which test format does your area use? GL Assessment? CEM? A consortium paper? The answer changes what your child will face. GL exams in Buckinghamshire test maths, English, verbal reasoning, and non-verbal reasoning separately. CEM papers in areas like Warwickshire blend subjects together in a different way. You need to know which game you're playing before you start training for it.
The other thing that's useful in Year 4 is getting a baseline. Not through months of practice papers, but through something quick and honest that tells you where your child's strengths are and where the gaps sit. That's what a free 11 plus diagnostic is for. You spend thirty minutes, you get a clear picture, and then you can make sensible decisions about what happens next.
Some children in Year 4 will turn out to be comfortable with the maths content already. They might need minimal preparation. Others will have gaps in topics they haven't covered at school yet. Knowing this early means you can fill those gaps gradually, without pressure, through normal homework and a few targeted exercises.
What Year 5 preparation should look like
Year 5 is when most families get serious, and that's reasonable. By this point your child has covered enough of the curriculum that practice starts to make sense. They've seen fractions, they've worked with decimals, they can handle multi-step problems. The building blocks are there.
A solid 11 plus year 5 preparation plan covers three things. First, filling any remaining gaps in core maths and English knowledge. If your child still struggles with equivalent fractions or can't identify a subordinate clause, those gaps need closing before timed practice is useful. Second, getting familiar with the exam format. Verbal reasoning and non-verbal reasoning are skills most children don't encounter at school, so they need exposure to the question types. Third, building speed and accuracy under timed conditions. This comes last because it's pointless without the first two.
How much time this takes varies wildly. A child who's already performing at the expected level for grammar school entry might need six months of light, regular practice. A child with significant gaps in maths might need a full twelve months of more focused work. A child who's strong academically but has never seen a verbal reasoning question needs somewhere in between.
This is why starting Year 5 without a baseline assessment is a gamble. You could spend six months drilling maths when your child's real weakness is in verbal reasoning. Or you could pay for a tutor covering everything when your child only needs help in one area. Both waste time and money that could have been spent better.
The children who need more than twelve months
Some children genuinely do benefit from starting earlier. If your child is working below age-related expectations in maths or English at the end of Year 4, a twelve-month prep window probably isn't enough. They'll need to catch up on the underlying knowledge before they can start doing exam-style practice, and that catch-up takes time.
This isn't a judgement. Children develop at different rates, and some Year 4 pupils who seem behind end up flying by Year 6. But if you're going to make the decision to aim for grammar school, you need to be realistic about the starting point.
A diagnostic taken in Year 4 tells you whether you're in this position. If your child's results show significant gaps across multiple areas, you know you need an eighteen-month plan rather than a twelve-month one. If the results show they're broadly on track with one or two weak spots, a Year 5 start is fine.
The children who don't need much at all
Not every child needs months of intensive preparation. Some children are reading above their age, confident with maths, and pick up reasoning patterns quickly. For these children, the main value of preparation is exposure to the exam format and practice under timed conditions. That might only take three or four months of focused work.
If this is your child, the worst thing you can do is over-prepare them. Eighteen months of tutoring for a child who didn't need it doesn't make them more likely to pass. It makes them bored, stressed, and resentful of the whole process. I've spoken to parents in Reading and Slough who spent over a thousand pounds on tutoring for children who would have passed with a few practice papers and a steady hand. They don't regret trying to help their kids. They regret not knowing where the bar actually was.
How to figure out what your child needs
You've probably noticed a pattern here. Whether we're talking about 11 plus year 4 or year 5, the question always comes back to the same thing: where does your child actually stand right now?
That's why I built ReadyFor11. The free diagnostic gives you a clear, GL Assessment-aligned picture of your child's maths readiness. It takes about thirty minutes and shows you exactly which topics your child handles well and which ones need work. No subscription, no credit card, no "unlock your full results" paywall.
Take the diagnostic at www.readyfor11.co.uk, and you'll have an honest answer to the question "when should we start?" Because the real answer was never about a date on a calendar. It was always about the distance between where your child is and where they need to be.
Frequently asked questions
Is Year 4 too early to start 11+ prep?
It's too early for intensive practice, but it's the right time to understand the exam format your area uses and get a baseline of your child's current ability. Think of Year 4 as scouting, not training. A quick diagnostic now saves you months of guesswork later.
Can my child pass the 11+ with only six months of prep?
Yes, if they're already performing at or near the expected level. Children who are strong in maths and English and just need to learn the reasoning question types can absolutely get there in six months. The catch is that you need to know they're at that level before you bank on a shorter timeline.
What if we've already missed the Year 5 window?
You haven't missed anything irreversible. Even in Year 6, focused preparation on the specific areas where your child is weakest can make a real difference. The earlier you start the better, but "too late to start" almost never applies. What matters is targeting the right gaps instead of trying to cover everything.
How do I know if my child is grammar school material?
Take the marketing out of it. Grammar schools select children who score above a threshold on a standardised test. Your child doesn't need to be gifted. They need to perform well enough on that specific test on that specific day. A diagnostic tells you how close they are right now, and that's a much more useful answer than any gut feeling or teacher comment.