There's a specific kind of panic that arrives at around 11pm.
You've just read something on a forum – a parent casually mentioning that their child has been working through past papers since Year 2. Or your child comes home from a playdate and mentions that their friend already has a tutor. Or the word "grammar" comes up at a school parents' evening, and suddenly the 11+, which had felt comfortably distant, feels alarmingly close.
The question that arrives, usually at exactly the wrong time of night: have we already left it too late?
Here's the honest answer: almost certainly not. Unless you've missed the application window for your child's grammar school of choice, there's still time to make a meaningful difference.
But how you use the time you have matters more than when you started.
Know your exam first
Before you look at a practice paper or book a tutor session, find out which exam your target school uses. This shapes everything: what your child needs to cover, how they need to practise and how early preparation makes sense.
Most grammar schools in England use GL Assessment. GL tests English, maths, verbal reasoning and non-verbal reasoning. The maths covers the KS2 curriculum up to early Year 6. Calculators aren't allowed and children write their answers on paper.
Many independent schools use the ISEB Common Pre-Test or Quest Assessment. These are computer-based and partly adaptive – the difficulty adjusts as your child answers. Adaptive tests have no back button and cover maths up to the end of Year 5. The scoring is based on difficulty reached, not raw marks, which changes how you prepare.
If you're not sure which exam your target school uses, check our directories of grammar schools and independent schools. Don't guess.
What are verbal reasoning and non-verbal reasoning?
This trips up a lot of parents, because these subjects aren't part of the normal primary school curriculum – so many children (and adults) have never encountered them.
Verbal reasoning tests a child's ability to work with language and logic: completing word patterns, identifying hidden words, finding words with similar or opposite meanings, solving letter codes. It's distinct from English – it's less about reading comprehension and more about pattern recognition in language.
Non-verbal reasoning removes language entirely. It tests logical thinking through shapes, patterns and sequences: which shape comes next, which doesn't belong, which shape would complete a pattern. Children who are strong mathematically often find NVR more intuitive. Those who are stronger in English sometimes find it harder at first.
Both subjects can improve significantly with practice and familiarity. Children who encounter them for the first time under exam conditions are at a disadvantage. Children who've been working with them for a year or two find them much less daunting.
There's an important wrinkle here worth knowing about. State primary schools are not permitted to teach VR and NVR in a way that prepares children for the 11+. Independent prep schools, however, face no such restriction. Many explicitly coach children through these question types as a matter of course.
This creates a real, structural advantage for prep school children sitting the same exam as their state school peers. It isn't fair, but it is the reality. For state school families, the only way to level that playing field is preparation at home – which is exactly why an app like HeyKitsu exists.
Year 3 – earlier than you need to be
If your child is in Year 3, you have more time than almost any family preparing for the 11+. That's a genuinely good position to be in.
Build the foundations, not the pressure
This is not the moment for past papers or formal exam prep. What it is the right moment for is building the habits that make later preparation feel natural: a reading habit, times tables practice, curiosity about numbers and words.
A child who reads widely in Year 3 and 4 arrives at verbal reasoning questions with an intuitive feel for language that no amount of drilling can replicate. The same is true for mental maths – a child who can work with numbers fluently in Year 4 finds the maths preparation in Year 5 easier.
The risk at this age isn't starting too late. It's starting formal exam prep too early and creating fatigue or resentment before it's needed.
What to do (and what to skip)
Daily reading – 10 to 15 minutes is plenty. Times tables practice a few times a week. Word games and puzzles when the opportunity arises. That's it.
Formal 11+ practice papers in Year 3 are not worth it. Save those for when they'll actually have an effect.
Year 4 – the right time to begin
Year 4 is the natural starting point for structured preparation, and the families who do best in Year 6 often started around here.
VR and NVR: start here
VR and NVR are the obvious places to begin, because they're the subjects children are least likely to have encountered before. Early familiarity means your child isn't seeing these question types for the first time under pressure – they're just doing something they've done hundreds of times before.
Maths and English preparation at this stage can be integrated with what children are already doing at school. VR and NVR can't. That's why they're worth prioritising.
The habit is the hardest part
The other reason Year 4 is worth starting is the habit. Two or three short sessions a week – 15 to 20 minutes – sounds minimal. But the cumulative effect over two years is significant, and more importantly, the habit becomes automatic.
A child who's used to sitting down to practise in Year 4 finds it easy to scale up in Year 5. A child who starts from scratch in Year 5 has to build the habit and the content knowledge at the same time. That's a harder job.
"HeyKitsu has helped so much because it feels like a game." – HeyKitsu App Store review
"My son really liked this. It's easier than trying to get him to do practice papers!" – HeyKitsu App Store review
What's worth doing in Year 4: two or three short sessions a week. Introduce VR and NVR gently. Build the daily habit. Find out your exam board.
Year 5 – the year that matters most
If there's one year where the quality of preparation has the biggest effect on outcomes, it's Year 5.
The 11+ exam – for most schools – is sat in September or October of Year 6. That means Year 5 is effectively your preparation year.
A child who works consistently through Year 5 can cover the full curriculum and have months left for timed practice and mock conditions before the real thing.
A child who leaves it to Year 6 is playing catch-up from the moment school starts.
Consistent beats intensive
Research on how memory and learning work consistently shows that spreading practice across time – what psychologists call distributed practice – produces significantly better retention than concentrated cramming.
A child doing 20 minutes a day for 10 months will almost always outperform a child who does two-hour sessions on Sundays for six months. Not necessarily because they've done more total time, but because the spaced repetition builds something that cramming doesn't.
Consistency is also easier to sustain. One short daily session doesn't require the same negotiation as a long Sunday session – and it's a lot harder to fall behind.
How to structure the year
September to January: systematic coverage across all four subjects. Prioritise VR and NVR first if they're included in your exam – they benefit most from early exposure. Track what's been covered and find the gaps while there's still time to fill them.
February to May: introduce timed practice alongside topic work. The shift from "can you do this?" to "can you do this in time?" is a significant one, and children need practice making it. By May, exam conditions shouldn't feel foreign.
June to August: mock papers, targeted revision of persistent weak areas and building confidence under exam conditions. This is when you simulate the real thing – not experience it for the first time.
"The best part is the 'no-nag' factor – I don't have to fight to get the kids to practise." – HeyKitsu App Store review
What's worth doing in Year 5: daily short sessions, every subject tracked, gaps found and addressed early, timed practice from February onwards.
Year 6 – make every session count
The exam is coming. What matters now is targeted practice, not volume. Protect mental health above anything else.
Diagnose first, revise second
There's no point spending time on concepts your child has already mastered. The job in Year 6 is to find the gaps most likely to cost marks and close them – specifically and efficiently.
A diagnostic assessment is worth doing immediately at the start of Year 6 if you haven't already. It gives you an honest picture of where your child stands across the full curriculum, so you can prioritise the right things rather than working through everything from the beginning.
It's not too late
If you're starting in Year 6, don't let guilt about the timeline get in the way of making the most of the time available. Focused preparation in the right areas can make a real difference even in a short window. What matters now is not what wasn't done before. It's what you do next.
What's worth doing in Year 6: diagnostic assessment first, targeted revision of weak areas, regular timed practice, mock exam conditions as the exam approaches.
Common questions parents ask
How do you know if preparation is working?
This is the question parents often don't ask, but should. Here's what solid progress looks like – and what to watch for.
Signs it's going well:
- Your child is sitting down to practise without being asked (or with less prompting over time)
- They're noticing their own improvement: "I'm better at these now"
- Specific topics that were weak are getting stronger
- Timed practice is feeling less pressured than it did
Signs something needs adjusting:
- Practice is consistently causing stress or tears
- Your child is getting through questions quickly but not retaining anything
- The same topics keep coming up as weak areas without improving
- Volume of practice is high but targeted work on gaps isn't happening
The last one is common. Families who do a lot of general practice papers can miss specific weaknesses that targeted topic work would catch. Past papers are excellent for building exam stamina and comfort under timed conditions – but they're less efficient at fixing specific gaps than focused topic practice.
Consider using an app like HeyKitsu that identifies and fixes these gaps.
How do I know if we're doing enough?
The most common answer to this question is: probably yes, if the habit is there.
Parents tend to worry about volume – hours per week, papers completed, topics covered. These things matter, but the more reliable signal is consistency. A child doing 20 focused minutes every day is almost always making better progress than one doing 90 minutes twice a week, even though the weekly totals may look similar. Daily practice builds retrieval habits and keeps material fresh in a way that longer, less frequent sessions can't.
If your child is in Year 4 or 5, two to three short sessions a week is a reasonable minimum. By Year 5 you want to be building towards something daily. In Year 6, daily practice is the target.
If you're unsure, a diagnostic assessment from HeyKitsu answers the question more reliably than any rule of thumb. It shows you where your child is across the curriculum – not just whether they're practising enough, but whether what they're practising is the right stuff.
How do I know if my child should be doing harder content?
There are two different situations here, and they call for different responses.
If your child is finding practice consistently easy – breezing through questions, finishing quickly, rarely getting things wrong – that's a sign they need to move up in difficulty. Practising content that's too easy builds false confidence and wastes time. The goal of 11+ preparation isn't to feel good in practice; it's to be ready for the exam.
If your child is racing ahead in some subjects but behind in others – that's normal, and it's useful information. Doubling down on the harder areas, rather than spending more time on the comfortable ones, is almost always the better use of time.
The tricky part is that children often self-select easy content, because it feels rewarding. A good adaptive platform prevents this by adjusting difficulty automatically – moving your child up when they're consistently correct, and targeting persistent weak areas rather than letting them practise what they already know.
One practical sign that harder content is needed: if your child is getting more than 80 to 85% of questions right consistently, difficulty should increase. If they're getting below 50%, the content is probably too hard and needs to come down first before building back up.
A note on tutors
Tutors can be excellent. They can also be expensive – typically £80 to £100 per session – time-consuming to find and inconsistent in quality.
What matters more than any individual session is what happens in between sessions: the daily habit, the consistent practice, the gradual building of knowledge and confidence over time. A child who does 20 minutes of focused adaptive practice every day will often progress further than one who has a tutor once a week but does little in between.
A tutor and a daily practice habit together can be very effective. A tutor alone, without the daily habit, leaves a lot of potential on the table.
The only thing worth doing today
Whatever year your child is in, the most useful thing right now is an honest picture of where they are.
HeyKitsu starts with a free diagnostic assessment – no credit card required, no expiry, just a clear view of where your child stands across English, maths, verbal reasoning and non-verbal reasoning. From there, the platform adapts what they practise based on what they actually need, not a generic sequence.
It's designed to feel more like a game than a worksheet, because that matters more than it sounds when you're trying to build a daily habit with a nine-year-old.
"HeyKitsu has been a total game-changer." – App Store review
"Great app with fun characters" – App Store review
"I'd give it 6 stars if I could" – App Store review
The first three levels of every collection are permanently free – no timer, no pressure, no credit card. Just a chance to see whether it works for your child.
Written by
HeyKitsu Team