Little and often wins. No admissions authority publishes a figure and this page does not invent one: you choose the daily time that fits your family, and consistency across the week matters far more than the length of any session. What changes as a child moves up is what the time is spent on, not how long it runs.
There is no official figure, and nobody publishes one. No admissions authority states how long a child should practise for, so any number you read anywhere is somebody’s guess rather than a rule, and this page deliberately offers none. The daily time is yours to choose, and a shorter session you actually keep to beats a longer one you abandon in October.
How long should a child practise each day?
Long enough to make progress, short enough that they come back tomorrow. That second half is the one families get wrong, and it is the more important of the two, because 11 plus preparation is measured in years and anything that ends the habit costs more than any single session can buy.
| Year group | On a school day | At the weekend | What the time is for |
|---|---|---|---|
| Year 3 | A short piece on most days, stopped while they still want more. | Nothing formal. A puzzle if they fancy it. | Number facts, reading, and the habit itself. Nothing timed. |
| Year 4 | A short piece on most days, plus reading. | One slightly longer piece, if the mood is right. | Meeting every question type once, calmly, with generous timing. |
| Year 5 | Long enough to sit one timed section in a single go. | A longer session for a timed section, and later a full paper. | Pace, accuracy, and closing the gaps a result actually shows. |
Reading sits outside the session and always has. Time with a book is not practice in the sense this page means; it is the thing that quietly decides half of the result, and it should not be traded against a worksheet.
Want the daily piece chosen for you rather than assembled at the kitchen table each evening? Start a free week of Pathway Eleven: the Starting Assessment sets the starting point, and the daily plan is built round whatever time you tell it you have.
Why does little and often beat long sessions?
Three reasons, and none of them is about willpower.
Because recall is built by spacing. The things an 11 plus paper rewards most, number facts, spellings, vocabulary and question-type methods, are all recall. Recall is built by meeting something several times across days, not by staring at it once for an hour. Five short sessions spread across a week beat one long one at the end of it, and it is not close.
Because attention runs out. The closing stretch of a session that has gone on too long teaches avoidance rather than reasoning. A child working past the point of concentration is rehearsing carelessness, and carelessness is exactly what a multiple-choice paper is designed to punish.
Because the habit is the asset. A family that does a small piece most days for two years does an enormous amount of work without ever having a difficult evening about it. A family that does two hours on a Sunday does less work, argues more, and usually stops by Christmas.
What should a daily session actually contain?
The same shape most days, so that nobody has to decide anything at the point of doing it. Deciding is the friction that kills routines.
Start with something already known. Two or three questions on a topic your child is fine with. It costs almost nothing and it sets the tone: the session begins with success rather than with the thing they dread.
Then the day's work. One area, not four. A short comprehension, or a set of fraction questions, or a batch of one verbal reasoning type. Switching between areas inside a single short session buys nothing and costs attention.
Then two revisits. Two questions from the running list of things your child has previously got wrong. This is the highest-value part of the whole session and the one most often skipped.
Mark it the same day. A wrong method rehearsed for a week is much harder to undo than one caught immediately. Marking together, out loud, is better than a tick and a cross.
Stop while there is something left. End the session before your child is finished rather than after, and tomorrow is easy.
What a session should not contain. A timer, in Year 3. Four subjects crammed into one short sitting. A score that gets announced to the family. Or a piece of work chosen because it was next in a book rather than because it was the thing this child needs.
A weekly rhythm, free, on one printable sheet
Everything on this page is about shape rather than length, and the free Year 5 term planner is that shape on a single sheet: what each term is for, and a blank weekly grid to write your own household into. Give us an address and it comes by email, along with the occasional preparation email.
Sent. It should be with you shortly.
That is on its way. The planner comes as a link rather than a file, so you can open it on whichever device sits nearest the printer.
If a few minutes pass with nothing, check the junk folder, and if it is not there either then info@pathwayeleven.co.uk will get it to you.
Your address goes towards the planner and the occasional preparation email described above, and towards nothing else at all. Every one of those emails carries an unsubscribe link, and the Privacy Notice records what is kept and how to have it removed.
What are the signs that it has become too much?
Four, in the order they usually appear.
Negotiation. The session starts with a discussion about whether the session is happening. When that becomes daily, the amount is wrong, or the time of day is wrong, or both.
Deterioration on easy work. A child who has started getting simple things wrong is not getting worse at maths. They are tired, or they have stopped caring, and both are signals to reduce rather than to push.
Physical signs. Stomach aches before sessions, trouble sleeping, tearfulness that arrives with the folder. These are not stubbornness and they should be treated seriously and immediately. If they persist for more than a couple of weeks, or if they start appearing outside preparation time as well, talk to your child's class teacher and to your GP. Preparation is not worth a child's wellbeing, and stopping is always an available answer. 11 plus exam stress sets out what to say in the moment, and our safeguarding page lists the independent services a family can contact directly.
The child stops reading for pleasure. The clearest sign of all, and the most expensive, because reading is the highest-weighted thing in the whole preparation. If preparation has eaten reading, the preparation is doing net harm.
If two or more of those are present, cut the daily amount in half for a fortnight and protect the reading. Almost nothing is lost by a fortnight at half pace, and a great deal is lost by a child who decides the whole thing is miserable. 11 plus exam stress goes into this properly.
How does the daily amount change through the year?
It should change, and mostly in shape rather than in length. In the autumn of Year 5 the daily piece is content work with short timed drills appearing weekly. By the spring the same daily length is doing more timed work and less new teaching, and a full paper about once a month sits on top of it at the weekend. In the summer term the amount comes down slightly rather than up, because the useful work by then is closing named gaps rather than covering ground again.
The week before the test is not the week to add anything. Short, familiar, confident work, ordinary sleep, and no new material. A child who arrives calm and rested does better than the same child arriving exhausted and crammed.
Pathway Eleven takes the deciding out of the daily session, which is the friction this whole page is about. You set the time your family can actually give; a Starting Assessment decides what goes into it; the revision, guided teaching and timed practice that follow are chosen from what your child got wrong last week, with every question reviewed and approved by a qualified teacher. Full mock rehearsals are part of full membership rather than the trial, and they unlock from Year 4. Nothing in it prints a minutes target at you either. It is one price, £49 a month across all four areas, with the first week free.
The daily-practice questions we are asked most
How much 11 plus practice should a child do each day?+
Little and often, at a daily time you choose. No admissions authority publishes a figure and this page does not invent one: the right amount is the largest piece your child will come back to tomorrow without a negotiation. Keep it short enough to finish, run it on most days rather than every day, and let the length follow your household rather than a rule.
Is every day necessary, or are weekends off allowed?+
Most days is the target, not every day. A missed day costs almost nothing; a routine that collapses because it was too strict costs a great deal. Many families run five weekdays with a lighter weekend, and that works well. What matters is that the gap between sessions rarely stretches past two or three days.
Should practice be timed?+
Not in Year 3. Gently in Year 4, with a few questions against a generous clock so the idea of a clock is familiar. Weekly in Year 5, when the content is largely known and the remaining work is pace, accurate reading and checking. Introducing a timer too early usually produces anxiety rather than speed.
How long should a full practice paper take?+
As long as the real sections allow, because sitting one at a comfortable pace teaches the wrong habit. The West Midlands consortium publishes that candidates sit two papers, each divided into smaller individually timed sections, so rehearsal should include switching between areas on a clock rather than one long stretch.
Does reading count as part of the daily practice time?+
No, and it should not be traded against it. Reading is the single biggest contributor to the English and verbal reasoning half of the result, which carries the heaviest published weighting. Keep it separate, keep it enjoyable, and protect it first if anything has to be cut.
What if a child refuses to do the daily session?+
Treat refusal as information rather than as defiance. Usually the amount is too large, the time of day is wrong, or the work is pitched above where the child actually is. Halve it for a fortnight, move it earlier, and start each session with something they can already do.
Where the published facts above came from
This page prints no daily-minutes figure because nobody publishes one. The two facts it does take from outside were read on the publishing body's own page, on the date given beside each.
- King Edward VI Foundation, Grammar Schools: Entrance Test Information. Two papers, each divided into smaller individually timed sections, which is why rehearsal has to include switching between areas rather than one long stretch of a single subject. Checked 5 September 2026.
- West Midlands Grammar Schools, The entrance test. The published weighting of 50% English and verbal reasoning, 25% non-verbal reasoning and 25% mathematics, which is why reading time is protected ahead of worksheet time above. Checked 5 September 2026.
Carry on from here
- Is my child on track for the 11 plus?, the Year 4 and Year 5 checkpoints this daily work is aiming at.
- 11 plus preparation: a guide for parents, the pillar guide covering routine, timing and all four areas.
- Year 3, Year 4 and Year 5, what the daily piece should actually be in each year.
- 11 plus exam stress, and what to do on the evenings when the signs above appear.
- 11 plus vocabulary, the weekly method that runs alongside the daily session.
- 11 plus mock tests online, how often a full paper is worth sitting and what to do with the result.
- What Pathway Eleven costs, set out in full before you decide.
Set the time you have, and the plan fills it with whatever your child most needs that day.