Thirty minutes to an hour, every single day. That is the honest answer, and the daily part matters far more than the total.
Across a week that is roughly three and a half to seven hours. But a family that does seven hours on a Saturday will be beaten by a family that does forty minutes a day, and it is worth understanding why.
Why daily beats long
Consistency and discipline are the key drivers of success in this test. Whatever a child does, doing something every day is enormous in terms of their overall improvement.
The reason is retention. Reasoning is a skill, and skills are built by repeated short exposure rather than by occasional long sessions. A child who meets a question type on Monday, Wednesday and Friday has it. A child who met it eleven times last Sunday has a memory of it.
You see the difference most clearly under time pressure. The daily child recognises the question and starts solving. The crammer is still working out what is being asked.
What the week actually looks like
| Pattern | Weekly total | What I see happen |
|---|---|---|
| 30 to 60 minutes daily | 3.5 to 7 hours | Consistently strong results by the test |
| Two 15 minute sessions daily | 3.5 hours | Works well for younger or restless children |
| One hour a week at a lesson | 1 hour | Not enough on its own |
| Cramming the night before | Variable | Reliably underperforms |
Note the second row. For some children an hour split into two shorter sessions in a day is genuinely more effective than one unbroken block, particularly early in Year 5 when sustained concentration is still being built.
The hour only counts if it is real
Half an hour of focused work with the phone in another room is worth more than two hours with a child drifting at the kitchen table while the television runs.
Mark the work. An hour of unmarked practice teaches a child to repeat their mistakes confidently, which is worse than not practising.
Building the habit without a fight
- Same time every day, usually straight after school, before the evening dissolves.
- Start smaller than you think. Twenty minutes held for a year beats an hour abandoned in November.
- Split it if focus is the problem. Two fifteens is a legitimate hour.
- Mark it the same day, so errors get corrected while the thinking is fresh.
- Protect weekends for longer practice, especially full timed papers from the spring onwards.
See our month by month Year 5 plan for what to put in that daily slot.
See where your child stands today
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Half an hour a day, and it has to be every day
Consistency and discipline are the key drivers of our students' success in the 11+. Whatever they do, little or a lot, doing something every day is massive in terms of their overall improvement and development, and it shows up in knowledge retention and in how they apply it.
On timing, from our teaching experience, students who consistently spend thirty minutes to an hour every single day just on the 11+ tend to do really, really well at the end of year test. That is as opposed to students who do an hour the night before a lesson, or just that one hour a week.
It needs to be done every day. Half an hour to an hour is what I would suggest. And for some students, doing that hour as two fifteen minute sessions across the day is also effective. The shape can flex. The daily part cannot.
Mushtaque Ahmed, Founder of GrammarPath and Bright Mentors
Frequently asked questions
How many hours a week should a child do for the 11+?
Around three and a half to seven hours, built as 30 to 60 minutes every single day rather than as one long weekly session. The daily pattern matters more than the total, because reasoning is a skill and skills are built by repeated short exposure.
Is 30 minutes a day enough for the 11+?
Yes, if it is genuinely daily and the work is marked. Students who consistently spend 30 minutes to an hour a day on 11+ preparation do very well by the time of the test, considerably better than students doing a single hour a week or cramming near the end.
Can 11+ practice be split into shorter sessions?
Yes, and for some children it works better. An hour broken into two shorter sessions in the same day is effective, particularly for younger children or those still building sustained concentration early in Year 5.
Is one tutoring session a week enough preparation?
No, not on its own. An hour a week at a lesson without daily work between sessions does not build the retention the test requires. The lesson is where gaps are explained; the daily practice is where the skill is actually built.
Does cramming before the 11+ work?
Reliably not. Children who concentrate their preparation into the final weeks underperform against those who worked steadily, because under time pressure they are still working out what a question is asking while a well-practised child has already started solving it.