Summer is one of the most valuable windows in the whole 11+ journey. With school finished and exams still months away, Year 4 and Year 5 families have a rare opportunity to build the maths foundations that make all the difference come September. But with so much advice out there, it can be hard to know where to actually begin.
This guide cuts through the noise. Here's exactly what your child needs to know, what the exam tests are and how to use the summer wisely, without burning them out before the academic year begins.
Before preparation starts, it helps to understand what your child is working towards. The 11+ maths exam is sat in the autumn of Year 6, but the groundwork is built in Year 4 and Year 5.
The maths content across the main exam boards (GL Assessment, CEM and ISEB) is mapped to the Key Stage 2 national curriculum, predominantly up to the end of Year 5. Some papers include early Year 6 content, but the emphasis is on depth and speed across topics your child is already learning at school, not entirely new material.
What makes the 11+ demanding isn't the content alone. It's three things:
Speed. Questions are designed to be answered in around one minute each, significantly faster than school assessments.
Multi-step problems. Rather than testing one skill in isolation, questions chain two or three concepts together. A child might need to use their fraction knowledge and their percentage knowledge and their understanding of word problems to answer a single question.
Mental arithmetic. The exam is non-calculator. Fluency in mental maths isn't just helpful, it's essential.
Across all exam boards, 11+ maths preparation covers the following areas. Your child doesn't need to master all of these by the end of summer, but knowing which areas exist helps you plan where to focus:
1. Number and Place Value Understanding what each digit in a number represents, ordering and comparing numbers, rounding, negative numbers and estimation. This underpins calculation accuracy across every other topic.
2. The Four Operations Addition, subtraction, multiplication and long division, including with larger numbers and decimals. Times table recall to 12×12 is a minimum requirement. Instant recall of multiplication facts underpins almost every other maths skill tested.
3. Fractions, Decimals and Percentages This is consistently one of the trickiest areas for 11+ candidates. Children need to work fluently with equivalent fractions, mixed numbers, improper fractions, fraction arithmetic and converting freely between fractions, decimals and percentages. Understanding that multiplying by a fraction makes a number smaller and that dividing by a fraction makes it bigger, is the kind of counterintuitive knowledge that takes time to build.
4. Ratio and Proportion Expressing and simplifying ratios, dividing amounts into a given ratio, and solving proportion problems. Children often learn the rules here but apply them incorrectly in context which is why plenty of word problem practice is so important.
5. Geometry and Measures Angles in shapes, perimeter, area, symmetry and properties of 2D and 3D shapes. Understanding units of measurement and converting between them (centimetres to metres, grams to kilograms, millilitres to litres) is tested regularly. Coordinate grids also appear across most papers.
6. Data Handling and Problem Solving Reading and interpreting bar charts, line graphs, pie charts, tables and pictograms. Word problems that wrap mathematical concepts in real-world scenarios are a particular feature of the 11+, this is where many otherwise well-prepared children lose marks.
Use this to gauge where your child is heading into the summer:
For Year 4 children:
For Year 5 children:
The biggest mistake families make in 11+ preparation isn't starting too late or working on the wrong topics. It's allowing gaps in the foundations to go unaddressed while moving on to harder content.
If your child cannot recall their times tables instantly, no amount of fraction practice will be as valuable as fixing that first. If their mental arithmetic is shaky, multi-step word problems will feel impossible regardless of how many they practise.
Before any other preparation, a clear picture of where gaps actually exist and a plan to address them in the right order, makes everything else more effective.
At Mathnasium UK, we assess each child individually to identify exactly where their foundations are strong and where the gaps are, then we build a tailored plan to address them. For families navigating 11+ preparation, that means your child builds genuine mathematical confidence rather than surface familiarity with exam formats.
Whether your child is in Year 4 building their foundations or in Year 5 preparing seriously for the autumn ahead, we meet them exactly where they are.
Find your nearest Mathnasium centre or book a free assessment this summer.
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