Start with the dates, not the work
Every school sets its own test and its own timetable, and registration usually closes months before the test itself. Before planning a single practice session, write down the dates for the schools you are considering: when registration opens and closes, when the test sits, and when offers come out.
The Department for Education's admissions code is the document those dates have to follow, and each school publishes its own arrangements every year. School websites move house regularly, so check the current pages rather than trusting last year's dates from a forum.
Year 4: reading does the heavy lifting
In Year 4, the highest-value preparation is not preparation at all in the way most people picture it. It is reading: novels, non-fiction, comics, recipes, match reports — anything your child will finish. A child who reads widely meets thousands of words in context, which is exactly what the English and verbal reasoning papers go on to test.
If you do one deliberate thing this year, make it noticing words together. When an unfamiliar word turns up, talk about what it might mean from the sentence around it before reaching for a dictionary. That habit — guessing from context, then checking — is a skill the papers reward directly.
There is no need for timed papers, tutors, or a schedule in Year 4. A child who is still building reading stamina will gain far more from twenty minutes of a book they chose than from any worksheet.
Year 5: a short routine, kept
Year 5 is when a small regular routine earns its place: a few minutes most days beats an hour on Sunday. Ten to twenty questions, a short story containing new words, five words said aloud and used in a sentence — any of these, done often, compounds across the year.
This is also the year to try the official familiarisation materials, so the format of a real paper holds no surprises. They are free, they show how questions are laid out, and they answer the question children actually worry about, which is what the day will feel like.
Watch the total load. School, clubs, instruments and rest are not obstacles to preparation; they are the life preparation has to fit inside. If practice regularly ends in tears, the routine is wrong, not the child.
The final stretch: narrow, don't widen
In the last couple of months, resist the urge to cover new ground. The highest-value work now is revision of what is nearly known: words missed before, question types that wobble, timing on a full paper done occasionally rather than constantly.
Keep one full rest day a week with no preparation at all, right up to the test. A tired child underperforms a rested one whatever they know, and the week before the test is for sleep, fresh air and normal life — not for one more topic.
What not to do
Do not start timed papers a year early: practising speed before the knowledge exists teaches rushing, and rushing is much harder to unteach. Do not buy every book at once: a shelf of untouched papers guilty-trips the whole family. And do not compare notes competitively with other parents — every school tests differently, every child peaks at a different age, and another family's timetable says nothing about yours.