Essex CSSE 11+ 2027: a Year 5 guide for 2028 entry
If your child is in Year 5 this year and you're looking at Essex or Southend-on-Sea selective schools, the test falls in the autumn of 2027 and the secondary place starts in September 2028. This page covers the 13 schools we hold data for in the area, what they test, and how to use the year ahead.
Essex 11+ at a glance
13 active selective or independent schools in our data for Essex and Southend-on-Sea.
Assessment routes used: own paper, CSSE.
Subjects tested across those schools: English, maths, verbal reasoning, non-verbal reasoning.
Test months recorded: September, October, November - for a child in Year 5 now, that means autumn/winter 2027.
Exam boards, formats and test dates change between admissions rounds, and schools sometimes move between consortia. Confirm the arrangements for the 2027 round directly with the school or admissions authority before relying on any single source, including this page.
What this means for a Year 5 child
The Essex CSSE exam is different from most of the country in one way that matters enormously for how you spend Year 5: there are no reasoning papers. CSSE tests English and maths only. A family preparing for Essex who spends the year on verbal and non-verbal reasoning has spent it on a paper their child will not sit.
CSSE tests are recorded in our data as falling in October, slightly later than the September tests used across Kent, Buckinghamshire and Lincolnshire.
Schools in our data
Chelmsford County High School for Girls - own paper, Essex
Colchester County High School for Girls - CSSE, North Essex
Colchester Royal Grammar School - CSSE, North Essex
King Edward VI Grammar School Chelmsford - CSSE, Mid Essex
St Thomas More High School - CSSE, South Essex
Brentwood School - own paper, Essex
New Hall School - own paper, Essex
Southend High School for Boys - CSSE, South Essex
Westcliff High School for Boys - CSSE, South Essex
Shoeburyness High School - CSSE, South Essex
Southend High School for Girls - CSSE, South Essex
St Bernard's High School for Girls - CSSE, South Essex
Westcliff High School for Girls - CSSE, South Essex
A term-by-term plan
Autumn term, Year 5 (now) - build the habit. Short, daily practice beats weekend cramming. Focus on gaps in core maths and reading, not on exam technique yet.
Spring term, Year 5 - introduce the reasoning papers (verbal and non-verbal) if the target schools test them. These are the least familiar formats and take the longest to click.
Summer term, Year 5 - check which schools you're actually applying to and what they test. Registration windows for autumn 2027 tests generally open around this point, so this is the term to get the admissions details right.
Summer holidays 2027 - the last long run of uninterrupted practice before the test. Timed papers become useful here.
Autumn term, Year 6 (from September 2027) - most state grammar tests are sat in this window. Practice shifts to timing, accuracy under pressure and staying calm.
March 2028 - National Offer Day for secondary places.
September 2028 - your child starts secondary school.
How much practice is enough
Fifteen to twenty minutes on a school day is a realistic target for the autumn term of Year 5, done at a consistent time so it stops being a negotiation. Consistency matters more than volume at this stage - a child who does twenty minutes five days a week covers far more ground over the year than one who does two hours every other Sunday, and hates it.
Keep at least one day a week clear. Reading for pleasure counts for more than another worksheet, especially for the English and verbal reasoning papers, where vocabulary is doing most of the work.
Watch what's actually going wrong rather than the raw score. A child getting 60% because they're rushing needs something different from a child getting 60% because they haven't met the topic. Any decent practice tool should show you which of those it is.
Try four real Year 5 questions
Pulled straight from PipPrep's own question bank, from the questions tagged for Year 5 - not written for this page.
Question 1
Simplify the ratio 15:20.
Answer: 3:4. Divide both by their HCF.
15:20 simplifies to 3:4.
Question 2
In the sentence: "The project gathered momentum over the summer." — what does the word or phrase "momentum" mean here?
Answer: speed and energy. "Momentum" here means the project was gaining speed and energy as it progressed.
Question 3
Which word is the odd one out?
CALF FOAL PUPPY FLOCK
Answer: FLOCK. FLOCK is a group of animals — the others are all young animals.
Question 4
A filled triangle transforms into a crosshatched triangle. By the same rule, a filled pentagon transforms into a ?
Answer: crosshatched pentagon. Fill rule: filled → crosshatched. Applied to pentagon: crosshatched pentagon.
Start the prep year properly
PipPrep adapts to your child's target school with 80,000+ questions across maths, English, verbal and non-verbal reasoning. Free to start, no card needed.
Not sure where they actually stand? Take the free 11+ readiness check - 10 questions matched to your exam board, and a scored report on their weak topics. No account needed.
Frequently asked questions
When will my Year 5 child sit the Essex 11+?
In the autumn or winter of 2027, at the start of Year 6, for a secondary place beginning in September 2028. Exact dates are published by the admissions authority closer to the time.
Which subjects are tested in Essex?
Across the 13 schools in our data for the area, the subjects tested are English, maths, verbal reasoning, non-verbal reasoning. Individual schools differ, so check each school you are applying to rather than assuming the area-wide pattern applies everywhere.
When do we need to register?
Generally in the summer term of Year 5, well before the test itself. Check the admissions authority's pages in the spring term of 2027 so the window does not pass unnoticed.
Is it worth starting now rather than in Year 6?
For most families, yes. The reasoning papers use formats that are not taught in primary school and take months rather than weeks to become familiar, and spreading the work across Year 5 turns it into fifteen minutes a day instead of a lost summer.