Should your Year 4 or 5 child be prepping for Selective right now?

The NSW Selective test is in March. Your child is in Year 4. A parent at school pick-up just mentioned her son has been doing practice papers since Year 2.

So what are you supposed to do with that information?

The question underneath the question

Most "when should I start?" conversations are really asking something harder: is my child going to be one of the kids who gets in, and if I don't act right now, am I letting their future slip past me?

That's a heavier question than any preparation timeline can answer. But the timeline question is answerable — and the answer depends on which of two situations your child is actually in.

Fork A: your child loves reading and doesn't hate maths

If your Year 4 kid reads for pleasure, asks why things work the way they do, and can hold an argument together — you have time. Not infinite time, but you are not behind.

The Selective test measures skills that compound slowly: reading comprehension, mathematical reasoning, abstract thinking, and written expression. A child who reads widely is building comprehension and vocabulary faster than one grinding practice papers. A child who debates you at dinner is developing logical reasoning. These inputs are real.

For this child, "starting prep" in Year 4 means maintaining those habits, not adding formal test preparation on top of an already full week. The productive prep horizon — structured practice, timed papers, targeted skills work — starts in Term 3 of Year 5, roughly six to eight months before the March test.

Jumping that earlier, for an already-motivated reader, usually produces one of two outcomes: boredom with the material in Year 5 when it actually matters, or burnout before they have sat a single real paper.

Fork B: your child struggles with reading or dislikes abstract maths

This is the child whose foundation genuinely needs more time. Not because they are less capable — they almost certainly aren't — but because the Selective test is weighted toward skills that develop through sustained reading and reasoning practice, not through test exposure alone.

For this child, Year 4 is a meaningful head start — not for practice papers, but for building the underlying literacy and numeracy. That means a consistent 15-minute daily reading habit. It means talking through the logic in maths problems, not just checking the answer. It means not waiting until Year 5 Term 3 to discover that comprehension is the weakest area.

The risk here isn't starting too early. It's confusing "doing test papers" with "building the skills that test papers measure." A nine-year-old drilling Selective-style questions learns to follow a format. They don't automatically develop the reasoning the format is trying to reveal.

What "starting now" should actually look like in Year 4

For either fork, three habits carry real weight regardless of where your child is sitting:

Daily reading above their comfort zone. Not re-reading favourite books — encountering new text types, unfamiliar vocabulary, ideas they have to think about. Twenty minutes, consistently. The genre doesn't matter much; the stretch does.

Maths that requires reasoning. Mental arithmetic, word problems read aloud, estimation at the supermarket. Not speed drills — understanding what the question is actually asking before picking up a pencil.

Talking, not drilling. "Why do you think that?" at dinner is worth two practice tests. Children who have learned to justify their thinking perform better on thinking skills assessments than children who have memorised question types.

These aren't test-prep activities. They are the substrate that structured test prep later accelerates. That is the real difference between Year 5 families who feel ready and those who don't.

The honest calendar

The Selective test sits in early March of Year 6. Schools release Selective placement offers in October of Year 5. Serious, structured preparation — timed papers, the Selective-specific question types across Reading, Mathematics, Thinking Skills, and Writing — belongs in Year 5 Term 3 and Term 4. That is when the material becomes urgent and your child is developmentally ready to absorb it efficiently.

That window is not optional if you want your child to sit the test prepared. But it is enough time. A child who enters it having read widely and reasoned carefully through Year 4 will respond to that preparation faster than one who has spent two years on practice papers and is now bored and resistant.

What to do this week

If your child is in Year 4: pick one book above their current reading level and read it together. Talk about what it means — not comprehension questions, just genuine curiosity about the story or argument.

If your child is in Year 5 and Term 3 is approaching, that is when to start structured practice across the four Selective skill areas. Short targeted sessions work better than long weekend marathons — and platforms like joey67 are built exactly for the 15-minute daily habit that compounds over a term, rather than the last-minute paper pile.