Essex 11+ · CSSE · English
Sixty minutes, plus ten minutes of reading time before the clock starts, split between a comprehension on a passage your child has never seen and a piece of continuous writing. It counts for exactly half of the final score, the same as Maths, and it is the paper families under-prepare for.
Updated 15 September 2026 · CSSE tuition · Free worksheets · Pass mark and scores
The format
Older CSSE English papers included a short applied reasoning section. The consortium removed it from the 2025 entry test onwards, so the paper is now comprehension and writing only. Any practice material with reasoning questions in the English paper is out of date.
What earns marks
In comprehension, the answer has to come from the passage. A child who writes what they think about the character, however sensible, scores less than a child who writes what the text says and quotes three words to prove it. The habit to build is: answer, then evidence, then explain the evidence. Three sentences, every time.
Vocabulary questions are where the range shows. The paper asks what a word means in context, or asks for a word that means the same. The children who read widely have met the word before; the children who do not have to work it out from the sentence, which is a skill in itself and can be taught.
In writing, planning is worth a mark a minute. Five minutes spent deciding the beginning, the turning point and the ending produces a piece with shape. Children who start writing at once produce a beginning and then run out of time and paper. My Year 5 continuous writing worksheet is built around openings and planning for exactly this reason.
Punctuation and spelling are marked separately. That means a beautifully imagined story with no full stops loses a whole strand of marks it did not need to. A short daily piece, checked for capitals and full stops, fixes this faster than anything else.
Questions
Sixty minutes of writing time, with ten minutes of reading time before that. The reading time is for the comprehension passage; nothing can be written during it.
Not any more. Applied reasoning was removed from the English paper from 2025 entry onwards. The paper is comprehension and continuous writing only.
In two strands: content and organisation, then sentence structure, punctuation and spelling. A plan, a clear shape and accurate basics score more reliably than length or ambition.
Half of the total. Each paper is standardised and weighted to 50 percent, so a child who is strong in Maths and weak in English is capped by the English.
Read every day, and talk about what you read: why did she do that, what does this word suggest, what do you think happens next. Then practise with timed passages. The free comprehension quiz is a fair starting point, and the CSSE style comprehension worksheets on the resources page are the next step.
Book a free 20-minute call. I will ask about where they are, tell you honestly what I think, and you decide what to do next.
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