Year 5 introduces the Year 5/6 statutory word list — significantly more challenging words with Latin and Greek roots, complex letter patterns, and words commonly needed for academic writing. Many of these words appear in 11+ entrance exams and SATs.
Practise These Words FreeBy the end of Year 5, children should spell most Year 5/6 statutory words, understand word origins and roots, apply complex spelling rules, and use ambitious vocabulary in their writing.
All words below are from the UK National Curriculum. Prac2XL has 9,000+ words pre-loaded with audio pronunciation and curated misspellings — so even if your school sends home words not on this list, they're almost certainly covered.
Many Year 5 words have Latin roots — learning roots helps spell families of words
Double letters are the biggest trap: “accommodate” (cc + mm), “committee” (mm + tt + ee)
Break words into morphemes: “un-necess-ary”, “im-medi-ate-ly”
If preparing for 11+, these words appear frequently in verbal reasoning
This is the year most children sit the 11+. The words on this page — “conscience”, “prejudice”, “exaggerate”, “mischievous”, “privilege” — appear directly in 11+ verbal reasoning papers. But here’s what matters: a child encountering these words for the first time in Year 5 practice papers is learning spelling, meaning, AND test technique simultaneously under time pressure. A child who’s been building vocabulary since Year 2 already knows the words. They just need to apply the VR technique. That’s the difference between a child who’s cramming and a child who’s ready. The “11+ Preparation Words” category above is specifically selected from words that appear frequently in grammar school entrance papers across multiple exam boards.
11+ VR: “Which word is opposite in meaning to GENEROUS?” A child who learned “generous” in Year 3, practised its antonym “selfish” in Year 4, and used both in sentences — answers instantly. A child seeing “generous” for the first time in a Bond paper is guessing between four options.
Want to build all four dimensions — spelling, synonyms, antonyms, and words in sentences? Explore Vocab 360 →
Add these words (or your child's school list) to Prac2XL. Adaptive difficulty. Audio pronunciation. Parent stats. Free forever.
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Your child can spell "enormous." But do they know "huge" means the same thing? That "tiny" is its opposite? Can they use it naturally in a sentence? That deeper knowledge is what 11+ verbal reasoning, reading comprehension, and SATs SPaG actually test — and it takes years to build, not weeks to cram.
Vocab 360 builds all four dimensions of every word — Spelling, Synonyms, Antonyms, and Words in Sentences — across 1,350+ curriculum words. Starting from Year 2, your child adds ~5 new words per week. By Year 5, they've built a vocabulary foundation no amount of last-minute practice papers can replicate.