Elements 11 & d5300

How come Elements 11 does not recognise the RAW files from my d5300 ???

Because of Elements 12. Camera RAW updates only ever apply to the current releases, so new cameras will always require the latest s/w version (unless you subscribe to the CC in which case you always have the latest s/w). That said, you can use the latest DNG converter to convert RAW to DNG which can be read by all previous versions.

Thanks for that all sorted now....................