When choosing a secondary school, what is the first thing you look out for? Probably the school’s PSLE cut-off point, right?
While there are numerous other things to consider when choosing a secondary school, the cut-off point is a big factor in gauging whether your child has a good chance of being offered a place. Bear in mind that the cut-off point is not a ‘minimum requirement’ for entering a school. However, it is a good gauge of which PSLE scores the school (or stream) accepts!
To those who don’t know yet, the cut-off score is the PSLE score of the lowest-scoring student who is admitted into a secondary school in that year. Since 2021, PSLE scores are now graded according to Achievement Levels (AL), with 4 being the best possible raw score. For Special Assistance Plan (SAP) schools, the Higher Chinese subject grade is also taken into account. These are indicated as Distinction (D), Merit (M), or Pass (P).
Why are cut-off points now displayed as a range?
Instead of simply a cut-off point, PSLE AL scores are now published as indicative scores on MOE’s schoolfinder website. The indicative score is presented as a range, with the scores of the first and last student (in terms of PSLE score) who are admitted into a school.
So, for a school with the indicative score range of 8-13, the cut-off point is 13.
Introduction of Posting Groups
Starting from the 2023 Sec 1 posting exercise, students will be allocated into Posting Groups according to their PSLE score. The Posting Group is mapped to the existing Express, Normal (Academic), and Normal (Technical) streams. The difference is that students have more flexibility to take subjects at higher or lower levels even after being posted into a particular posting group, in line with the full Subject-Based Banding system.
In the list below, you will find indicative score ranges for the respective streams, and you can take it as a guide for the score ranges for each posting group in each school as well.
Balloting priority
With the AL score system, there will be more cases of students having the same score. In such a case, you may wonder what happens when more than one student with the same score applies to the same school and there is only one spot left. For such scenarios, MOE will allocate students based on a few criteria:
Citizenship: The order of priority is as such: Singapore citizens, Permanent Residents, then international students. If two students, one citizen and one PR, ranked the same school as their top choice and have the same score, the Singaporean citizen will get the spot.
Order of school choices: Where both students have the same AL score and citizenship, student who ranked a school as their top choice will get priority over a student who ranked it as 2nd choice or lower.
Computerised balloting: If two students have the same AL score, same citizenship status, and ranked the school at the same preference, then there will be a computerised ballot to select the student at random.
Learn more about how to maximise your secondary school options in another of our articles, or also check out which primary schools are affiliated to secondary schools to enjoy an advantage to enter those schools.
2022 PSLE AL Indicative Score Range
The table shows the PSLE AL indicative score ranges (including cut off points) for students who took the 2022 PSLE and entered Sec 1 in 2023.
Bridging the P6-Sec 1 Gap
PSLE is only the first major educational milestone for your child. Starting from next year, there will be more challenges ahead, with new subjects to learn, more in-depth concepts to grasp, and a whole new environment to get used to.
Plan ahead to help your child bridge the gap seamlessly with a Sec 1 Headstart class this year end! Designed to expose your child to crucial skills and topics in Sec 1, our classes will flatten the learning curve for them when they start school proper. You can also secure your spot for 2024 classes, whether you are looking for IP Math Tuition (for Integrated Programme students) or Secondary Math Tuition (for O Level track students).