SINGAPORE - No secondary school required pupils to have attained a perfect score at the Primary School Leaving Examination (PSLE) for admission under the new scoring system, said the Ministry of Education (MOE).
The perfect score is four points.
The top schools had a cut-off of six points, with schools running the integrated programme having a cut-off of between six and nine (M) points, said MOE on Wednesday (Dec 22). M stands for "merit" in higher Chinese.
No school had a cut-off of four or five points.
This year's batch of pupils is the first to take the national exam under the new scoring system, which has replaced the T-score system.
Pupils are given an Achievement Level (AL) ranging from one to eight for each subject, instead of grades such as A* to E.
A PSLE score is now the sum of a pupil's ALs, with the best possible total score being four, and 32 the worst.
The cut-off point refers to the PSLE score of the last pupil posted to a particular school for each course.
With secondary school postings released on Wednesday, MOE said more than 80 per cent of pupils were posted to one of their first three choices of schools.
More than 90 per cent of them were posted to a school within their six listed choices, it said.
The order of a pupil's choice of schools now plays the role of tie breaker.
This means that if two or more pupils with the same PSLE score and citizenship status are vying for a spot in a school, the student who ranked the school higher will be considered first.
One parent, senior manager Ruth Lee, 45, told The Straits Times that this affected her and her son's strategy for listing schools.
She said: "Under the new system, children are grouped into wider scoring bands, which means that more of them will bunch up at the same scores.
"This means that we had to be very conservative about school choices, as the choice order of schools is one of the new tie breakers now."
MOE said the posting results under the AL system were comparable to those of previous years, including the 2020 cohort, which sat their PSLE using the old T-score system.
The cut-off point (COP) - the PSLE score of the last pupil posted to a particular school for each course - was also largely stable, compared with the indicative COPs published by MOE earlier this year.
"Schools that had fluctuations mostly saw a change of 1 AL in their COPs, compared with their indicative COPs," MOE said.
Mr Gregory Tan, 48, said he did not think the new scoring system affected his son's chances at getting into his desired school, as he was not trying for a traditionally popular one.
"I don't think there is much difference with the new system, other than it affecting the competition for limited places in popular schools," said Mr Tan, who works in finance.
"I think it intensified admissions via the Direct School Admission (DSA) programme."
There were 31,400 applications in the DSA exercise this year - up from 30,500 last year.
Wednesday's posting results brought no surprises for human resources manager Joy Tan, 44, as her family already had a clear idea of her son's performance.
She said: "Although my child did not get into the school of my choice, he got into the school of his choice, so he is happier than me."
Students do not need to report immediately to their posted secondary schools after receiving their posting results, said MOE.
They should refer to their posted schools' websites from Wednesday for more information such as instructions on online purchase of books and uniforms, book list and reporting details.
More information on the Secondary 1 posting is available at MOE's website.
