Over 80% posted to one of first 3 choices of schools

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, MOE said yesterday. 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 yesterday, 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, said this affected her and her son's strategy for listing schools. "Under the new system, children are grouped into wider scoring bands, which means that more of them will bunch up at the same scores," she said.

"This means 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 posting results under the AL system were comparable to those of previous years, including the 2020 cohort, which sat the 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 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 popular one.

"I don't think there is much difference, other than affecting competition for 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.

Human resources manager Joy Tan, 44, said the posting was no surprise as her family had a clear idea of her son's performance.

She said: "Although he did not get into the school of my choice, he got into the school of his choice, so he is happier than me."