This blog is managed by Song Hock Chye, author of Improve Your Thinking Skills in Maths (P1-P3 series), which is published and distributed by EPH.

Thursday, May 15, 2008

Choosing a Secondary School

This site has been receiving quite a number of hits from search engines, pertaining to the cut off PSLE aggregate scores for secondary schools.

To help parents and P6 students, here is link to an old post from this blog, that guides you how to look for past PSLE aggregate cut off for all schools.

Finding out more about the Secondary School of your choice online

With the knowledge of past cut off points, P6 students can now set their target on their PSLE aggregate scores so as to increase their chances of the school of their choice.

8 comments:

Anonymous said...

Dear Mr Song

From your past experiences,could you advise what are the marks a P6 student should get for Eng, Maths, Sci and MT in order to secure an aggregate score of 265 and above.Also what are the expected marks for each of the 4 subjects for an aggregate score of 230-250.

I do understand that it may varies from year to year dependind on the performances of each cohort.Just an indicative guideline, please

Anonymous said...

Dear Mr Song

From your past experiences,could you advise what are the marks a P6 student should get for Eng, Maths, Sci and MT in order to secure an aggregate score of 265 and above.Also what are the expected marks for each of the 4 subjects for an aggregate score of 230-250.

I do understand that it may varies from year to year dependind on the performances of each cohort.Just an indicative guideline, please

Excel Eduservice said...

As a guide, if you are able to score 90% to 95% for all 4 subjects, 265 should be within your reach. However, if you are looking for top schools, to be safe, you should target 270. Past cut offs for some of these schools have crossed over the 265 mark.

230 to 250 is wide range. There are tons of permutations for the 4 subjects. I’ll just take 245 to 250 range.

Again as a guide, if you are able to score 80% to 85% for all subjects, 245 to 250, perhaps even a few points above 250, is be achievable.

The above is just a guide, based on my experience, comparing students’ CA, SA and prelim results, against their actual PSLE aggregate scores.

Anonymous said...

Dear Mr Song

Good Morning.

Thank You for your quick reply.

Anonymous said...

Dear Mr Song

A young Singapore schoolgirl cried foul about the unfair competition from older foreign students in our schools in The Newpaper yesterday.

As a parent, I am puzzled too why our local students are beaten regularly by the foreign ones. Yes, being older may give them some added advantages in maturity, but they are handicapped by their lesser command of English in the beginning. They also lacked home ground support as some of them may be here without their parents.

I am very impressed by their drive and determination of the foreign students(PRC). Despite their lack of proficiency in English, many go on to achieve remarkable results with good grades in English within a short span through sheer hard work.

As an experienced educator, you must have seen many positive attitudes of foreign students. Perhaps, you may want to share some so that our local children can learn from the strength of their competitors. Hopefully, it will spur our local kids to rise up to the challenge.

Excel Eduservice said...

Keentolearn,

It must be remembered that the family of the foreign students here went through a selection process, including immigration requirements. Singapore, although has a less than transparent immigration process, is well known for its “top talent attraction” policy.

As such, it could be that their parents got a job here which is highly sought by the Singapore government, or they are here based on their own merit.

The foreign students are among the better ones from their home country to land up here. The top of the top on the other hand, usually land up in US or Europe.

What you see is only a fraction of the many foreigners from their respective countries. The less competitive and/or less well to do ones are in their homelands, some of which are living under very poor conditions, including lack of education.

Instead of “competing” with foreigners, who come from a large pool of population with billions, (example China or India), which of course, will have no problem producing top students-cum-athletes, we should allow each Singaporean child to develop his or her own strengths.

Anonymous said...

WL asked:
Dear Mr Song,
what is the requirements for 265 to 270 for PSLE. How many A* or marks to achieve that?

ExcelEduservice said...

From experience, I feel that if you can score 90 - 95 for all four subjects, you should be able to score that range.