Upon receiving PSLE (Primary School Leaving Examination) results, the next immediate big decision to be made is to choose the right secondary school. Generally, if the PSLE score for a student is above 255, the decision making process is fairly simple as it is merely the exercise of choosing among the few top schools. However, as more than 80% of PSLE students are scoring below 255, choosing secondary school can become a complex task if the parents and their child do not prioritize their selection criteria.
Criteria For Choosing Secondary School
Some parents keep as many as 10 wish-lists for choosing their dream school. Not only that this is not practical, it would also make the selection too narrow. To keep the selection criteria simple, it is advisable to concentrate on the 2 most important criteria used by most parents:
- Location of the secondary school, and
- Cutoff-point of the school in relation to student’s PSLE score;
In addition, some parents may feel so strongly that they want to send their child to a non-co-ed school (all-girls or all-boys).
Example Of Choosing Secondary School
Let’s take a student staying near Katong with PSLE score of 213 as example: The parents must first decide how far they want the location to be. In this example, the parents may want to select secondary schools as far as Queenstown but not Clementi, or as far as Tampines but not Pasir Ris.
With this physical range in mind, the parents should first shortlist all the secondary schools with cutoff-point between 214 and 209. This range is reasonable as it would allow the child to enter a school with peers around his standard.
Fine Tuning School Selection
Following this process would make the selection process straightforward. Very likely a parent would have around 10 schools in the final list. To rank the final selection, some parents use the followings for fine tuning the selection:
- Score range is a good indicator about the standard among students of the same standard. Narrower score range is preferred as it shows that the students studying together are of similar academic performance. For example, school with score range of 212-228 is a better choice than another school with range of 213-248.
- Some parents believe that the academic performance of a school is a good reference for ranking the final selection. This is not necessary true as the indicator is only reflective of the performance of top students. It has no meaning to a student entering the school at the lower range.
Finalizing the School Selection
Once the list is drawn out, it is a matter of doing personal research to decide which secondary school is the best for your child. It is important to get the child involved extensively at this stage and be fully convinced himself that the schools chosen are his personal decision. Parent and child should work together to conduct extensive internet search about the school staff, the school culture, their CCA (Co-Curriculum Activities) etc. If possible, visit the secondary schools personally and take opportunity to talk to their students to find out more about the school.
Generally, Singaporean parents believe that the higher the cutoff-point the better the school. For this reason, many parents submit their school choices according to ranking of school cutoff-points. This is not necessarily a good practice as the school with better cutoff point may not match the strengths and interests of the child.
There are many resources available to help parents make the final submission. There are public talks, internet forums and open house for parents and child to exchange view with others. When a child is fully involved in this process, he will be mentally and psychologically prepared to enter into the next phase of life…