Upon receiving PSLE (Primary School Leaving Examination) results, a primary student has to make his next big decision immediately – to choose his preferred secondary school. Generally, if the PSLE score for a student is above 255, the decision making process is fairly simple as it is a mere exercise of choosing among the few top schools. For students scoring below 255, choosing secondary school can become a confusing task, especially if the parents do not understand well the secondary school system.
Criteria For Choosing Secondary School
Generally, Singaporean parents tend to 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.
On the other hand, some parents keep as many as 10 wish-lists as their criteria for choosing a dream school. This would inevitably narrow the options and make the selection process difficult. To keep the selection criteria simple, it is advisable to concentrate on the following important considerations used by most parents:
- Location of the secondary school
- Cutoff-point of the school in relation to student’s PSLE score
- One other common consideration among parents is to have their child study in a non-co-ed school (all-girls or all-boys)
Shortlisting 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 geographical range in mind, the parents should first shortlist all the secondary schools with cutoff-point from 214 to 209. This range is reasonable as it would allow the child to enter a school with peers around his standard.
Fine Tuning School Selection
The selection process would then be straightforward as the parent is likely to have around 10 schools in the list. To rank the final selection, some parents use the score range of a school to fine tune their selection. Score range is a good indicator to show the academic standard among students. 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 to 228 is a better choice than another school with range of 212 to 248.
Some parents also use academic performance of a school as reference to rank their selection. This is not necessary a good indicator as the reference is only reflective of the performance of top students. It has no meaning to a student entering the school near cutoff point which is 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. There are also 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.
It is important for parents to get the child involved extensively at this stage and be fully convinced himself that the schools chosen are according to his personal preference. Parent and child should work together to conduct extensive internet search about the school staff and teaching resources, the neighborhood, 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 culture. When a child is fully involved in this process, he will be mentally and psychologically prepared to enter into the next phase of life …