What worked for us:

• Top school prelim papers (Nanyang, Rosyth, Tao Nan, etc.) — these tend to be harder and good for stretching
• Past PSLE papers — to get familiar with the actual exam format and difficulty level
• Start with the easier schools first, then work up to the tougher ones closer to PSLE

But honestly, buying papers alone isn’t enough. The key is reviewing mistakes properly — understanding WHY they got it wrong, not just doing more and more papers.

We also supplement with online practice. My daughter has been using FunfinityMath which has step-by-step solutions that explain the thinking behind each question. It also has a mock exam feature that times them
like the real PSLE, so you can track their progress and see which topics still need work. Helps him learn from mistakes without needing us to sit beside him and explain every time

Hope this helps! Jiayou to our P6 kids!

I found it really helpful for focusing on the right areas instead of blinding doing paper after paper.

• After my son did each test paper, I sometimes checked what he got wrong and categorised the mistakes into “careless” vs “don’t know,” which we would highlight. For the latter, I would get his tutor to explain, or we would find a YouTube vid, etc. Around once in two weeks, I would reprint questions that he got wrong and ask him to redo (more than once if necessary).

• For English compo, I believe in sticking to a few practice topics and doing multiple drafts, rather than doing compo after compo. For my daughter, I made her rewrite the same story 5-6 times. Her grammar/spelling etc was strong, so we focused on: removing unnecessary plot details (like waking up, getting hairbrush, brushing teeth), avoiding cliches (“golden rays of sunshine”), and having an ending with some depth, like a lesson learned.

• For oral/current affairs/vocab, I try to use “bigger” words at the dinner table, or I will use my WhatsApp stories to introduce vocab words and share links with my kids (mostly NYT, because I prefer the writing there). For local writing, I like Jom. I don’t really signpost my stories as “Hey this is a new word that you should use,” but I’ll use it naturally and they can check it themselves or ask me.

Both times, there were too many papers to finish, so I think it’s possible to share with a friend as well.

Schools will usually give papers as well — depends on the teacher. My daughter’s maths/science teacher would give them papers from other schools to do, and he even started this “7am clinic” for his students to go over answers with him + told them they could text him at night, even if late. With a teacher like that, don’t need to do much at home

For my son, the school only gave past-year papers from the school. I bought the full set of practice papers and left it to my son’s tutors to ensure they were well used.

For all parents (even if non-PSLE), please pop in here to share about your child’s secondary school, especially if it’s not as well known.

It’s quite hard to find info/reviews for neighbourhood schools, but most kids will attend these lesser-known schools, and it helps to have reassurance.

Hi, my nephew with a score of 14 for 2025 PSLE got into Christ Church as well. I’m really glad to hear your positive comments about this school especially that your son has grown in confidence and found caring friends. That’s very encouraging to hear.

I think that Results Day can be more emotional than we expect! My son’s bestie scored around the same, and he came over to our home, so both boys could process together, and us parents too. We did have cake, but I think the overall mood was not super-celebratory haha. My son also put in a lot of hours, but ultimately, our original first-choice school was quite out of reach.

Anyway, fast forward and he’s now in Sec 3! He’s taking the subjects that he chose: pure Chem and Physics + A & E maths.

Sometimes we still get a bit careless with our words, like we might use phrases like “good school” to mean RI/RGS/MGS and so on. I try to correct myself immediately, especially if my son is around. I also say a lot of good things about his school (Christ Church), because I genuinely think he has grown in confidence in this school, and he seems to have friends that really care about him. Those are the things that we’ll remember most about our schooldays!

During the PSLE year, my son had tutors who came to the home for CL2, Maths, and Science. If I could do it again, I would have made sure that all his tutors were suitably encouraging — I know that several times, he felt unappreciated because after sitting through a long tuition session, the tutor would give feedback in front of him that he was careless.

What did work well: I asked my friend’s daughter to be a mentor to him, come by and chat with him in Chinese, play games, and encourage him to converse without switching back to English. I paid her a small fee — those who’re on a tighter budget can consider doing something similar for the MTL.

My son and daughter went to different schools — during my daughter’s PSLE, it felt like the school was managing everything, and the teachers were regularly reporting to us what their gaps were, so much so that it felt stressful But for my son, it felt like we couldn’t leave it entirely up to the school. Even if you have more than one child, each PSLE journey will be different!

All the best for the year ahead
I went through PSLE with my kids in 2024 and 2025, so just sharing a few practical reflections:

Attend open houses (around May) for popular schools like RI, SJI, etc.
It helps motivate kids and sets a clearer expectation of the aggregate needed to get in.

If your child takes both Chinese and HCL, prioritise normal Chinese tuition unless you’re aiming for a SAP school.
I focused too much on HCL — my son’s HCL ended up stronger than his normal Chinese, which unfortunately pulled down his overall aggregate

Prelims are quite telling.
For my three kids, two scored the same as prelims and one improved by 3 points. Overall, prelim results were a fairly accurate reflection of PSLE outcomes. I also found it helpful to ask them how they felt they did after the papers.

Results aren’t the end of the story.
Last year, my daughter was disappointed with her score of AL20, but she’s now thriving in her secondary school. Every child is gifted differently. As parents, our role is to help them build a healthy self-image and be their biggest cheerleaders ️

Cheering all PSLE parents and kids on

Perhaps you can share more about what you and your child are feeling, so we can also get others to pop in with insights. (Parents who have experience with secondary school transfers, do let us know if they also look at the PSLE results!)

@HNS2015 Why not if your girls’ results allows, there’s always other choices. Like single gender schools. Also good to start early since this period are the open houses, no harm to visit and feel the vibes on the school’s environment. Especially you are intending to visit > 5 schools, all open houses happen in the morning, max i suppose per half morning visit 3 sec schools. I brought my daughter to Anderson, Presbyterian High and Kuo Chuan in the same morning via public transport. So tiring!

Yes most of the open houses fall on the same date. We went to one in May and couldn’t make it for the second one that was on the day. To visit 3 school in one morning is certainly tiring .