What Changed in PSLE 2026: A Guide for Parents Who Already Went Through It

If your older child entered Secondary School through Express, Normal (Academic) or Normal (Technical), those labels no longer apply to students entering Secondary 1.

From 2024, Full Subject-Based Banding removed the three streams. Students are now admitted through Posting Groups 1, 2 and 3.

It is tempting to translate Posting Group 3 as Express, Posting Group 2 as N(A) and Posting Group 1 as N(T), but the new system is not simply a renaming exercise.

Posting Groups are mainly used for Secondary School admission and to guide the level at which most subjects are initially offered. Once students enter school, they are placed in mixed form classes and can take different subjects at G1, G2 or G3 depending on their eligibility, strengths and progress. MOE specifically states that Posting Groups do not define a student’s in-school progression in the way the old streams did.

A student entering through Posting Group 2, for example, may be eligible to take Science at G3 if they scored AL5 or better in Standard Science at PSLE. Students can also become eligible to take subjects at a more demanding level later based on their performance in secondary school.

So two classmates may enter through different Posting Groups and still study particular subjects at the same level.

How Secondary School Posting Works Now

Secondary Schools now publish PSLE score ranges using the AL system. A school’s Cut-Off Point, or COP, is the PSLE Score of the last student admitted after that year’s S1 Posting Exercise, so it is only known after posting is completed and can change from one cohort to another.

For parents who remember the old T-score system, choice order is another detail to pay attention to.

If more than one student with the same PSLE Score is competing for the final available place in a school, the following tie-breakers are used in this order:

1. Citizenship
2. Choice order of schools
3. Computerised balloting

Choice order only comes into play when students are tied on the relevant criteria; in that case, the student who ranked the school higher gets priority before balloting is considered.

So if School A is genuinely your child’s preferred choice, putting it fourth instead of first can affect the outcome in a tie. MOE also recommends using all six choices and including schools with a range of previous-year COPs rather than relying on one or two very competitive options.

How the Exam Your Younger Child Will Sit Is Different From the One Your Older Child Sat

For a child sitting PSLE in 2026, Mathematics and Science need more attention when using an older sibling’s papers or assessment books since SEAB lists both subjects as revised for the 2026 examination.

Mathematics

The 2026 PSLE Mathematics paper has changed in both format and syllabus content.

Compared with the previous format:

• Paper 1 is now worth 50 marks instead of 45 and lasts 1 hour 10 minutes instead of 1 hour.
• Paper 2 is now worth 50 marks instead of 55 and lasts 1 hour 20 minutes instead of 1 hour 30 minutes.
• Both papers therefore contribute 50% of the Mathematics result.
• Paper 1 still contains ten 1-mark MCQs, so it is not accurate to say that every question is now worth at least 2 marks.
• The old 1-mark short-answer questions are gone. All short-answer questions now carry 2 marks, and a student may receive 1 mark for a correct method even when the final answer is wrong.
• Paper 2 now contains 10 structured or long-answer questions instead of the previous 12.

The Primary Mathematics syllabus has changed too. The revised syllabus reached P6 in 2026 after being introduced progressively from the 2021 P1 cohort. Among the changes affecting current P6 students:

• Speed is no longer in the primary syllabus and is taught at Secondary 1 instead.
• Ratio is concentrated at P6 rather than being taught across P5 and P6.
• Average is now taught at P6 instead of P5.
• Nets and pie charts are taught earlier, at P4.
• Simple linear equations are now included at P6.

So an old PSLE paper containing several Speed questions is not an accurate representation of the paper your child will sit in 2026, even though many of its other questions may still be useful practice.

Science

Science also has a revised examination format in 2026.

The current paper lasts 1 hour 45 minutes and contains:

• 30 multiple-choice questions worth 60 marks
• 10 to 11 structured questions worth 40 marks

There are syllabus changes behind those numbers too.

The old Cell System topic has been removed as a standalone topic. Students no longer need to learn the previous set of detailed outcomes on identifying plant and animal cell parts such as the nucleus, cytoplasm, cell membrane, cell wall, and chloroplast, or matching each part to its function.

However, cells have not disappeared completely from Primary Science. The revised syllabus still requires Standard Science students to recognise that a cell is the basic unit of life under the P5 reproduction topic.

Photosynthesis is now taught at P6, so material from an older sibling who learnt it at a different level needs to be checked against the current syllabus.

The current PSLE Science assessment also explicitly includes scientific inquiry skills such as making predictions and hypotheses, interpreting and analysing information, evaluating observations and methods, and communicating explanations and reasoning. Scientific facts and concepts are still assessed, so this is not a move away from knowledge altogether. Students need to know the science and be able to use it in an unfamiliar question.

What Changed Before P6

If your older child sat regular mid-year examinations in primary school, your younger child may have had a different assessment schedule. As mentioned, mid-year examinations were removed across all Primary and Secondary levels from 2023, so P6 students no longer sit a full set of mid-year papers before PSLE.

Schools can still use Weighted Assessments and other forms of assessment during the year, while year-end examinations remain for P3 and above. For parents used to mid-years as the main checkpoint before the final stretch to PSLE, this means you may need to rely more on school assessments, topical tests and timed practice papers to see where your child is losing marks.

What This Means for Past-Year Papers and Assessment Books

You do not need to throw away every old PSLE paper. You do need to know what you are using it for.

• Keep questions on topics that are still in the syllabus. Fractions, percentages, geometry and other unchanged topics can still be useful for targeted practice.
• Skip content that has been removed. Older Maths papers may include Speed, while older Science materials may contain detailed Cell System questions that are no longer part of the current syllabus.
• Check topics that have moved to different levels. Ratio, Average and Photosynthesis may appear differently in older resources, so make sure the material matches the current P6 scope.
• Do not use older papers as exact 2026 mock exams. The Maths paper structure has changed, including the mark allocation between Paper 1 and Paper 2.
• Use current-format materials for timed practice. The timing, number of questions and mark distribution should match the paper your child will sit for in 2026.

At TLS Tutorials, our current Primary 6 Math tuition programme follows the updated P6 syllabus and includes Algebra, Ratio and Average, together with timed practice and diagnostic tracking. Our PSLE Science tuition follows the current MOE Primary Science syllabus and works on concept application, question interpretation and scientific explanation rather than memorising model answers alone.

If you are checking whether your child’s current preparation still matches the requirements of the 2026 PSLE, both programmes at our Math and Science tuition centre offer a free trial class before enrolment.