Secondary School Grading System in Singapore

The secondary school grading system in Singapore grading system is something which has always been an indication of how well or how poorly a student is performing. The grading systems for the different level of education varies but particularly for Secondary school, it is pretty “spread out”; which means you can fall down to another grade or move up another grade by a few marks.

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For primary 5 and 6, including PSLE, students will receive grades ranging from A* to E to U [ungraded]. Students will achieve A* if their mark is above 91, A if their mark is in between 75 and 90, B if between 60 and 74, C if between 50 and 59, D if between 35 and 49, E if between 20 and 34 and U if lower than 20.

                                                    Source: activeindiatv.com

The marks that students get in examinations, excluding PSLE, will be used directly to assign their grades for the particular years. For PSLE, their marks will be compared to the rest of the population scores and will be assigned a mark based on this by using the T-score formula. This new altered mark will be used to assign students their grade and their final aggregate score. For primary 1 to 4, students will instead be assigned bands where 1 is the highest and 4 is the lowest. Band 1: 85-100, Band 2: 70-84, Band 3: 50-69, Band 4: up to 49.

For singapore secondary school ranking, their grades will range from A to F and this system will be slightly different from the grade system in primary school. This because the grade system will follow GCE O levels where a point is associated with each grade. Thus, instead of being plain letters the grades will have a number beside them: A1 [75-100], A2 [70-74], B3 [65-69], B4 [60-64], C5 [55-59], C6 [50-54], D7 [45-49], E8 [40-44], F9 [below 40]. The grades that students get will also determine the final score that students get for their O levels.

                                       Source:  oxfordlearning.com

This is calculated by adding one language score and 5 other scores to obtain the least possible number. Some schools, however, do not use the O level grading systems as their students may not need to write O levels (IP and IB schools). Instead, some schools use a Grade Point Average (GPA) grading system which provides a final cumulative score based on the number of subjects that the student has taken over the course of his or her journey in the school.

For each particular semester or year, the student will be assigned a score ranging from 0 to 4 [or sometimes 0 to 5] based on the percentage score they receive. This will generally vary a lot across different schools. 

For junior colleges Singapore students, they will be given these grades: A [70 or above], B [60 to 69], C [55 to 59], D [50 to 54], E [45 to 49, passing grade], S [40 to 44], U [39 and below]. Similar to secondary schools, this grading system in Junior college will also be used for GCE A levels. GCE A levels will also provide a final aggregate score based on the percentage performance in each subject.

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For students doing H3 subjects, they will be given a distinction, merit or pass based on their performance. Similar to in PSLE, the grade percentage will be moderated based on the country’s average performance and thus the percentage range provided above is just a rough guide. Polytechnics will have either a GPA system as described in secondary school section or a letter grade system: AD [top 5% of cohort], A [80 or above], B+ [75-79], B [70-74], C+ [65-69], C [60-64], D+ [55-59], D [50-54], F [less than 50]. Universities will also generally use a 5-point or 4-point GPA system.

ALL IN ALL, the grading system is a great indication of how well a student is performing and though there may be criticisms such as discrimination among peers, it is important to realise that there will be both advantages and downsides to everything!