The long-awaited list of secondary school cut-off points for 2026 is finally here! Students who took the PSLE in 2025 have been given their school postings, which allows us to know the cut-off points for the 2026 year of admissions.

What is the PSLE cut-off point?

A secondary school’s PSLE cut-off point is the score of the last student admitted into the school. On MOE SchoolFinder, you will find a range which shows the scores of the first and last student who were admitted into the school – the bigger number is the cut-off point.

For parents with a P6 child in 2026, you can use the 2026 secondary school’s cut-off points as a gauge to know your child’s chances of getting into different schools. It is also very helpful for goal-setting if you and your child are aiming for a specific secondary school.

However, do take note that the cut-off point is NOT a minimal requirement set by the school. The cut-off point may vary across years, depending on factors like the cohort size and demand for the school.

What do the points mean?

The PSLE score uses the Achievement Level (AL) system which was put in place in 2021. For each subject, the student receives a grade from AL1 to AL8, with AL1 being the best. The overall PSLE score is the sum of the score for all four subjects. So, 4 points the best possible overall score.

For students who took the Higher Mother Tongue subject, their results will only count as a tie-breaker if they applied to a Special Assistance Plan school. The Higher Mother Tongue grade is shown in brackets with ‘D’ indicating Distinction, ‘M’ for Merit, and ‘P’ for Pass.

According to one’s PSLE score, students will be offered options to apply to the Integrated Programme (IP), or to one of the three Posting Groups (PG1, PG2, and PG3) as part of the full Subject-Based Banding system.

2026 cut-off point trends

According to MOE during the release of 2025 PSLE results, a total of 37,926 Primary 6 students took the PSLE in 2025, and 98.5% were posted to secondary schools. A Lianhe Zaobao news report observed that the 2025 cohort size is smaller than that of the previous year, with 2024 being the Dragon Year. This may have contributed to a less competitive field for students, with many schools having an increased cut-off by one point.

Amongst the more popular and highly competitive schools, we can observe that the cut-off points for Raffles Girls’ School, Anglo-Chinese School (Independent), and Dunman High School have increased by one point. To the surprise of many, Cedar Girls’ Secondary School and Crescent Girls’ School had increased cut-off points by two and three points respectively.

On the other hand, schools including Raffles Institution, Hwa Chong Institution, and Nanyang Girls’ High School maintained their cut-off points from the previous year.

Understanding these trends could be helpful as you can use them to anticipate if the cut-off points might change during your year. Looking at the population statistics, Singapore recorded 33.2K births in 2014 (2026 P6 batch), which matches closely with the number of births during the 2012 Dragon year (2024 P6 batch). So you can expect that competitive will be fierce once again, after the dip this year.

2026 cut-off points for Secondary Schools (IP track)

2026 cut-off points for Top Singapore Secondary Schools (O Level/SEC track)

Note on Kuo Chuan Presbyterian: There were no non-affiliated students posted to Posting Group 3 in the 2025 S1 Posting. All 20% of places reserved for students without affiliation priority in Posting Group 3 were taken up via DSA-Sec.

Conclusion

Feeling the heat from PSLE preparation and planning? While we can’t help you choose your secondary school, you can leave the tutoring to us! With a dedicated team of Primary School Tutors in Singapore, Future Academy has successfully helped countless batches of students turn their grades around and reach their PSLE target.

Here is one encouraging case of a student who improved drastically after joining us:

So, parents, you can fret less AND ensure that your child learns better – in the reliable hands of our experienced tutors!

Read more like this…