Learn more about the ways you can support your child's PSLE preparation -- read the full article for our comprehensive tips.
The Primary School Leaving Exam or PSLE – every Singaporean parent knows what it is. In all likelihood, you may even dread it too! This is a huge milestone in your child’s learning journey, and so much seems to rest on your child’s performance in it.
As it happens, you can make a lot of contributions to your child’s PSLE preparation.
If you want to learn more about the ways you can help your child get ready for this challenge, read on as we share our foremost PSLE tips with you. With the right prep and planning, your child should be able to take on the PSLE to the best of their ability.
Before you can even prepare a revision plan, you must know what to prepare for! Specifically, you should find out things like these:
An excellent resource for this is the Singapore Examinations and Assessment Board website. There’s even a dedicated page you can check for PSLE formats, e.g. the exam formats in 2023.
If you’re going to help your child with their preparation, it helps to make sure you’re both on the same page. So, ask your child about their aspirations before you even start to put together a PSLE study plan.
What do they want to achieve in the exam? Is there a specific secondary school they want to get into? What are they working towards or looking forward to in the year ahead?
This is a great time to align your objectives with your child and figure out how best to motivate them during the preparation process. That can prove invaluable when the labour of revision actually begins.
Once you have clear goals, it’s time to work on the steps for achieving them. That means helping your child create a PSLE study plan.
Now, this part is important: start early instead of close to the exam date because this will give your child more time to revise. You want to reduce stress and time crunch as much as possible as this will keep your child in a better state of mind for the revision!
Remember to help your child create a balanced schedule during the planning to. Allow for downtime, breaks, and holidays. It’s vital to give your child moments to relax because it will prevent burnout, which can be hugely detrimental to their preparation.
You may also want to perform regular check-ins on your child’s progress throughout the school year, by the way. This is a good way to figure out if you need to adjust anything or focus more attention on a specific area of weakness in the revision plan.
Moreover, in a PSLE year, schools are likely to provide more tests and mock papers to ensure their students are ready for exams. Just remember this when checking how your child performs in those: focus on progress and learning vs. grades.
If you think your child is having difficulty focusing on their PSLE prep, try providing them with a dedicated study area for it. It can be a good way to help them find their focus.
You may even want to try setting up this study space together with your child. After all, they have a better idea of what they find most conducive to their concentration, which means their input is invaluable.
It also reinforces the idea of them being in control of part of their studies, which is something they will need to stay the course for their revision.
Learn where your child shines and where they might need a little help. This helps you figure out which subjects should get more time, practice, or revision in the PSLE study plan.
Note that you don’t even have to leave all of that to your child’s self-study efforts, by the way. Sometimes, children just need a little more guidance with some subjects. Fortunately, there are professionals who can provide that guidance.
For example, here at Aspire Hub, we have programmes for PSLE prep where teachers tackle each student’s areas of uncertainty and build their knowledge of it accordingly. Since the groups in our programmes are of just 6-8 students, personalised tuition of this type is possible.
Our lesson materials are even updated according to past-year trends so that each child has more than enough practice with common question types in the topics they find most challenging. Plus, teachers highlight common mistakes for an added edge in papers.
This sort of aid can be invaluable to children in their areas of weakness – in some cases, it may even turn a formerly weak subject into a strong one!
This year is a critical one, as we’ve already established. However, you have to remember that most of the pressure is still on your child and not you: as the exam gets closer, your child’s stress may hit new levels.
It’s important to manage that stress and anxiety along the way. You can do it through regular check-ins, to start with, where you find out how your child is doing and whether or not they need to talk to someone (it doesn’t even need to be you) about their concerns.
Keep a lookout for signs of stress too even if they’re not sharing. Sleeping issues, irritability, and behaviour changes are all possible signs of stress. If you see these, gently invite your child to share the burden with you again, as even simple venting can help.
You can also help your child schedule breaks in their prep, as suggested earlier. It’s even possible to take them out for wellness activities with family and friends.
And if you find that they’re upset because they feel like they haven’t made enough progress or are getting discouraged, build them up! Try to celebrate milestones in their revision, for instance, or praise the progress they’ve made. Motivation is key to keeping children on a revision plan.
Now for a tip that requires even more of you than your child. We know the exam is a huge milestone, but it’s so important for you to manage your own expectations as a parent.
This benefits your child in a lot of ways. A calmer and more collected parent can provide better support, and is less likely to add to the pressure that a stressed child may be under.
Managing your expectations from the start makes you less likely to derail your child’s progress by stressing them out further. You don’t want them to pick up on your dissatisfaction, because it can be discouraging for them if they’re already trying.
The tip here is to remember that it’s the progress that matters, not just the score. If a child’s performance in a subject leaps from the equivalent of a C to a B, that’s still remarkable progress.
Focus on and celebrate that instead of criticising them for not getting an A – and who knows? They may well improve their performance again and get closer to that A, thanks to your unfailing support.
We know this is a stressful time for you and your child, so we’re more than happy to provide all the assistance you need. We’ve even written articles before that can help you and your child figure out how to do well in the PSLE, like our guide to PSLE prep in 2023 and our list of effective study techniques.
If you need even more help, though, feel free to reach out to us. Our tutors have over 20 years of helping children with goals like acing exams. We can help your child as well.
Find out how our programmes can prepare your child for this national exam by registering your interest or enquiring now.
The Primary School Leaving Exam or PSLE – every Singaporean parent knows what it is. In all likelihood, you may even dread it too! This is a huge milestone in your child’s learning journey, and so much seems to rest on your child’s performance in it.
As it happens, you can make a lot of contributions to your child’s PSLE preparation.
If you want to learn more about the ways you can help your child get ready for this challenge, read on as we share our foremost PSLE tips with you. With the right prep and planning, your child should be able to take on the PSLE to the best of their ability.
Before you can even prepare a revision plan, you must know what to prepare for! Specifically, you should find out things like these:
An excellent resource for this is the Singapore Examinations and Assessment Board website. There’s even a dedicated page you can check for PSLE formats, e.g. the exam formats in 2023.
If you’re going to help your child with their preparation, it helps to make sure you’re both on the same page. So, ask your child about their aspirations before you even start to put together a PSLE study plan.
What do they want to achieve in the exam? Is there a specific secondary school they want to get into? What are they working towards or looking forward to in the year ahead?
This is a great time to align your objectives with your child and figure out how best to motivate them during the preparation process. That can prove invaluable when the labour of revision actually begins.
Once you have clear goals, it’s time to work on the steps for achieving them. That means helping your child create a PSLE study plan.
Now, this part is important: start early instead of close to the exam date because this will give your child more time to revise. You want to reduce stress and time crunch as much as possible as this will keep your child in a better state of mind for the revision!
Remember to help your child create a balanced schedule during the planning to. Allow for downtime, breaks, and holidays. It’s vital to give your child moments to relax because it will prevent burnout, which can be hugely detrimental to their preparation.
You may also want to perform regular check-ins on your child’s progress throughout the school year, by the way. This is a good way to figure out if you need to adjust anything or focus more attention on a specific area of weakness in the revision plan.
Moreover, in a PSLE year, schools are likely to provide more tests and mock papers to ensure their students are ready for exams. Just remember this when checking how your child performs in those: focus on progress and learning vs. grades.
If you think your child is having difficulty focusing on their PSLE prep, try providing them with a dedicated study area for it. It can be a good way to help them find their focus.
You may even want to try setting up this study space together with your child. After all, they have a better idea of what they find most conducive to their concentration, which means their input is invaluable.
It also reinforces the idea of them being in control of part of their studies, which is something they will need to stay the course for their revision.
Learn where your child shines and where they might need a little help. This helps you figure out which subjects should get more time, practice, or revision in the PSLE study plan.
Note that you don’t even have to leave all of that to your child’s self-study efforts, by the way. Sometimes, children just need a little more guidance with some subjects. Fortunately, there are professionals who can provide that guidance.
For example, here at Aspire Hub, we have programmes for PSLE prep where teachers tackle each student’s areas of uncertainty and build their knowledge of it accordingly. Since the groups in our programmes are of just 6-8 students, personalised tuition of this type is possible.
Our lesson materials are even updated according to past-year trends so that each child has more than enough practice with common question types in the topics they find most challenging. Plus, teachers highlight common mistakes for an added edge in papers.
This sort of aid can be invaluable to children in their areas of weakness – in some cases, it may even turn a formerly weak subject into a strong one!
This year is a critical one, as we’ve already established. However, you have to remember that most of the pressure is still on your child and not you: as the exam gets closer, your child’s stress may hit new levels.
It’s important to manage that stress and anxiety along the way. You can do it through regular check-ins, to start with, where you find out how your child is doing and whether or not they need to talk to someone (it doesn’t even need to be you) about their concerns.
Keep a lookout for signs of stress too even if they’re not sharing. Sleeping issues, irritability, and behaviour changes are all possible signs of stress. If you see these, gently invite your child to share the burden with you again, as even simple venting can help.
You can also help your child schedule breaks in their prep, as suggested earlier. It’s even possible to take them out for wellness activities with family and friends.
And if you find that they’re upset because they feel like they haven’t made enough progress or are getting discouraged, build them up! Try to celebrate milestones in their revision, for instance, or praise the progress they’ve made. Motivation is key to keeping children on a revision plan.
Now for a tip that requires even more of you than your child. We know the exam is a huge milestone, but it’s so important for you to manage your own expectations as a parent.
This benefits your child in a lot of ways. A calmer and more collected parent can provide better support, and is less likely to add to the pressure that a stressed child may be under.
Managing your expectations from the start makes you less likely to derail your child’s progress by stressing them out further. You don’t want them to pick up on your dissatisfaction, because it can be discouraging for them if they’re already trying.
The tip here is to remember that it’s the progress that matters, not just the score. If a child’s performance in a subject leaps from the equivalent of a C to a B, that’s still remarkable progress.
Focus on and celebrate that instead of criticising them for not getting an A – and who knows? They may well improve their performance again and get closer to that A, thanks to your unfailing support.
We know this is a stressful time for you and your child, so we’re more than happy to provide all the assistance you need. We’ve even written articles before that can help you and your child figure out how to do well in the PSLE, like our guide to PSLE prep in 2023 and our list of effective study techniques.
If you need even more help, though, feel free to reach out to us. Our tutors have over 20 years of helping children with goals like acing exams. We can help your child as well.
Find out how our programmes can prepare your child for this national exam by registering your interest or enquiring now.
