The P4 to P5 Transition: Why Grades Drop and How to Bounce Back

If you think back to your sec­ondary school days, you might remem­ber learn­ing about expo­nen­tial graphs:

See how the curve steep­ens rapid­ly? That’s exact­ly how quick­ly the syl­labus becomes more com­plex. And it’s easy to see why grades can take a sud­den plunge.

As the say­ing goes: the steep­er the climb, the hard­er the fall.

To give you a clear­er pic­ture of what “more com­plex” means, let’s look at some exam­ples from Sci­ence.

Example 1. Topical Coverage 

P4: Plant Parts and Functions

1. List sim­i­lar­i­ties and dif­fer­ences of plant parts in dif­fer­ent plants
2. Iden­ti­fy, label and state the func­tion of plant parts 
3. State how the plant parts come togeth­er to help the plant grow well
4. State and explain what hap­pens if cer­tain plant parts are miss­ing
5. Mak­ing con­clu­sions about the plant parts based on char­ac­ter­is­tics of plant parts
6. Com­pare and con­trast the char­ac­ter­is­tics of plant parts from dif­fer­ent plants and how they are use­ful to humans and ani­mals

P5: Reproduction in plants and seed dispersal

1. Iden­ti­fy and Label Flower Parts: Iden­ti­fy and label the m parts of a flower
2. Explain the Repro­duc­tive Process: Describe the process of plant repro­duc­tion, includ­ing the roles of pol­li­na­tion, fer­til­iza­tion, and seed for­ma­tion.
3. Com­pare Pol­li­na­tion Meth­ods: Com­pare the char­ac­ter­is­tics of wind-pol­li­nat­ed flow­ers and ani­mal-pol­li­nat­ed flow­ers.
4. Role of Pol­li­na­tors: Explain how wind and ani­mals help in the process of pol­li­na­tion.
5. Con­se­quences of Miss­ing Parts: State and explain what hap­pens if cer­tain plant parts (e.g., sta­men, pis­til, or petals) are miss­ing or dam­aged.
6. Seed Dis­per­sal Impor­tance: State the impor­tance of seed dis­per­sal for plant sur­vival and growth.
7. Explain Seed Dis­per­sal Meth­ods: List and explain the four pri­ma­ry meth­ods of seed dis­per­sal (wind, water, ani­mals, explo­sion).
8. Iden­ti­fy Char­ac­ter­is­tics for Seed Dis­per­sal: Rec­og­nize the key char­ac­ter­is­tics of fruits and seeds that facil­i­tate dis­per­sal.
9. Advan­tages and Dis­ad­van­tages: Dis­cuss the advan­tages and dis­ad­van­tages of dif­fer­ent meth­ods of seed dis­per­sal for the plant’s life cycle.

Example 2: Multiple Choice Questions

Example 3: Open Ended Questions

The days of sim­ply mem­o­riz­ing and repeat­ing con­cepts to score well in P4 are over. 

Instead, ques­tions in P5 now demand much deep­er think­ing. Stu­dents are only reward­ed if they tru­ly under­stand the con­cepts and can apply them. Some­times even across dif­fer­ent top­ics.

And for the first time ever, stu­dents will encounter exam papers that mir­ror the struc­ture of the PSLE, adding even more pres­sure to the mix.

The same shift hap­pens in Math.

In P4, frac­tions ques­tions are most­ly arith­metic. As long as you know how to cal­cu­late frac­tions equa­tions, you’re good to go. Occa­sion­al­ly, you might require to use mod­el draw­ing but that’s about it.

When you reach P5, every­thing changes. 

Heuris­tics are intro­duced. And you now need tech­niques like Repeat­ed Enti­ty, Equat­ing Numer­a­tors, Sets, Num­bers X Val­ue, and Before-Change-After to solve frac­tions ques­tions.

And that’s not all.

P5 also used to intro­duce ratio which added anoth­er lay­er of com­plex­i­ty. Sud­den­ly, ratio and frac­tions aren’t sep­a­rate top­ics any­more. They merge into a much larg­er top­ic, cre­at­ing a uni­verse of new and chal­leng­ing ques­tions. 

Rec­og­niz­ing this chal­lenge, MOE in 2021 updat­ed the Math cur­ricu­lum so that P5 stu­dents from 2025 onwards will no longer learn Ratio. Instead, Ratio will be intro­duced as a P6 top­ic.

Will this change make things eas­i­er for stu­dents? 

Per­haps. 

Some argue that delay­ing the top­ic to P6 gives stu­dents more time to build a strong foun­da­tion before tack­ling it. 

Oth­ers believe the chal­lenge is sim­ply post­poned. 

Either way, the com­pli­ca­tions will come. It’s just a ques­tion of when. 

The shift in English from P4 to P5 is also just as significant.

In Paper 1, stu­dents face new chal­lenges that demand high­er lev­els of cre­ativ­i­ty and inde­pen­dence.

Sit­u­a­tion­al Writ­ing is intro­duced as a com­plete­ly new com­po­nent, requir­ing stu­dents to write in a for­mal style based on a giv­en sce­nario. 

Mean­while, Con­tin­u­ous Writ­ing becomes more rig­or­ous. The marks increase from 20 to 36, and stu­dents must now craft their own sto­ries based on a sin­gle top­ic and one pic­ture. Gone are the guid­ing pic­tures from P4 that helped struc­ture their nar­ra­tives.

Paper 2 also doesn’t get any eas­i­er. 

Gram­mar MCQs now test more than dou­ble the num­ber of rules, demand­ing a deep­er under­stand­ing of gram­mar con­cepts. 

Syn­the­sis and Trans­for­ma­tion ques­tions jump from 2 to 5, cov­er­ing a wider range of ques­tion types.

In Com­pre­hen­sion Cloze, P5 stu­dents no longer have help­ing words pro­vid­ed, mak­ing it much hard­er to fill in the blanks. 

Com­pre­hen­sion OE pas­sages are longer, more com­plex, and include infer­ence-based ques­tions, where the answers aren’t direct­ly stat­ed in the text.

The result? 

Stu­dents not only need a stronger com­mand of the lan­guage but also sharp­er crit­i­cal think­ing skills to suc­ceed. 

If you can’t tell already, the P5 syl­labus doesn’t just add hard­er ques­tions. It also intro­duces a wider range of ques­tion types.

And this hap­pens in every sub­ject across EMS.

So how can you help your child nav­i­gate this chal­leng­ing tran­si­tion? 

First, accept that this is part of the process. 

The dip in grades is not a reflec­tion of fail­ure but a nat­ur­al part of the learn­ing curve that every stu­dent goes through. Even those who con­sis­tent­ly score AL1s in P4 expe­ri­ence this shift. By acknowl­edg­ing this real­i­ty, you’ll be bet­ter equipped to man­age your expec­ta­tions and your child’s emo­tion­al well-being.

Sec­ond, use this oppor­tu­ni­ty to teach resilience.

Help your child under­stand that set­backs are a chance to grow. It’s not about how they fall but how they rise. Show them that fail­ures are step­ping stones to suc­cess and equip them with the tools to keep going.

Final­ly, start with the end in mind. 

Under­stand­ing the PSLE for­mat and how ques­tions evolve from the low­er lev­els will help you bet­ter pre­pare your child for what lies ahead. Focus on build­ing the right skills ear­ly on to cush­ion their fall. You might even be able to cre­ate a tram­po­line effect to help them bounce back stronger.

So per­haps the ques­tion isn’t “Are you smarter than a 5th grad­er?” but rather, “How can we help our chil­dren rise to the chal­lenge?”

Because let’s be hon­est, you’ve been through your fair share of storms too. And just like you made it out stronger, so will they!