Secondary School System

Singapore Secondary school comprises of Lower Secondary and Upper Secondary level. With different streams ranging from Normal Technical, Normal Academic, Express and Special.

Lower secondary education

Common Subjects

Life Skills: Co-Curricular Activities, Community involvement Program, Civics and Moral Education, Pastoral Care and Career Guidance, National Education, Physical Education. (non academic curriculum to shape the student’s character)

Knowledge skills: Project work ( skill based subjects to train students skills in analysis and application)

Special and Express Stream

Subjects:

Languages: English And Mother Tongue / Higher mother Tongue / Mother Tongue Language B 3^rd optional language: French, German, Japanese, Malay, and Chinese

Humanities & the Arts: Geography, History, Literature in English, visual Arts, Music

Mathematics & Science: Mathematics, Science, Design and Technology, Home Economics.

Normal Academic Stream

Subjects :

Languages : English and Mother Tongue 3^rd language choice of either Malay or Chinese

Humanities and arts: Geography, History, Literature in English, Visual Arts and Music

Mathematics & Sciences: Mathematics, Science, Design & Technology and Home Economics

Normal Technical Stream

Subjects:

Language: English and Basic Mother Tongue

Humanities: Social Studies, Visual Arts and Music

Mathematics and Sciences: Mathematics, Science, Computer Applications, Technical Studies and Home Economics

Upper Secondary in Singapore

In Upper Secondary level, students are able to choose their combinations of subjects that suit them. This allows greater flexibility for students to choose subjects that they are more inclined at.

Basically, in upper secondary the main subjects the students will be:

(1)English (Compulsory)

(2)Elementary-mathematics (Compulsory)

(3)Pure Chemistry (Compulsory, but can also be taken as combined science with physics or biology)

(4)Combined humanities (Usually taken as social studies together with history, or social studies together with geography)

(5)Mother-tongue/2^nd language (Compulsory, unless student doesn’t have a 2^nd language offered by the secondary school, which are Chinese, Malay, Indian , EG German student studying in secondary school)

(6)Pure Biology (Optional)

(7)Pure Physics (Optional, can be taken as combined science with biology or chemistry)

(8)Additional-mathematics (Optional)

(9)Principles of accounting (Optional)

(10)Pure geography (Optional)

On top of the main subjects, it would also be important to note that there are also “special” subjects offered to pupils. An example would be the chapel lessons offered to pupils studying in a mission or independent school, such as Raffles Secondary, Anglo-Chinese Sec or Saint Andrews Sec.

Flexibility Between Courses

In Singapore’s secondary school system, students are able to change their streams if results are up to a satisfactory level. This is usually applied to students in the Normal Technical Streams whose results are qualified to upgrade their streams.