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Practice Library

A Plain-English Glossary for Singapore and International School Families

Straightforward definitions for the terms that come up across this site, for parents new to any part of Singapore's or the IB's school systems.

Prepared by The Editorial Team

Updated 26 September 2026

Parents new to any part of this system — Singapore’s, the IB’s, or the research this site draws on — run into the same handful of terms over and over. Here’s what they actually mean, without the jargon assuming you already know it.

Singapore’s school system

PSLE (Primary School Leaving Examination) — the national exam Singapore’s Primary 6 students sit, used to help place students into secondary schools.

AL (Achievement Level) — the scoring system PSLE has used since 2021, replacing the older T-score. Each subject is graded on a band from AL1 (highest) to AL8 (lowest), and the four subject scores are added together for a total between 4 and 32, where lower is better. The bands were deliberately widened compared to the old system specifically to reduce pressure over small mark differences — two students a few marks apart can land in the same AL band and therefore the same score, which was the point of the redesign, not an oversight in it.

Full Subject-Based Banding (Full SBB) — the system that replaced Singapore’s old Express, Normal Academic, and Normal Technical streams, starting with the 2024 Secondary 1 intake. Instead of being placed into one stream for every subject, students take each subject at the level suited to how they’re doing in that specific subject.

CCA (Co-Curricular Activity) — a structured activity Singapore schools run alongside academic subjects: sports, uniformed groups, performing arts, and clubs are the usual categories. It’s worth being precise about one thing parents often assume: CCA participation is strongly encouraged, not mandated, at primary level. It becomes compulsory only at secondary school.

DSA (Direct School Admission) — a pathway that lets a student apply directly to certain secondary schools based on a demonstrated talent, interest, or achievement, ahead of PSLE results, rather than through the standard score-based posting process. MOE has been direct about how this pathway should be approached: DSA is meant to be a careful, considered choice based on genuine fit between a student’s interests and a school’s programmes — not a back-up plan or a default strategy to fall into.

The IB (International Baccalaureate)

IB — an international curriculum framework, run across four programmes by age group, used by many international schools rather than one country’s own national curriculum.

PYP (Primary Years Programme) — the IB programme for younger students, roughly ages 3 to 12. This is the one actually relevant to a 9–12 year old’s current schooling, and where most of this site’s IB-related content is aimed.

IB Learner Profile — a set of ten attributes (including inquirer, thinker, and reflective) that the IB uses across all its programmes, PYP included, to describe the kind of learner it aims to develop, independent of any single subject.

CAS (Creativity, Activity, Service) — a required component of the IB Diploma Programme specifically, which covers the final two years of secondary school, roughly ages 16 to 19. If your child is 9 to 12, CAS isn’t relevant yet — the Learner Profile and PYP are the age-matched equivalents, and CAS will come up on its own timeline years from now.

Research terms used on this site

Positive Youth Development (PYD) / the Five Cs — a framework used in developmental psychology built around five qualities — competence, confidence, connection, character, and caring — that tend to lead to a sixth, contribution, when they take hold. It’s one of the most empirically supported frameworks within PYD research specifically, though it was built and tested mostly in North American samples.

Non-cognitive skills — qualities like persistence, resilience, and self-regulation that aren’t captured by IQ or achievement test scores, but which research has found to be strong, sometimes better, predictors of real-world outcomes than cognitive scores alone.

Growth mindset — the idea, from psychologist Carol Dweck’s research, that abilities can develop through effort rather than being fixed traits. Worth noting plainly: Dweck’s own later work has pushed back on the popularized version of this idea — posters, generic praise, “you can do anything” messaging — as a misapplication that doesn’t produce the effects the research actually points to. Separately, research on how critical feedback is received has found something practically useful: feedback lands better, and is trusted more, when it explicitly pairs high standards with a clear statement of belief that the person can meet them — a pattern researchers call “wise feedback.”

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