2025 PSLE English Situational Writing Changes

In 2025, certain components in the PSLE English Language paper will change. In Paper 2, there will be changes in marks awarded in the Editing and Visual Text sections. Editing will be 10 marks instead of 12 marks and Visual Text will be worth 5 marks instead of 8 marks. The total Paper 2 score will be out of 90 instead of 95 marks.

In Paper 1, the Composition component will be out of 36 marks instead of 40, and Situational Writing will be out of 14 marks, bringing the total Paper 1 score to 50 marks instead of 55 marks.

So, where do these extra marks go to? Well, they will go to the Oral component. In 2025, the Oral component will be worth a total score of 40 marks instead of the current 30 marks. The Oral component will become one of the most important components of the PSLE English Language paper. I will blog more on these changes soon but for this blog post, I will focus on the 2025 PSLE English Situational Writing Changes.

2025 PSLE English Situational Writing Changes: Add-on of a new critical thinking point

Aside from the change in the scoring, the SW will now have an extra special point that students need to use. The point will be a ‘critical thinking‘ point. A student will be given 4-6 points in a SW to guide him/her on how to write formal or informal emails or reports or letters, (although it has been consistently emails in the past few PSLE years.)

SW is one of the easiest components to score. At TF, we encourage students to aim for full marks for this PSLE component. Why is this component so easy to score? All points given can be found easily in the text or image provided. Students simply need to note the Purpose of the email and ensure that every point is included.

If they practice consistently, as we do at TF, they will master the correct tone required for formal and informal SW. Students need less than ten minutes to produce a perfect SW during the examination. This is essential during PSLE when they need to allocate their time between Composition and SW in Paper 1.

However, now with the critical thinking question added, students will be faced with having one point where the information cannot be found in the text or image. They are required to come up with their answers.

Examples of critical thinking points

Examples of critical thinking points are :

At TF, we have been changing our centre’s P5 curriculum in line with the new PSLE 2025 format. This includes both our Oral and SW components. As a few of our P5 students were tested on the Situational Writing component for their May Weighted Assessment, we added the critical thinking question to our existing SW materials from April. We guided the students on how to phrase their responses in informal or formal SW.

Example of an informal SW with a critical-thinking question

Below is an example of one of our informal SW with a critical-thinking question.

I have also provided the model SW after. We hope that this example will help you understand the Changes in the PSLE 2025 English Situational Writing component.

Informal SW with a critical-thinking question model answer

Dear Peter,

             How are you? I recently came across a poster about a time management workshop during the June holidays. I am interested to sign up for it.   Would you like to join me for this time management workshop?

The workshop will be held from 10 to 11 June, 9am to 12pm at Seng Seng Community Club Room B. This workshop is open to all children between the ages of 11 to 16 and we are 11 years old. Signing up for the workshop is easy as we can register online at www.sengseng.com. Registration closes on May 20 so we will need to decide quickly.

I feel that this workshop can benefit both of us as we are unable to adhere to deadlines for our school work. We will be able to learn ways to manage our time wisely at the workshop. I think that Dr Lim’s talk will also be beneficial to us.

I hope I have convinced you to join this time management workshop with me!

Cheers,

Mary