Guide

What your child has actually been taught by P4

By the end of P4 a child has been taught numbers to 100 000, all the times tables, equivalent fractions, factors and multiples, decimals, area and perimeter, angles and symmetry. They have not been taught percentage, ratio, speed, or algebra. Letters for unknowns arrive only in P6 — which is why olympiad work at P4 and P5 runs on bar models, not equations.

The ladder, year by year

What is genuinely new at each level — not a full syllabus listing, but the things that were not available the year before.

P1 · Lower primary

  • Number & algebra: Numbers to 100. Addition and subtraction within 100. First idea of multiplication and division as grouping and sharing.
  • Measurement & geometry: Length. Time to the half hour. Money in cents and dollars. Naming and sorting 2D and 3D shapes.
  • Statistics: Picture graphs where one picture stands for one item.

P2 · Lower primary

  • Number & algebra: Numbers to 1000. Tables of 2, 3, 4, 5 and 10. Fractions as part of a whole — halves, quarters, thirds.
  • Measurement & geometry: Mass and volume join length. Time to five minutes. Money to the dollar. Lines and curves in shapes.
  • Statistics: Picture graphs with a scale — one picture stands for several items.

P3 · Middle primary

  • Number & algebra: Numbers to 10 000. Tables of 6, 7, 8 and 9 complete the set. Equivalent fractions; adding and subtracting like fractions.
  • Measurement & geometry: Angles. Perpendicular and parallel lines. Area and perimeter arrive here. Time to the minute; duration.
  • Statistics: Bar graphs replace pictures.

P4 · Middle primary

  • Number & algebra: Numbers to 100 000. Factors and multiples. Mixed numbers and improper fractions. Decimals to 3 places.
  • Measurement & geometry: Symmetry. Properties of squares and rectangles. Area and perimeter of composite figures. 24-hour clock.
  • Statistics: Tables and reading data from them.

P5 · Upper primary · olympiad entry year

  • Number & algebra: Whole numbers to 10 million. Multiplying and dividing fractions and decimals. Percentage. Rate. Average.
  • Measurement & geometry: Angles on a straight line and at a point. Properties of triangles and quadrilaterals. Volume of cube and cuboid.
  • Statistics: Reading and comparing data across several tables and graphs.

P6 · Upper primary · PSLE year

  • Number & algebra: Algebra in letters arrives — and only here. Ratio. Speed. Dividing by a fraction. Percentage increase and decrease.
  • Measurement & geometry: Circles — radius, diameter, area, circumference. Nets of solids. Volume of liquid in containers.
  • Statistics: Pie charts and the whole-to-part reading they need.

Algebra comes late

Letters for unknowns appear only in P6. Before that, the model method carries the whole load. This is the single most useful thing on this page for a parent helping with olympiad preparation: the algebra you reach for instinctively is not a tool your P4 or P5 child has been given, and teaching it early to shortcut a contest question usually costs more than it saves.

A P1–P2 child solves 3 + ▢ = 7 with a box. A P3–P4 child uses a bar. A P5 child splits the bar into units. Only in P6 does the box become an x. Same question, four notations.

P5 is the pivot

Percentage, rate, average and volume all land in P5, and it is also the first year every contest is open at once. That combination is why P5 families feel the most pressure — a genuinely heavier syllabus year colliding with the busiest contest calendar. The map by level →

Where the olympiad papers go next

Every major contest draws on the topics above — but the hardest questions reach for methods the syllabus never covers: number theory (divisibility rules, remainders, last-digit problems), combinatorics (systematic counting, pigeonhole), cryptarithms, and Diophantine puzzles with whole-number answers only.

This is the part parents most often misread. A child can be fluent in every cell of this ladder and still meet a contest question they have no method for — and that is not a gap in their schooling. That gap is the training, not the syllabus. Try a mission to see what that looks like →

What we can't know

This describes the syllabus in broad strokes as a parent needs it, not the official document. Schools sequence topics differently within a year, and MOE revises the syllabus periodically. Your child's teacher is authoritative on what has actually been covered in their class this term.

Sources

Last verified: 2026-08-05

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