Natasha, 12, (centre) whose father is a technician and mum,a housewife, is from the gifted education stream.
A ST HILDA'S Primary pupil has scored a record 294 in the Primary School Leaving Examination (PSLE), beating the previous high of 292 set in 1993.
Natasha Muhamad Nasir, 12, eclipsed the record set by Nanyang Primary's Justin Lau in 1993.
Her score was 'outstanding', said the Singapore Examination and Assessment Board (SEAB) spokesman, as it was a good six points ahead of the next highest score of 288.
At St Hilda's on Thursday, Natasha, flanked by her younger sister and mother, smiled shyly as reporters shot questions at her. In the background, her father was recording the scene with a camcorder.
'I was worried if I could get 4A*s,' she said. The Gifted Education Programme (GEP) pupil had found the Science paper 'tedious'.
And on the day of her first PSLE paper on Oct 3, her maternal grandfather, 74, underwent surgery for his heart at the Singapore General Hospital.
Natasha, who was very close to him, spent the PSLE exam period shuttling between hospital and home.
'He taught me a prayer to say before the exam. I would say it before each paper,' she said.
He died on Oct 30.
'I would like to dedicate my results to him. Before I sat for the PSLE, he prayed for me,' she said.
Natasha, who plays the piano and violin and is in the Scrabble club, already has a place in Raffles' Girls Secondary and plans to be a paediatrician in future.
Her parents have left nothing to chance when it comes to bringing up Natasha.
When she was still in her mother's womb, they would would read aloud to her and played music for her to listen.
Her mother, Ms Zaharah Othman, 44, quit her flight stewardess job after Natasha was born so that she can give her 'quality time'.
When Natasha was three months old, she bought her an encyclopedia set. By two and a half years, she could read a book on her own.
Ms Zaharah and her husband, Mr Muhamad Nasir Atan, 47, a Singapore Airlines technician, live in a five-room Pasir Ris flat, but they volunteered at Gongshang Primary in Tampines to get Natasha a place in the popular school.
She went to St Hilda's when she got into the GEP at Primary Four.
The last time a Malay pupil topped the PSLE was two years ago, when Adil Hakeem Mohamad Rafee from Rosyth School scored 282.
Besides Natasha, another 14 pupils scored at least 286 in the PSLE this year.
Natasha was the top Malay student, while Vanessa Malishree Dharmaratnam from Raffles Girls' School (Primary) was the top Indian pupil with a score of 285.
Top Eurasian Santa Maria Priscila Nicole from CHIJ Katong Primary scored 272.
In all, some 49,817 Primary 6 pupils sat for the PSLE this year, a drop of 1.6 per cent over last year.
A total of 48, 665, or 97.7 per cent of the pupils, did well enough to move on to secondary school.
Of these, 63.5 per cent are eligible for the Express, 22.2 per cent for the Normal (Academic) and 12 per cent for the Normal (Technical) course.
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