SASMO 2026 K2: More Students Clearing the Top Tier the Second Time Around
22 Aug 2026
Singapore's youngest competitive math cohort — students born in 2020 — sat two competitions eight months apart, and more of them landed in the top tier the second time around: 10 Gold-or-above medals at SASMO 2026 K2, up from 8 Platinum-or-Gold at TASMO 2025 K1.
Headline Findings
- 80 unique students born in 2020 have earned a math olympiad medal so far
- 53 medaled at SASMO 2026 K2 (this cohort's most recent and largest sitting)
- 48 medaled at TASMO 2025 K1, eight months earlier — their first tracked competition
- 22 students medaled at both sittings — a persistence rate of 46% among TASMO's K1 medalists
- No SMKC data yet for this cohort at their normal grade — SMKC does not run a K1/K2 category, so this cohort's first SMKC sitting will come at P1
Born-2020 is the youngest cohort in the Math Prodigies dataset. Their competitive record so far spans exactly two sittings: TASMO 2025 K1 in August 2025, and SASMO 2026 K2 in March 2026. Both are "normal-grade" sittings — the bulk of this cohort has not yet reached beyond their own age group, though a handful of individual students have already begun testing themselves against P1-level material (see Notable Insights).
| Sitting | Total Medalists | Gold-or-Above |
|---|---|---|
| TASMO 2025 K1 | 48 | 8 (4 Platinum, 4 Gold) |
| SASMO 2026 K2 | 53 | 10 (1 Perfect Score, 9 Gold) |
K2 — Deep Dive
Overall performance. SASMO 2026 K2 drew 53 medalists from the born-2020 cohort — up from 48 at TASMO 2025 K1 eight months prior, a larger field by 5 students. At the top of the field, 10 students reached Gold or above at SASMO, compared to 8 reaching Platinum or Gold at TASMO — two more students individually cleared the top-tier bar this time, in a field that was only modestly larger.
Notable results. One Perfect Score this cycle — Miao Fangdi, who also took Gold at TASMO 2025 K1, making them one of the cohort's most consistent performers across both sittings. Four students took Platinum at TASMO 2025 K1 (Carol Jiang Qi En, Shao Boyan Bryan, Victoria Low, Xu Jiaying) — TASMO's highest tier, reserved for the 97th percentile and above. Of those four, two (Carol Jiang Qi En, Shao Boyan Bryan) went on to Gold at SASMO months later, while Victoria Low and Xu Jiaying settled for Bronze — a reminder that TASMO Platinum and SASMO Gold measure different fields and don't guarantee identical results months apart.
Patterns in scores/awards. SASMO 2026 K2: 1 Perfect Score, 9 Gold, 14 Silver, 19 Bronze, 10 Honorable Mention. TASMO 2025 K1: 4 Platinum, 4 Gold, 11 Silver, 29 Bronze (TASMO has no Honorable Mention tier — its Bronze band runs all the way down to the 50th percentile, which is part of why TASMO's Bronze count looks large relative to SASMO's). The concentration of medals in the upper tiers at both sittings — nearly a fifth of SASMO's K2 field reached Gold or better — reflects a small, engaged, largely self-selected group at this age rather than any statement about the material's difficulty.
What makes this cohort distinctive. This is the youngest tracked cohort in Math Prodigies' entire dataset, and their trajectory across two sittings is genuinely encouraging: more students cleared the top-tier bar at SASMO than at TASMO, and 22 of the 48 TASMO K1 medalists (46%) returned to medal again at SASMO K2 months later — meaningfully higher persistence than one might expect from five- and six-year-olds. This cohort has never sat SMKC, since SMKC doesn't field a K1/K2 category — their first SMKC sitting will come at P1, the real test of whether this early strength holds across all three competitions rather than just two.
Notable Insights
Breadth vs. elite. With only 80 unique medalists across two sittings, this is still a small, early-stage cohort. It's too soon to call this "broad participation" or "concentrated elite" — there simply isn't enough data yet to separate the two. What's measurable is that more students are clearing the top-tier bar at each successive sitting, not just that more students are entering.
Persistence is unusually strong for this age group. 22 of 48 TASMO K1 medalists returned to medal at SASMO K2 — a 46% persistence rate. For context, that's a meaningfully higher return rate than typically seen even in older grades, where competition fatigue or shifting extracurricular priorities can thin the field. For five- and six-year-olds, sustaining competitive engagement across two different competitions eight months apart suggests genuine early interest rather than a one-off entry.
A small number of students are already reaching above their grade. Three born-2020 students sat SASMO 2026 P1 — one grade above their age group — and all three medaled: Hu Shaoai Alice (Gold), Cai Yuanlue (Silver), and Shao Hanyu Harry (Silver). Separately, three sat TASMO 2025 K2: Cai Yuanlue again (Silver), Charlotte Chua Jie Xi (Bronze), and Shu Chenhan (Bronze). These are early, individual signals rather than an established cohort-wide pattern, but worth tracking as this group progresses into P1 next year, when the full weight of an older field will test whether that early outperformance holds.
TASMO Platinum didn't fully carry over to SASMO Gold. Of the four TASMO 2025 K1 Platinum recipients, only two repeated at Gold-or-above at SASMO 2026 K2. This is a useful reminder for parents interpreting medal tiers across competitions: TASMO's Platinum (97th percentile+) and SASMO's Gold (92nd percentile+, no ceiling) measure different fields sitting different papers months apart — a top result in one doesn't guarantee the same in the other, even for a strong student.
The real test comes at P1. This cohort has never sat SMKC, since SMKC doesn't run a K1/K2 category. When born-2020 students reach P1 in 2027, they'll face all three competitions in a single grade for the first time — the first point where their strength can be measured across the full SASMO–SMKC–TASMO cycle rather than just two of the three.
Conclusion
The born-2020 cohort's story so far is a positive but early one: 80 students have earned a medal, more students cleared the top-tier bar at their second sitting than their first, and nearly half of TASMO's K1 medalists came back to medal again at SASMO K2 months later — a persistence rate that would be respectable at any age, let alone kindergarten. A small number of standout students are already testing themselves against P1-level material, hinting at unusually early readiness in a handful of cases.
For parents and educators, the clearest takeaway is that this cohort's engagement looks real rather than incidental — students aren't simply appearing once and disappearing. But two sittings and no SMKC exposure yet is a thin base to draw firm conclusions from. The cohort's real proving ground arrives at P1, when SMKC joins the rotation and the field widens to include a full year of older, more established competitors.
Analysis based on TASMO 2025 and SASMO 2026 medalist records for students born in 2020. This is a K1/K2-level analysis — school affiliations and enrollment type are not discussed, as that data is not consistently verified for this age group.