P1 Registration: Information, Advice & Insights from 2023’s Balloting Data

It’s break­ing news that we have heard count­less times before: Sin­ga­pore stu­dents come out tops in the Pro­gramme for Inter­na­tion­al Stu­dent Assess­ment (PISA) Glob­al Com­pe­tence test for Math­e­mat­ics, Sci­ence & Read­ing! In the 2022 edi­tion, Sin­ga­pore stu­dents also out­per­formed stu­dents from 63 oth­er coun­tries in cre­ative think­ing. The results solid­i­fy what many already know, that is, Singapore’s edu­ca­tion sys­tem is unde­ni­ably one of the best in the world.  

The Min­istry of Edu­ca­tion (MOE) has done a very com­mend­able job in mak­ing “every school [in Sin­ga­pore], a good school”. That said, not all ‘good’ schools in Sin­ga­pore are equal. Just ask any Sin­ga­pore­an par­ent. Or bet­ter yet, have a look at the bal­lot­ing data for the Pri­ma­ry 1 Reg­is­tra­tion Exer­cise that MOE releas­es every year. You will eas­i­ly notice that there tend to be more appli­cants for cer­tain schools as com­pared to oth­ers. What this shows is that even though every school is sup­pos­ed­ly a good school, there are clear­ly some schools which are more pop­u­lar than oth­ers. The rea­son is sim­ple: when par­ents choose schools, many take into account the dis­tance of the school from home, the rep­u­ta­tion of the school, and the fam­i­ly tra­di­tion of study­ing in the school.

As you can imag­ine, pop­u­lar schools receive a lot more appli­cants than oth­ers but they do not nec­es­sar­i­ly have more avail­able spaces. There­fore, not every appli­cant will get a spot. In oth­er words, there is no guar­an­tee that par­ents can get their chil­dren into any school they so wish. 

Maximising Chances of Getting into Target School

This is why the month of July, which is soon upon us, is a time when par­ents get jit­tery. Dur­ing the Pri­ma­ry 1 Reg­is­tra­tion Exer­cise, par­ents have to decide which school to enrol their soon-to-be Pri­ma­ry 1 child in. There is no secret as to how par­ents can max­imise their chances of get­ting their chil­dren into their tar­get school. Sim­ply, par­ents need to make sure they get as many bites of the cher­ry as pos­si­ble. What do I mean? Chil­dren are admit­ted into pri­ma­ry schools through up to 5 phas­es. I say up to 5 phas­es because not every child can qual­i­fy for every phase. MOE has laid down a very strict set of cri­te­ria. I describe them as fol­lows:  

Phase 1 [2 July (9am) to 4 July 2024 (4:30pm)]:

This is a sure-fire way of get­ting a child into a school if his or her old­er sib­ling stud­ies in that same school

*Phase 2A [11 July (9am) to 12 July 2024 (4:30pm)]:

Be an old boy or girl of the tar­get school and be a mem­ber of the school’s alum­ni asso­ci­a­tion for at least 1 year before the P1 reg­is­tra­tion opens. Alter­na­tive­ly, angle your way into being a mem­ber of the school advi­so­ry or man­age­ment com­mit­tee, or be a staff mem­ber of the school. Final­ly, if your child is still in kinder­garten, sign him or her up in an MOE kinder­garten that is under the purview and locat­ed with­in the school

* This is the phase that cre­ates the most con­fu­sion. Con­trary to pop­u­lar belief, to qual­i­fy as an old boy or girl, a par­ent needs to have attend­ed pri­ma­ry school when he or she was a child. For exam­ple, a par­ent would not qual­i­fy as alum­ni of Raf­fles Girls’ Pri­ma­ry if she had stud­ied at Raf­fles Girls’ Sec­ondary but at Mary­mount Con­vent Pri­ma­ry School.   

Phase 2B [22 July (9am) to 23 July 2024 (4:30pm)]:

Join the school as par­ent vol­un­teer for at least 1 year before the P1 reg­is­tra­tion opens, and give at least 40 hours of your time to the school. Alter­na­tive­ly, be an active com­mu­ni­ty leader, or be part of a church or clan that is affil­i­at­ed to the school 

Phase 2C [30 July (9am) to 1 August 2024 (4:30pm)] :

For a child who is not yet reg­is­tered in a pri­ma­ry school. You do not need any­thing spe­cial. Every­one qual­i­fies. But there will be only 40 spaces avail­able plus what­ev­er left­over space from pre­vi­ous phas­es (For a child who is not yet reg­is­tered in a pri­ma­ry school after Phase 2C)

Phase 2C Sup­ple­men­tary [15 August (9am) to 16 August 2024 (4:30pm)] :

For a child who is not yet reg­is­tered in a pri­ma­ry school after Phase 2C. You do not need any­thing spe­cial. Every­one qual­i­fies. Unlike the ear­li­er phas­es, MOE does not guar­an­tee a min­i­mum num­ber of spaces. So chances are, by this phase, most schools would already be full. 

Why A Need for Balloting? 

You are prob­a­bly get­ting a good sense by now: get­ting a child into a school is not so much a mat­ter of choice as it is all about strat­e­gy. This is because every school has lim­it­ed vacan­cies and the more pop­u­lar a school is, the more appli­cants there will be. When appli­cants exceed the num­ber of spaces avail­able in each of the 5 phas­es, a bal­lot, which is basi­cal­ly a glo­ri­fied lucky draw, ensues.  

To be clear, a bal­lot can hap­pen in every phase as long as the appli­cants in that phase exceeds the num­ber of spaces avail­able in that same phase. In a bal­lot, chil­dren of par­ents who stay clos­er to the school hold the advan­tage. They get cho­sen first. The order of pri­or­i­ty is as fol­lows: 

(1)  Sin­ga­pore­an par­ents liv­ing with­in 1km of the school (Yes, 1km)

(2)  Sin­ga­pore­an par­ents liv­ing between 1km and 2km of the school (Yes, 1–2km)

(3)  Sin­ga­pore­an par­ents liv­ing out­side 2km of the school (Yes, 2km)

2023 Balloting Results (Phase 2A)

Accord­ing to last year’s bal­lot­ing results, the fol­low­ing table shows all the pri­ma­ry schools that required a bal­lot in phase 2A:

Here are my thoughts on the results of Phase 2A, some of which I found sur­pris­ing: 

1. Sur­pris­ing­ly, the most com­pet­i­tive schools are not your ‘brand­ed’ schools but schools in the Pung­gol and Sen­gkang areas. Not only did they require bal­lot­ing, but there was also no chance of even qual­i­fy­ing for a bal­lot if a child stays more than 1 km away from the school; 

2. Sur­pris­ing­ly, the rel­a­tive­ly more sought after schools such as the ACS schools, Methodist Girls’ School (MGS), Sin­ga­pore Chi­nese Girls School (SCGS), Pei Chun, Ai Tong, Hen­ry Park, and Saint Joseph etc. did not require a bal­lot in Phase 2A. In oth­er words, if you are an old boy or girl of the afore­men­tioned schools,  your child would gain admis­sion into the school even if you stay very far away; 

3. Pop­u­lar schools like Catholic High, St Nicholas, Tao Nan, Pei Hwa and Nanyang etc were not as com­pet­i­tive as oth­ers. A bal­lot was only required for chil­dren who stay more than 2 km away. In oth­er words, if you are an alum­ni and stay with­in 2km from the school, your child would have got­ten in.

4. Inter­est­ing­ly, what we have seen from the results in last year’s P1 Reg­is­tra­tion Exer­cise is con­sis­tent with that in pre­vi­ous years as well. This means that you should be able to safe­ly take the 2023 results as a reli­able guide for any form of strate­gic plan­ning that you wish to make. 

2023 Balloting Results (Phase 2B) 

You have to com­mit at least 40 hours of ser­vice to your tar­get school for a shot at only 20 reserved spaces in this phase. Most schools, par­tic­u­lar­ly the more pop­u­lar ones, require bal­lot­ing in this phase. On top of that, get­ting accept­ed into the par­ent vol­un­teer pro­gramme of a school is not a walk in the park. In fact, it is akin to a job appli­ca­tion. Many schools these days (you know who the usu­al sus­pects are) are not short of par­ent vol­un­teers. To short­list the best can­di­date for the ‘job’, there usu­al­ly will be a for­mal appli­ca­tion and deci­sion process. You will be required to sub­mit your CV and wait for a response that might or might not come. It can be an ardu­ous process and that is why par­ents have to decide for them­selves whether phase 2B is worth their while. 

In the fol­low­ing table, we have pre­pared for you a list of schools that required a bal­lot in phase 2B last year. If your tar­get school is not on this list then it’s a no brain­er. Apply to be a par­ent vol­un­teer right away as it is his­tor­i­cal­ly very like­ly that your child, regard­less of how far your home is from the school, will be bestowed a spot in phase 2B with­out a bal­lot. 

Here are my thoughts on the results of Phase 2B: 

Almost every (more pop­u­lar) school in Sin­ga­pore required a bal­lot in Phase 2B last year. This is the case even if par­ents stayed with­in 1 km of the school. Notably, when com­pared to the 2022 data, get­ting into schools through Phase 2B was more dif­fi­cult last year in 2023. In 2022, for most schools, stay­ing with­in 2 km allowed par­ents to avoid the bal­lot. In 2023, how­ev­er, par­ents were still sub­ject to the bal­lot despite stay­ing with­in 1km of the cho­sen school.

The 2023 results are in line with MOE’s aim to make Phase 2B more restric­tive. Hence, do not bank on Phase 2B, and giv­en how restric­tive it now is, par­ents would need to make a deci­sion whether it is worth their time vol­un­teer­ing their ser­vices at their tar­get schools.

2023 Balloting Results (Phase 2C) 

Phase 2C is the open win­dow for par­ents with no alum­ni or grass­root advan­tage. The fol­low­ing is a table that shows all the pri­ma­ry schools that did not require a bal­lot. In oth­er words, if you had applied to these schools, your child would have got­ten in with­out any fuss. This table is rel­e­vant to those par­ents who are not picky on schools, not risk-tak­ers and who do not want to leave the fate of their child’s edu­ca­tion to chance.    

You have seen the fuss-free schools. Now I present you with the table of all the pri­ma­ry schools that required a bal­lot in Phase 2C. As can be expect­ed from the more pop­u­lar schools, chil­dren only qual­i­fied to have their names in the bal­lot box if they stayed with­in 1km of the school. In oth­er words, if you do not stay with­in 1km of those schools, my advice to you is not to try your luck in phase 2C. This is because if your child does not get in (which he or she like­ly won’t), you are only left with Phase 2C Sup­ple­men­tary. As I will show you in the next sec­tion, there are not many schools avail­able in this final phase, and there is a good chance your child will be post­ed to a school far away from home. 

2023 Balloting Results (Phase 2C Supplementary) 

My Final Thoughts

I believe if you are read­ing this, chances are, you are a Sin­ga­pore­an par­ent. If so, we think alike. I am there­fore not going to give you the mean­ing­less assur­ance that what­ev­er school your child gets into, he or she will be in good hands. Doubtless­ly, every school in Sin­ga­pore is a good school. But not every school in Sin­ga­pore is the same. There will always be schools more sought after than oth­ers because of fac­tors like rep­u­ta­tion, con­ve­nience and tra­di­tion. 

With that in mind, my advice to you is to study the 2023 bal­lot­ing data care­ful­ly. This is because trends like the num­ber of appli­cants to a school in a par­tic­u­lar phase tend to be very con­sis­tent over the years. Hence, you can esti­mate your chances of get­ting your child into a school rather accu­rate­ly just by look­ing at the bal­lot­ing data. The oth­er piece of advice I will leave you with is that dis­tance is king! Even if you do not have an alum­ni asso­ci­a­tion to your tar­get school, you still have a very good chance of over­com­ing that by stay­ing close to the school. 

On this note, I per­son­al­ly know many par­ents who have tried to get a leg up by rent­ing an apart­ment near their tar­get school or bor­row­ing the address­es of their par­ents, rel­a­tives or even friends. What they do is to have one spouse (you do not need father and moth­er to have the same address) reg­is­ter his or her address to say their par­ents’ home, which is with­in 1km of the tar­get school. This is tech­ni­cal­ly pos­si­ble but it does not come with­out risks and incon­ve­nience. First, since that would be your reg­is­tered home address, all your impor­tant mails from banks and the gov­ern­ment will be sent there. Sec­ond, that has to be your reg­is­tered address for at least 30 months from the date of the reg­is­tra­tion exer­cise. If you change your address before the end of this peri­od, MOE will and has tak­en chil­dren out of their cur­rent school and trans­ferred them to anoth­er. 

You have been advised and you have been warned. It’s now time to play the game.