Phew, it has come to the end of the first day of school.

Smarty returned home telling me who his subject teachers are. He said I am spot on on guessing that his former FT for P1 and P2, Teacher F, will teach him this year...hahaha

I really love this teacher to teach him as she is very strict on him. She scrutinizes even on his handwriting. She always tell Smarty, it is of no use if you are good in academic only, you need to have the correct values. I appreciate her teaching style and I know Smarty will be in for a difficult time this year ..kekeke

Although it is the first day, Smarty is already assigned with homework. He is a wonderful boy today by taking initiative to finish up his work. I am definitely impressed. I bet he must be motivated by Teacher F. She said, " Those of you in P1 and P2 must have changed now as you are in P4 now." Guess those words really went into him.

I just wished that he will be consistent everyday.

DD just returned home from school 10 mins ago. Smarty is a nice brother by waiting at the gate for her and welcome his sister home. :-)

Parents are often concerned about the competition for places or vacancies available for Primary One Registration in the year for which their loved ones are due.  Traditionally, the birth rate peaks during the Year of the Dragon.

For the convenience of parents, we have mapped Singapore's birth rate data for the years 2000-2007, against the available vacancies for Primary One Registration in the years 2006-2013 (of course, we only have the data up to 2009).

Note that the Birth Sign refers to children who are due for Primary One Registration for that year, ie. they will be attending Primary One in the following year.

Too often on KSP forum, we read about students who do exceedingly well in school and get excellent results for all their exams, be it GEP streaming or PSLE. Most likely, we read with envy and wish our kids have the study smarts too!

It's the time of the year to do our Kiasu Analysis of PSLE results once again!

Finding #1 - Top Honors

2009 is the Year of the Underdogs.  It is Episode 4 - A*Star Wars - A New Hope.  While 9 of the Top 17 National students are from top tier GEP schools, a staggering 7 out of 17 students are from schools that used to be classified as Unworthy-of-PV-Effort.  This is unprecedented in recent PSLE history.

The above image is contributed by our talented parent-artist chillycrab.  Thanks for the wonderful light-hearted humor your have provided for our community!

Good luck to all students and parents of students who have participated in the PSLE 2009.  May you get the results you deserve.  Celebrate if you achieve what you wanted.  Reflect on how you will improve yourself if you get less than what you hoped for.  And regardless of whatever you score, plan on what you want to achieve 4 to 6 years down the road and start preparing TODAY towards that goal.

Achieving academic excellence is a marathon, not a sprint.

So which are the schools that parents keep sending their kids back to?  The following index ranks Primary Schools based on the average Take-Up Rate (TUR) up to Phase 2A, which measures how eager parents who were ex-students or who already have kids in the schools are in sending their younger kids to the same schools.  This is actually another popularity measurement, since the schools which will NOT have many places left for "outsiders" are also those with the most loyal parents.

Also, note that new schools will be most likely ranked lower in this index due to the lack of a large alumni community.

Here's my 2cents worth... including some feedback from my frens with kids in GEP in various schools. One thing we need to bear in mind is that there is no PERFECT school.... I am not perfect either... no perfect child, parent, teacher, country... and no perfect school.

Congratulations to all kids who've been selected. As my son has benefited greatly the last 3 years, I would like to share his experiences to parents who're having doubts.