Submitted by ChiefKiasu

The Primary One registration madness is here once again.  This year’s Exercise would be for children born in 2008, the year of the Rat.

The birthrate for 2008 was 39826, vs 2007 which was not very different at 39490.  So we expect the P1 registration exercise to be close to last year’s exercise.

However, the total number of place offered this year is 42460, and it is lower than last years’ by 120 places.  No new schools go online in 2015, while 3 schools were merged into existing schools.  So the number of schools and places is reduced by this year to 187.

The other major change this year is the reservation of 40 places (20 for Phase 2B and 20 for Phase 2C) for applicants who do not qualify for Phase 2A.  This limits the chance of Phase 2A applicants consuming all available places.

KiasuParents.com has analysed the last 8 years (2006-2013) of P1 registration exercises, and we will be sharing some insights into the trends that we observed.  This is purely a statistical analysis, not taking into account exigent circumstances and other information not publicly released.  The intent is to provide parents with information that allows them to evaluate their chances of getting into specific schools, and knowing what suitable alternatives they may have if they find it is too risky to bet on getting into popular schools.  Parents should practise caution when using this information.

The Balloting Risk is averaged over a maximum of 8 years.  New schools with shorter histories are also listed, but averaged over the number of years they existed.

Risk values range from 0.00 to 1.00, normalised against the school with the highest risk of balloting in each Phase.  The new index takes into account 3 factors

• The distance bucket for which balloting is required. Balloting within 1km would be weighted higher than balloting within 1-2km or beyond 2km
• The recency of balloting.  Balloting that occurred more recently are weighted higher than balloting that occurred earlier.  This is linearly scaled.
• The intensity of the competition reflected by the level of over-subscription (as seen in the APP value of our charts).  So balloting that occurred with higher levels of over-subscription will be weighted higher.

In short,

• 0.00 => No balloting of any sort has occurred at that Phase in any year for the school
• 1.00 => School with the highest risk of balloting (or cut-off) at that Phase

Any value between 0.00 and 1.00 implies that some form of balloting has occurred.  The higher the index, the higher the risk of balloting within 1km of the school.

We have also marked the schools with colors to make things easier to read.

Obviously, parents should avoid schools with high risks of balloting, and go for those which are near their homes and with much lower risks.  As an example, referring to the table below, if you stay in Ang Mo Kio, and if you are not already in Phase 2B of CHIJ St Nicholas, you should NOT try your luck in Phase 2C for CHIJ St Nicholas if you are outside of 1km.  Even if you are within 1km, the odds could be against you, especially if you are a PR, and not a Singaporean.

Instead, you might wish to consider going for Teck Ghee Primary School in Phase 2C.  It has a very low risk of balloting in Phase 2C, but it gets quite hot in Phase 2CS when all those that tried but failed to get into SNGS start looking for alternatives, leading to some risk of balloting in Phase 2CS.  Mayflower and Ang Mo Kio Primary schools are also good alternatives for Phase 2C if you are looking for a stress-free P1 registration.