18 Jun 2025

The annual P1 Registration is upon us!  As we do this every year, we are presenting the "difficulty" or "ease" of getting into your desired school, depending on whether you are a pessimist or optimist.

There is a slight change this year, as we now have 3 years' worth of data in the new Phase 2A, 2B and 2C format, as opposed to Phase 2A(1), 2A(2), 2C... etc (assuming you still remember the old days).  From now onwards, we will be analyzing only a moving average of 3 years worth of data, so that the table can represent the most recent content.  Hopefully, it will be more relevant to you all.

As you probably know, P1 Registration is a huge and complicated beast.  Here, we are trying to make sense of the data we see and summarize it into something more palatable.  P1 Registration is primarily based on how far you stay from the school, from under 1km, to 1-2km, and finally if you stay more than 2km away.  You get the highest priority if you choose a school under 1km from your home.  That's great, but unfortunately, if the school nearest to your home is a popular school, you can bet that you will find yourself competing with your neighbors for a chance to get into the school.  Most schools will have about 200 places, which will quickly evaporate as the Registration exercise progresses.

The Registration exercise is broken down into many Phases.  Phase 1 is intended for siblings currently studying in the school and does not have a limit.  Phase 2A is mainly meant for children of the schools' alumni.  Phase 2B caters for parents with religious affiliation to the school or parents engaged in the schools "Parents Volunteer" program. Phase 2C is open to all Singaporeans and PRs, and Phase 2C(S) is meant for parents who have not yet gotten a school successfully so far.

It sounds simple so far... but the specifics get really complicated when put to work.  I think you need to really go through the full experience before you get the hang of it.

Enough said about the process.  Here's to give you some idea of the table presented at the bottom of this article.

The schools are listed alphabetically in their districts, starting with Ang Mo Kio.  Then all the registration phases are listed, from Phase 2A all the way to Phase 2C(S).  The number under each of these columns shows the chance of balloting.  I have normalized it to range from 0 to 1.  0 means that the school did not require balloting in that specific phase for the last 3 years, which is good news for those looking for a hassle free exercise.  1 means that the school has required balloting even for those staying <1km away!

Any other number between 0-1 means the school as required balloting at different distances.

A "-" in the last column Phase 2C(S) means that the school was fully booked by Phase 2C and has no places for Phase 2C(S) in the last 3 years.

Finally, about the color coding.

"Red" means that the school very likely requires balloting for parents <1km away
"Yellow" means that the school requires balloting for parents 1-2km away
"Green" means that the schools requires balloting for parents >2km away

Please note that the color coding is our prediction of what might happen.  In the last 10 years in which we have done this, we are generally about 90% correct.

Regardless, best of luck to those participating in this year's exercise!

Have more questions on P1 registration? Join us for the free KiasuParents Huddle webinar on 25 June 2025, where we’ll unpack what really matters when choosing a primary school!