Hi parents, juz sharing my own experience since I’ve ‘been there, done that.” 

I totally agree with the Straits Times article on last Sat that mentioned parents should seek to choose a GOOD OR BEST primary school for your child and not the TOP school. That’s what we did. We chose a good neighbourhood school a short distance from our home. It’s slightly beyond 2 km so Daddy has to do PV which in this school, do PV – almost 100% can get in.

I remember some of our friends questioned why we didn’t PV at a more reputable school then. But distance was a major concern for us – we wanted our young children to have more sleep to have a better quality of life – so that’s the decision.

Anyway, we had no regrets – our children love their school a lot — and they were blessed to be placed in the top class so they got all the BEST teachers in the school. Lots of opportunities for leadership roles, competitions, cca involvement which I think would be more competitive in a more reputable school.

A few of my friends too spent considerable time and effort (like PV, join clan, change church membership) to get their children into TOP primary schools.. thinking their children would benefit from being in that school.

Actually, the opposite happened. Their children were demoralised as some could not cope with the high standards in such schools.  After PSLE, they were channelled into a normal neighbourhood secondary school .

If the pri school has affiliations, some might get into the affiliated sec school but the reality would surface again when they received their “O” level results – might end up in a lower-end JC again.

For us, we are more selective about secondary schools. The environment and peer group in a secondary school play a major role in shaping the identity and building confidence in our teenaged children. So we would rather spend more time preparing the children to get into reasonably reputable secondary schools.

However, we will still choose the reputable schools that are nearer to our home. Actually, it’s better to stay in the West or Central cos there are more choices of reputable secondary schools/JCs/tertiary institutions to choose from. Just my opinion.