Primary school catchments
From the 2027 registration exercise, twelve schools split Phase 2C into two equal tracks — within 2km and beyond 2km — with no distance priority inside either one. A 1–2km home stops being second in the queue and becomes a coin flip alongside a 1km home. At five of the twelve that is a move from zero places to roughly thirty.
The call
Buy the 1–2km ring at five schools: Nanyang · Pei Hwa Presbyterian · Singapore Chinese Girls' · Tao Nan · ACS (Junior). These are the only ones where the ring goes from a hard zero to a guaranteed half-share, and where the demand holds across both published years.
The larger trade is the other side. At those same five, admission odds inside 1km collapse — Nanyang goes from roughly 70% to around 30%. That premium was priced on near-certainty, and near-certainty is what is being removed. Tell any client holding or buying inside 1km at Nanyang, Pei Hwa, SCGS or Tao Nan.
What changed
The old rule filled Phase 2C strictly by distance, so an oversubscribed school never got past the first band. The new rule ring-fences half the places for families beyond 2km and makes everyone inside 2km equal.
Reserved Phase 2C places rise from 40 to 60 at every school, taken out of Phase 2A (the alumni phase). Schools with fewer than 180 P1 places keep 40.
That only bites where Phase 2A was oversubscribed — if 2A did not fill, the spare places already flowed down to 2C and the higher floor changes nothing. At Nanyang, Pei Hwa, SCGS, Tao Nan and Tanjong Katong, 2A was oversubscribed in 2025, so the 2C pool physically grows to about 60 and the within-2km track lands near 30. At ACS (Junior), ACS (Primary), Methodist Girls', Raffles Girls', Ngee Ann, St. Margaret's and CHIJ (Katong), 2A did not fill, so the pool stays where it is and simply gets halved.
Citizens keep priority over permanent residents, and PRs are still considered only after all citizen applicants across both tracks are placed.
The twelve schools
The test is simple: in 2025, did Phase 2C ballot within 1km? If it did, the 1–2km ring received nothing and has everything to gain. If the ballot happened further out, the ring was already getting in and there is no gain to capture.
| School | 2025 Phase 2C | Ballot cut at | 1–2km got | New within-2km track | Verdict for 1–2km |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Tao NanMarine Parade | 45 places · 81 applicants | Within 1km 79 balloted for 45 | 0 | Pool 45 → 60, track ≈ 30 | Strong gainBalloted inside 1km in both 2024 and 2025. |
| NanyangBukit Timah | 42 places · 63 applicants | Within 1km 60 balloted for 42 | 0 | Pool 42 → 60, track ≈ 30 | Strong gainBalloted inside 1km in both years. Largest swing on the list. |
| Pei Hwa PresbyterianBukit Timah | 41 places · 84 applicants | Within 1km 69 balloted for 41 | 0 | Pool 41 → 60, track ≈ 30 | Strong gainBalloted inside 1km in both years. |
| Singapore Chinese Girls'Dunearn | 41 places · 58 applicants | Within 1km 55 balloted for 41 | 0 | Pool 41 → 60, track ≈ 30 | Strong gainBalloted inside 1km in both years. |
| ACS (Junior)Winstedt | 61 places · 95 applicants | Within 1km 83 balloted for 61 | 0 | Pool stays 61, track ≈ 30 | GainReached 1–2km in 2024, cut back inside 1km in 2025. |
| Methodist Girls' (Primary)Blackmore | 45 places · 78 applicants | Within 1km 54 balloted for 45 | 0 | Pool stays 45, track ≈ 22 | GainReached beyond 2km in 2024. Less reliable than the four above. |
| ACS (Primary)Barker Rd → Tengah 2030 | 66 places · 96 applicants | Within 1km 74 balloted for 66 | 0 | Pool stays 66, track ≈ 33 | Gain, expiringMOE has confirmed it leaves the scheme on the Tengah move. Three intakes only. |
| Tanjong KatongMarine Parade | 53 places · 83 applicants | 1 – 2km 23 balloted for 13 | 13 of 23 | Pool 53 → 60, track ≈ 30 | NeutralRing odds move ~57% → ~50%. The loss lands inside 1km. |
| CHIJ (Katong) PrimaryMarine Parade | 107 places · 71 applicants | No ballot Undersubscribed at 2C | All in | Unfilled places flow back | No impactNothing binds at an undersubscribed school. |
| Raffles Girls' PrimaryHillcrest | 115 places · 143 applicants | Beyond 2km 36 balloted for 17 | All in | Pool stays 115, track ≈ 58 | NegativeThe whole 2km ring goes from certain to balloted. No relative shift between 1km and 1–2km. |
| Ngee Ann PrimaryTanjong Katong | 127 places · 148 applicants | PR within 1km All citizens admitted | All in | Pool stays 127, track ≈ 64 | Neutral to negativeNothing to gain; a real chance of tightening. |
| St. Margaret's (Primary)Wilkie | 113 places · 125 applicants | No ballot All citizens offered places | All in | Pool stays 113, track ≈ 57 | Neutral to negativeNothing to gain; a real chance of tightening. |
In 2025 Raffles Girls' had 115 Phase 2C places and only balloted for citizens living beyond 2km — meaning every citizen applicant inside 2km was admitted, roughly 98 of them.
From 2027 the within-2km track is about 58. The beyond-2km track will not fill from 2025's 36 far applicants, so perhaps 20 spare places move across — call it 79 places for the same 98 applicants. That is a ballot where there was none.
It hits 1km and 1–2km by exactly the same amount, so the relativity between them does not move. But the absolute does, and it moves down. And the far-field pool will not stay at 36 once parents know half the places are ring-fenced for them.
The larger trade
The gain at 1–2km is real but spread thin. The loss inside 1km is concentrated in a small, expensive ring that has been priced on near-certain admission — which is the bigger dollar move, and the one nobody is talking about.
Nanyang · odds of a 2C place
42 places for 60 balloting applicants becomes about 30 places for a pool that also carries the 1–2km families who never bothered to apply before.
Tao Nan · odds of a 2C place
45 places for 79 balloting applicants becomes about 30 for a wider pool. Frankel and Telok Kurau enter the draw on equal terms.
Pei Hwa Presbyterian · odds
41 places for 69 balloting applicants becomes about 30 for a wider pool.
The was column is measured: MOE publishes the vacancies balloted and the number of applicants who entered that ballot, so the odds are exact for 2025.
The now column is an estimate and rests on two assumptions. First, that Phase 2A stays oversubscribed at these schools, so the 40 → 60 reserve lifts the 2C pool to about 60 and the within-2km track to about 30. Second, that the 1–2km families who had no path before now apply in numbers similar to the existing 1km pool — which is why the combined pool roughly doubles.
If far-field demand is weaker than expected, spare beyond-2km places flow back and both figures improve together. The direction is certain; the magnitude is not. Treat these as the shape of the move, not a quotable number.
What to do
Forward-looking
MOE will "periodically review the list" as housing profiles change. The same test applied to all 179 schools gives the watchlist below: Phase 2C balloted inside 1km in both 2024 and 2025, at a school with genuine brand demand and a private-property ring at 1–2km worth re-rating.
Real school effect, weaker price effect — the 1–2km ring at these is mostly public housing, so an equal-footing rule changes admission odds without moving much private stock: Ai Tong, Catholic High (Primary), CHIJ St. Nicholas Girls', CHIJ Primary (Toa Payoh), Pei Chun Public, Kuo Chuan Presbyterian, St. Andrew's Junior, Hong Wen, St. Hilda's, Red Swastika and Xinmin.
The twelve were selected on a housing test, not a demand test — MOE chose schools where public housing is under 40% of homes within 2km. Almost every name on the watchlist above fails that test, which is precisely why it is not already on the list.
So an extension is a policy decision, not a mechanical next step. MOE has only committed to reviewing the list as housing profiles change, and said it does not expect frequent changes. Hold these as names to watch on the next review, not as positions to take now.
Method and limits
Every figure above is read off MOE's own published registration data. Nothing is modelled except the three "now" odds, which are labelled as estimates.
Primary source. MOE's Vacancies and balloting data: 2025 P1 Registration Exercise — the full record for all 179 primary schools across every phase from Phase 1 to 2C Supplementary, including vacancies, applicants, vacancies balloted, applicants balloted, and the distance band each ballot was conducted for.
Second year. A published 2024 Phase 2C table covering the 88 schools that balloted that year, used only to check whether a school's ballot band is stable or a one-year artefact. Four of the twelve — Nanyang, Pei Hwa, SCGS and Tao Nan — balloted inside 1km in both years. ACS (Primary) and Methodist Girls' did not, which is why they sit a tier lower.
The weakness. MOE archives only the latest year, so this rests on one year of full official data plus one year of third-party transcription. Two years is enough to separate a structural pattern from noise; it is not enough to quote an admission probability to a client as a figure. If this needs to carry a number, a third year should be sourced first.
Timing. The change takes effect from the 2027 registration exercise — children entering Primary 1 in 2028. Property markets price catchment changes ahead of the intake, so the move should begin well before then.