If you will be registering your child next year for admission in 2013, I hope my experience this year would help your understanding and ease your transition too.My husband and I chose North Vista Primary primarily due to proximity to our home. If you would like to find out whether your home is located within 1km, between 1-2km or beyond 2km, you can use this map to find out. For us, this school starts at 8am and ends at 2.45pm which suits my daughter’s routine very well. Her overflow of energy stretches beyond afternoon so keeping her busy at school will be a fantastic idea. Given that I had not serve as a parent volunteer in any school, I was prepared to admit my daughter via phase 2C.Before the registration, I spoke to some parents to learn more about North Vista Primary. I heard of a lot of pros and cons about the school. In the end, we still decided that this school is still the best choice for us. You too should gather information about your school of choice.If your circle of friends who know about your school of choice is limited, you may opt to register in a forum. In this forum, you can find parents’ interaction for individual school and the historical data of primary 1 registration exercise. This will help you to gauge your chances of entering the school of choice. This forum will also be useful throughout the school years because you can voice your concern of any aspect to other parents.During the registration phases, I closely monitored the vacancy and application from the Ministry of Education website. I kept my fingers crossed and fortunately there were ample vacancies at phase 2C. Guessed what!? In the end, for over 190 vacancies, more than 180 places were filled up. If you had gone through this, you can tell how trilling it was for any parent! Frankly speaking, in Sengkang, Nan Chiau and Rivervale Primary are hot schools with thrilling balloting each year. We were not ready to take chance by trying out these hot schools and take the risk of being balloted out.You can always call up the primary school to arrange for a school visit. Some schools have open houses which they announce at their websites, too. By visiting the school, you can experience the ease of getting there, speak to the principal and teachers, visiting the classrooms and understanding the facilities and even get to know the kind of food they serve at canteen. I visited North Vista primary beforehand and found out that the school is relatively new without PSLE graduates. The facilities are sophisticated and their library provide a great environment.Having gone through the selection and registration phase, I would say that our experience with the school is still limited. The truths are to be uncovered when the time comes. Like any parents, my husband and I simply want a good environment and resources so that our daughter would enjoy school days – all the time.Justina Wang
