[Central] Primary Schools

[sglady]

ChiefKiasu:

sglady:

This is exactly the same scenario for what I did last year.


I deregistered my son from ACSP at around 4.10pm, took me 5 mins and I managed to reach ACSJ at 4.20pm and registered my son under Phase 2C. I was rushing like mad.

It was a close shave I swear I will never gonna do this ever.

If your other kid is a boy, you will never have to do this again

Thanks! Chief.

You are right! But I've a girl to register at SMPS, 1-2km under Phase 2C this year.

I'll never register and deregister last minute. It's too stressful and I may have missed my chance. :lightrod:

[ckew]

cutyyan:

She switched to acsp as her registered add is within 1km for both acsj and acsp.

since balloting conducted for both school, she would like to try her luck with acsp first.
Evan she failed in phase2b in acsp ballot, she was still able to register under phase 2c with acsj again. I was at acsp on Tuesday, the lady came in at 4.10pm and making our applicants increased from 26 to 27. Finally, there was another mummy who < 1km pulled out her application immediately and would rush to another school for registration. Due to the deregistration took times, her hubby kept calling her from another school.It was like a drama, the admin staff worried if they deregister her son, she has insufficient time to do registration again. Finally, the deregistration done at 4.15pm.

Anyway, thanks for the mummy withdrawal and making our acsp balloting less competitive. Hopefully, she has sufficient time to register her son with another school.

Sounds like the parents who deregistered at ACSP could be the ones who registered last minute at ACSJ. If that's the case, the number of registrants would have been the same regardless whether the last minute registrations/deregistrations took place. So no one is to blame lah! It's a perfect ending for everyone.

I am just so happy for all the parents who made it. Many of us put in much efforts in finding properties within 1km, planning our finances, praying hard, getting involved in grassroots work, deciding which school suits our children, etc... It's now all paid off. I am sure our sons will enjoy 12 years of all rounded education that helps them become confident, well spoken and self-motivated individuals.

Thanks so much to the schools and MOE for allowing all within 1km to be admitted. Thanks also to all who put updates in this forum so those of us in the workplace were kept informed.

[crusader]

Thanks for update.


The lady in question decided not to proceed with registration at ACJS as she had already secured a place in SJI Jr for her son. She could also see the anxious look in all the other parents’ eyes. It was very gracious of her and everyone in the AVA room in ACJS applauded in appreciation when she announced her decision. She was still in ACJS when I left at 4.35 pm. So the lady who was the last applicant in ACPS is someone else.

In the meantime, the mommy who withdrew from ACPS must have been the wife of Applicant No. 73 (the last applicant) in ACJS who was making frantic calls to his wife to check whether she had actually deregistered as records in MOE have not been updated and he could not proceed to register at JS.

Deregistration was only updated in the MOE system shortly after 4.27 pm (which was announced) - truly a "last minute" deregistration in every sense. What a close shave! Had deregistration not been updated by 4.30 pm (less than 3 minutes away) but thereafter, the parents would have successfully deregistered from PS but be unable to register for JS.

Brinksmanship is dicey- the lag time between paper work to deregister and deregistration reflected in the MOE system is affected by so many other factors beyond one’s control e.g. other applicants waiting their turns, staff tending to other applicants, time it takes for system to be updated, bandwidth, laptop speed.

But all’s well that ends well. Congrats to successful parents in MGS, PS and JS.

Cheers.

[sglady]

Erm… Last year, I checked with the admin staff whether our application has to be in their system by 4.30pm. They told me that so long if we reach before 4.30pm, they will have to register us in the system. That’s what I was told.

[ckew]

Thanks very much to crusader for giving us the fuller picture and for writing to the school for the all inclusive request.

[sweetbaby]

So for phase c 46 or 45 places left? Was the extra slot for phase b taken from phase c?

[crusader]

sglady:

Erm... Last year, I checked with the admin staff whether our application has to be in their system by 4.30pm. They told me that so long if we reach before 4.30pm, they will have to register us in the system. That's what I was told.

Thanks for sharing.

In your case by the time you arrived, your de-registration had most likely been updated in MOE's system. As such you were eligible to register.

Not so for the last applicant in ACJS as staff could not have proceeded with registration as his de-registration in PS was still pending. The chap arrived on time but was not allowed to register until de-registration was updated.

And rightly so.

Had it been otherwise, imagine the uproar from the other parents (who had registered earlier, some a day earlier) and were waiting anxiously in the JS AVA Room for the 4.30 deadline to expire with the magic number they were praying/waiting for - No. 47.

My queue no was 48 when I registered. And all 48 got in. 48 turned out all right after all.



Cheers

[crusader]

ckew:

Thanks very much to crusader for giving us the fuller picture and for writing to the school for the all inclusive request.

No worries.

In the end, MGS also had twins. ACPS topped it by having triplets (from what \"mummy bear\" had shared elsewhere).

So with all 3 Methodist schools having the exact no of parents and places - MOE had to do the sensible thing by waiving balloting.

What a perfect match! What an amazing coincidence! Congrats to all.

Cheers

[sweetbaby]

It’s not fair to ACSj phase c parents if the extra spot taken from phase c. as pointed by pirate, if the twins was pick first or anytime before last, a singleton will be balloted out instead. Will MOE or school allow the same leeway if this happens at phase 2c?anyone knows for sure that phase c slots decreases or a new spot was created?

[kasparov]

sweetbaby:

It's not fair to ACSj phase c parents if the extra spot taken from phase c. as pointed by pirate, if the twins was pick first or anytime before last, a singleton will be balloted out instead. Will MOE or school allow the same leeway if this happens at phase 2c?anyone knows for sure that phase c slots decreases or a new spot was created?

However unlikely it is to happen in a ballot, the possibility that the twins are picked last STILL EXISTS and herein lies the dilemma. MOE has perhaps mandated or allowed the flexibility for admission of all applicants in these borderline situations. Who knows we might get this fleshed out as a future modification to the P1 registration balloting rules since it happened to at least three schools this time round.

As for whether it is fair to take the extra spot from phase 2c, it is also a difficult question. You could see it from the perspective of all schools having finite places and short of creating a place which is a no-no at his stage of registration as far as policy directions go, the next straw is picked from the 2c pool. The 2b phase is seen as having higher priority than the 2c, so there you go. Having said that, when a de-registration takes place from earlier phases, the place goes to 2c instead of 2b.

Good question about how MOE will resolve the situation if this occurs in 2c. They may be forced to create a place in order to be consistent i.e. a ballot outcome in 2c is no different from other phases.

The perceived injustice by the 2c parents could be due to the fact that how the conundrum was to be resolved was not spelled out in black and white prior to the ballot so therefore admitting all applicants and limiting their 2c chances thus seems more 'concessionary' or 'arbitrary'.