Pri 1 Registration

It's official, I FINALLY.. and I do mean FINALLY.. managed to sign Ace up for Primary 1 at East Coast Primary....

Given that we are going to be in Dubai for the next 1-2 years, many people have asked me why i am still signing up for Ace for primary one... the reason is simple... it's because if you have a parent that is working overseas and you are relocated, you can have two choices.. you either choose to do register during the pri 1 registration exercise or you can come back and sign up later.... The difference is that if you sign up now, you "chope" a place for your kid in school and when you pay for a $33 leave of absence, the teacher of your son will send you homework and tell you what they are learning in school so you can homeschool your kid a little bit.. such that they wouldnt get a shock of their lives when they return to the educational system in Singapore...

We decided that we will try to chope a place for Ace first so that we can get the "homework" sent to us as we were told that UK cirricullum in international school is 2-3 yrs behind sgp's educational cirricullum... (Ace is likely to attend Horizon School here in Dubai.. he will be going for an assessment on 5th of September and if he passes, he will get to go there. According to Max's boss, that is a really good school with a small community.)

Anyway, during the first few phases where you can sign your child up in your alma matar.. we didnt do anything.. reason being that my primary school, Bedok Primary School is already BUANG.... and Max's school (East Coast Primary, ECPS) is not a "hot" school.. so we waited till phase 2C to ballot and see if we will get lucky....

At this point, I know, many people will start to ask, "Didn't you do volunteer work?" The answer is NO.. because volunteer work just lets you join in the balloting one phase earlier... and that, according to my theory is still dependent on LUCK.. why waste 40 hrs if it is not a confirm sure win?:P I have met many people who were lucky... and it is great. they din have to spend 40hrs doing volunteer work nor did they have to donate thousands of dollars.... and if they were not.... (like me, cos I din get into red swastika or temasek and ended up in bedok primary), my theory is, I still turned out ok....

I ended up in special stream in a good secondary school, managed to finish university ... am not a bad writer, I was a reporter, ran my own business, had a cafe... ever made $20K in a month, am well loved and well liked... so, wat is the big deal about hot schools right?:P

Max went to ECPS.... ended up in a not too bad secondary school, scored single digit for his O levels and chose the lesser chosen path of a polytechnic... left the navy as a navy captain and he now is a regional operations manager in an MNC making a very comfortable income..

Anyway, the process of signing ace up for primary one though was quite mafan.. considering that it happened during the last few weeks where I was intensively meeting frens and packing before I left...

Anyway, after discussion we decided to sign up for Yuneng Primary.. and as expected, it required ballotting... so I went to Yuneng one time to sign up.... and even though watching the ballot was optional, I decided to go since I was curious about how it is...

When I reached the school, I really liked the cheery happy feel I get there. I think it is a really good school and I know Ace will love it there... the balloting was well, balloting lah.. it was quite a draggy process given that they wanted to be fair.. there were 89 pax balloting for 40 seats and all citizens given two slips and PRs given one slip of balloting paper...

First they will show you your balloting paper one by one... and then leh, they will fold and put the balloting paper into this plastic see through box and they will ask parents, VIPS, etc to randomly pick the next 5-10 slots... and at the end of it, Ace din get it.. so I put him on waiting list... ( I found out tat even Fengshan primary had to ballot lor.. red swastika needless to say have to ballot.. i have 3 good schools near my place but no round shit with any of them..)

What was annoying to me was that this meant I have to wait for phase 2C supplementary to sign up again in another school.

After discussion, we decided to sign up for Bedok Green Primary given that it is near my parent's place since we will likely be staying there when we go back to singapore..

So early morning, i went to sign up in BGP.. but leh, the lady there told me that since they only had 28 slots left, likely they will need to ballot for the people living within 1km.. so that means I cant even ballot cos my own place is 1.1km away from the school... (darn!)

So leh, I went karaoke with my fren while I waited for Max to wake up to discuss with him (Dubai is 4 hrs behind) and then he suggested that we call one of our friends to check with him as he was a teacher and have taught in BGP and ECPS before..

I messaged this friend of mine and he was indeed helpful!:) He said that of course given a choice, he would choose a better school as he feels that curricullum is a small issue but the environment is more important.. and as these schools all had children from poorer families, they tended to have issues like playing truant etc...

However, when i told him about my situation, he said that given a choice between the two, he will put his kids in ECPS... because:

1. It is a small school and everyone knows everyone..



2. It has happy teachers because it has a good principal and they are all super caring!



3. Happy teachers also breed happy kids.. they are more focused on a all rounded education instead of just results



4. It is like a mini international schools as it accepts students from many diff countries as well



5. As Ace is an intelligent kid, he is likely to go to the first class and will be given more attention academic wise...
   

And so leh, after karaoke, I walked all the way to cancel my registration with BGP and then went to ECPS to sign up...and so, finally it is done!:)

True enough, the two times I went to ECPS ( I went again to sign LOA), I really see alot of happy children playing there...:)

Anyway, this for us is interim.. our plan is that when we come back 1-2 years later, hopefully Yuneng will have a slot and we can put Ace there....

Anyway, I told Ace that he will be going to same school as daddy and he was elated!:) "Yeah, I want to go to same school as daddy!" he exclaimed.. ;)

PS: The people at ECPS were really very nice lor.. went all the way out to help us with the LOA:) Plus i heard that there are not many classes this year at all.. so I think the children will be well taken care of...

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