An ~8 minute read for parents and home buyers weighing up neighbourhoods around Singapore's most sought-after primary schools — before agents start pitching the "1km catchment premium" that no longer applies the way it used to.
- Effective date. The revised Primary 1 (P1) Registration Framework takes effect from the 2027 P1 Registration Exercise — for children entering Primary 1 in 2028.
- More Phase 2C places. Most primary schools will increase reserved Phase 2C seats from 40 to 60. (Smaller schools with fewer than 180 P1 places stay at 40.)
- Two-track scheme for 12 schools. Twelve primary schools in neighbourhoods where HDB flats make up less than 40% of homes within 2 km will split Phase 2C into two equal tracks — one for children living ≤ 2 km from the school, one for children living > 2 km.
- Distance hierarchy scrapped within each track. The traditional <1 km vs 1–2 km ordering is completely eliminated. A child 300 m away and a child 1.8 km away hold identical Phase 2C standing at these 12 schools.
- Property-buyer impact. No more paying the extreme "1 km premium" just to squeeze inside the tight radius of these 12 schools. Anywhere between 1 km and 2 km now grants the same Phase 2C standing — which reshapes what's worth buying around each catchment.
For nearly two decades, the map of Singapore's most expensive residential enclaves has been drawn, in no small part, by primary school catchments. Buyers around Anglo-Chinese, Nanyang, Ngee Ann, MGS, Raffles Girls' and their peers paid a well-documented premium for the sub-1 km ring — not because those addresses were architecturally superior, but because the P1 registration rulebook made that ring materially more valuable.
The Ministry of Education has just rewritten the relevant chapter of that rulebook. If you're a parent balloting into Primary 1 in the next few years, or a buyer weighing homes anywhere between 1 and 2 km of one of the 12 affected schools, the calculus has changed. Here's the honest, no-hype breakdown.
1) What the new framework does — and why
MOE is layering two structural updates onto Phase 2C, the open-registration round for children without prior links (siblings, alumni parents, clan or volunteer ties) to a school.
Update 1: Phase 2C reserved seats expand from 40 to 60
Across most primary schools, the number of Phase 2C places set aside will grow from 40 to 60. Smaller schools with an annual P1 intake of fewer than 180 pupils stay at 40 — but for the mainstream cohort, this is a 50% expansion of the open-registration pool. In blunt terms: more room for families without alumni or clan ties.
Update 2: The two-track scheme (12 schools)
For 12 selected primary schools sitting in neighbourhoods where public housing accounts for less than 40% of dwelling units within 2 km, Phase 2C vacancies will be split 50/50 across two equal tracks:
- Phase 2C (≤ 2 km track). Minimum of 30 places set aside for children living within 2 km of the school.
- Phase 2C (> 2 km track). Minimum of 30 places set aside for children living more than 2 km away.
The allocation rules that actually matter
- No internal distance hierarchy. Within either track, distance is flat. A child living 300 m away holds identical standing to a child living 1.8 km away in the ≤ 2 km track. Similarly, a child 3 km away sits equal with a child 10 km away in the > 2 km track.
- Citizenship priority preserved. Singapore Citizens (SCs) continue to be admitted ahead of Permanent Residents (PRs) in both tracks.
- Balloting mechanics. If SC applicants exceed available places in a track, balloting decides. If one track has leftover seats after every SC applicant is admitted, those unfilled seats flow to SC applicants in the other track.
Why MOE is doing this
Primary schools are meant to be shared civic spaces where children of different backgrounds mix. The old distance hierarchy, however, quietly concentrated intake at popular schools among the narrow band of families who could afford (or already owned) a sub-1 km private home. The two-track scheme aims to:
- Broaden open access for families without alumni, clan or volunteer ties.
- Enhance socio-economic diversity by protecting a defined share of seats for children living further away.
What it means for parents
- Better odds for non-alumni families. More Phase 2C seats (60 vs 40 at most schools) means a mathematically higher chance of securing a place through open registration.
- No mandatory relocation. Families living further out now get a protected pool of 30 seats at the 12 affected schools — without needing to buy or rent inside the catchment purely for P1 access.
- Relief from the 1 km squeeze. Parents targeting one of the 12 schools no longer need to compete for the sub-1 km ring alone. Anywhere inside the 2 km radius now carries the same Phase 2C standing.
2) The 12 participating schools
The 12 primary schools implementing the two-track scheme from the 2027 P1 Registration Exercise onwards:
- Anglo-Chinese School (Junior)
- Anglo-Chinese School (Primary)
- CHIJ (Katong) Primary
- Methodist Girls’ School (Primary)
- Nanyang Primary School
- Ngee Ann Primary School
- Pei Hwa Presbyterian Primary School
- Raffles Girls’ Primary School
- Singapore Chinese Girls’ Primary School
- St. Margaret’s School (Primary)
- Tanjong Katong Primary School
- Tao Nan School
These are, unsurprisingly, some of the most oversubscribed and most heavily reflected-in-property-prices names on the map. Every one of them sits in a neighbourhood where private housing dominates the 2 km ring — which is precisely why MOE targeted the two-track split there rather than at schools already surrounded by a healthy mix of HDB and private housing.
3) How residential developments within 2 km now benefit (buyer's perspective)
If you're a buyer considering a home around any of the 12 schools above, the new rules meaningfully redefine what's worth paying for. Three shifts stand out:
a) The 2 km ring is now genuinely level
Under the old framework, living within 1 km was, for practical purposes, mandatory for any realistic Phase 2C chance at these schools. Under the new two-track scheme, the distinction between <1 km and 1–2 km disappears entirely during Phase 2C at the 12 affected schools. A buyer purchasing 1.8 km away holds the exact same Phase 2C standing as a buyer 200 m from the school gate.
That is not a cosmetic change. It re-prices the marginal cost of a school-adjacent home. The old “1 km premium” — the extra dollars-per-sq-ft that a sub-1 km address commanded over an otherwise-comparable 1.2 km address — loses its structural justification at these 12 catchments.
b) Broader property selection, better value
Home buyers no longer have to pay the extreme “proximity premium” or compromise on unit size, layout, floor level or price simply to secure a 1 km address. Buyers can now expand their search across the full 2 km ring and consider larger units, higher floors or better-priced projects in the 1–2 km belt that were previously ruled out on catchment grounds alone.
Practically speaking: a family targeting, say, Nanyang Primary can now credibly evaluate developments 1.4 km or 1.7 km from the school on the same P1-registration footing as ones sitting 800 m away. The homework shifts from “is it inside the 1 km ring?” to “is it inside the 2 km ring, and is the property itself the right fit?”
c) The local pool is still protected
Half of the Phase 2C places at these 12 schools (a minimum of 30) remain strictly reserved for families living within 2 km. That protects local residents from being fully out-competed by island-wide applicants in the > 2 km track — the 2 km ring is still a real and defined advantage, just no longer a punitive sub-1 km one.
In portfolio terms: the affected 2 km rings are widened, not deleted. The catchment continues to matter for both P1 planning and for long-run resale demand — it just no longer taxes buyers for being on the wrong side of an arbitrary 1 km line.
4) Residential projects within 2 km of the 12 schools
To help buyers evaluate their options across the newly-widened catchments, our team at Huttons compiled a comprehensive breakdown — Residential Projects Within 2 km of the 12 Primary Schools — covering the distance bands and eligible projects across Districts 01, 03, 06, 07, 08, 09, 10, 11, 14, 15 and 21.
If your shortlist touches any of the 12 catchments, this is the reference you want open next to your search:
Residential Projects Within 2 km of the 12 Primary Schools
Distance bands and eligible developments across D01, D03, D06–11, D14, D15 and D21. PDF, no email gate.
Use it as the second layer of your school-adjacent property search:
- Confirm the 12 catchments that matter to your family.
- Open the PDF and note the developments falling inside each 2 km ring.
- Overlay your own filters — tenure, size, floor level, PSF budget — against the widened list, rather than restricting yourself artificially to the sub-1 km subset.
If you'd like a project-by-project PrimeKey Analysis (yield, tenure, GLS pipeline, MOP cluster and school-catchment scoring) laid over your shortlist, our NAVIS PrimeKey Analysis is exactly the tool for that stage — and every planning conversation begins inside the Property Wealth Planning framework so the primary-school decision sits inside the wider portfolio picture, not on its own.
The bottom line
The 2027 P1 Registration Framework does two useful things: it expands the open-registration pool at most schools, and at 12 popular schools it flattens the distance hierarchy inside the 2 km ring while protecting the local half of Phase 2C. For parents, it's a materially fairer shot at these schools without the mandatory sub-1 km real-estate purchase. For buyers, it re-prices the marginal cost of the school premium — the 2 km ring is now the meaningful boundary at these 12 catchments, not the sub-1 km one.
Neither of those changes should be read as “the catchments no longer matter.” They do, and they will continue to shape both P1 outcomes and long-run resale demand. What has changed is where inside the ring the premium sits, and how brutally it's priced. The right response, for buyers who care about a specific catchment, is to widen the search and re-evaluate on merit.
Want a shortlist scored inside the widened catchment?
Tell us which of the 12 catchments matters to you (or which project you're already considering), and we'll come back within one business day with a scored shortlist across the full 2 km ring — tenure, yield, floor plan, GLS pipeline and PrimeKey verdict, sitting on top of the primary-school layer. Submissions land in our editorial inbox at [email protected], not an autoresponder.