Geek Out #09

Phase 2A from 2027: does being an alumnus still get your child in?

Published 24 October 2026 · Data current to the 2026 Primary 1 registration results

From the 2027 registration exercise, schools with 180 or more Primary 1 places move 20 places from Phase 2A, the phase for alumni and staff families, to Phase 2C. In 2026, 35 schools didn’t have enough Phase 2A places for every family who applied. Under the 2027 rule, 59 schools would not have enough Phase 2A places for the families who applied in 2026. When there’s a ballot, families living closer still get places first.

Check a school

Then pick your distance group on the school’s card. Work it out from my address

Every school: Phase 2A in 2026, and under the 2027 rule

2026 Phase 2A families and places for every school. “Families without a Phase 2A place” is how many families who applied in 2026 would not get a Phase 2A place under the 2027 rule. Schools with fewer than 180 places show the same number in both places columns. Tap a school’s name to open its card.

Under the 2027 rule, 59 schools would not have enough Phase 2A places for the families who applied in 2026. 35 of them didn’t have enough in 2026 either. The other 24 are new.

Swipe the table sideways to see every column.

Who can register in Phase 2A?

Phase 2A is for children with a link to the school: a child whose parent or sibling studied there (including former students who have joined its alumni association), a child whose parent works at the school or sits on its advisory or management committee, and a child in the MOE Kindergarten at the school. It comes after Phase 1, which is for children with a sibling still at the school, and before Phase 2B and Phase 2C.

The 2027 rule changes the number of Phase 2A places, not who can register. In its reply to MPs on 7 October 2026, MOE said the new rules start with the 2027 exercise, for children starting Primary 1 in 2028, with no delay.

Why do the 20 extra Phase 2C places all come out of Phase 2A?

Because MOE sets the Phase 2B and Phase 2C places aside before Phase 2A starts. In MOE’s results, the places open in Phase 1 are the school’s total minus 60 (20 for Phase 2B and 40 for Phase 2C), at every school from 2022 to 2026. Phase 2A gets whatever Phase 1 leaves. From 2027, schools with 180 or more places set aside 80, so Phase 2A gets 20 fewer than under the old rule.

Red Swastika School in 2026: 210 places, minus 60 set aside, left 150. Phase 1 took 126, which left 24 Phase 2A places for 88 families. With 80 set aside, the same year leaves 4.

In 2026, 152 of the 179 schools had 180 or more places, so the 2027 rule moves 20 places from each: 3,040 in all. Across all 179 schools, Phase 2A had 14,831 places in 2026, and 11,791 under the 2027 rule, for 7,842 families. At most schools, there were more Phase 2A places than families. The 27 schools with fewer than 180 places aren’t affected: their Phase 2A places stay the same.

Where Phase 2A had places to spare, losing 20 changes nothing for the families who applied in 2026: spare Phase 2A places already go on to Phase 2B and Phase 2C, one third and two thirds.

Under the 2027 rule, which schools don’t have enough Phase 2A places for 2026’s families?

59 schools. In 2026, 35 schools didn’t have enough Phase 2A places for every family who applied. The table above lists all 59 schools. The three with the fewest places for the families who applied: Red Swastika School, 4 places for 88 families; Shuqun Primary School, 12 for 93; and Princess Elizabeth Primary School, 27 for 137.

The same check for each year from 2022 to 2026:

Each row uses the families who really applied that year, with 20 fewer Phase 2A places at schools with 180 or more places. It isn’t a forecast for 2027. The real 2027 numbers depend on how many children get places through a sibling in Phase 1, how many Phase 2A families apply, and each school’s total places, which MOE can change: Shuqun Primary School had 200 places in 2025 and 180 in 2026.

Does living near the school matter in Phase 2A?

Yes, whenever there aren’t enough Phase 2A places for every family who applied. Citizens within 1km get places first, then citizens 1 to 2km away, then citizens more than 2km away, then permanent residents in the same three groups. The places go down this list, group by group. When the places left can’t go to every family in a group, those families ballot for them, and the groups after them don’t get a Phase 2A place.

In 2026, families within 1km had to ballot in Phase 2A at 12 schools, so even living near the school didn’t guarantee a place. That count was 4 in 2022, 6 in 2023, 10 in 2024 and 13 in 2025. 23 schools had a within-1km Phase 2A ballot at least once in the five years.

With 20 fewer places, families who live closer may have to ballot. Take Wellington Primary School in 2025: all 59 families within 1km got a Phase 2A place, and 21 families 1 to 2km away balloted for the last 18 places. Under the 2027 rule there would be 57 places. That’s fewer than the 59 families within 1km, so those families would ballot, and families 1 to 2km away would not get a Phase 2A place.

The data has the numbers needed for this in 2024 and 2025 only. With the families who applied in 2025, under the 2027 rule:

• at 14 schools, like Wellington, the ballot would be among families living closer than in 2025;
• at 22 schools, the ballot would be among families at the same distance as in 2025, for fewer places.

The figures for 2024 are 15 and 17 schools.

If Phase 2A doesn’t work out, does Phase 2C help?

It helps families who live near the school far more than families who don’t. The 20 places that leave Phase 2A go to Phase 2C, and Phase 2C gives places to families within 1km first. Take the 59 schools that, under the 2027 rule, would not have enough Phase 2A places for every family who applied in 2026. This is what happened in Phase 2C at those schools in 2026:

2024 and 2025 look the same.

Seven of the 59 are two-track schools from 2027: Anglo-Chinese (Junior), Methodist Girls’, Nanyang, Pei Hwa Presbyterian, Singapore Chinese Girls’, Tanjong Katong and Tao Nan. There, Phase 2C splits its places equally between families within 2km and families beyond 2km, so half the Phase 2C places are for families living more than 2km away. Geek Out #04 has more on these schools.

So from 2027, at these 59 schools, where a Phase 2A family lives matters twice: first in the Phase 2A ballot, then in Phase 2C if they don’t get a Phase 2A place.

Questions people ask about this

Who can register in Phase 2A?

A child whose parent or sibling studied at the school, including former students who have joined its alumni association; a child whose parent works at the school or sits on its advisory or management committee; and a child in the MOE Kindergarten at the school. A child with a sibling still studying there registers in Phase 1 instead, which comes before Phase 2A.

Is Phase 2A changing in 2027?

Who can register isn’t changing. The number of places is. From the 2027 exercise, schools with 180 or more Primary 1 places set aside 60 places for Phase 2C instead of 40, and MOE sets those places aside before Phase 2A. So the 20 extra Phase 2C places at those schools come out of Phase 2A. MOE said on 7 October 2026 that the changes start with the 2027 exercise, with no delay.

Does living near the school matter in Phase 2A?

Only when there aren’t enough Phase 2A places for every family who applied. Then citizens within 1km get places first, then 1 to 2km, then beyond 2km, then permanent residents in the same order. The first group that can’t all get a place goes to a ballot. In 2026, families within 1km had to ballot in Phase 2A at 12 schools.

If my child doesn’t get a Phase 2A place, what happens next?

You can register in Phase 2B if you qualify for it, then in Phase 2C, which is open to every child and gives places to families within 1km first. From 2027, the 20 places that leave Phase 2A go to Phase 2C. At 50 of the 59 schools that, under the 2027 rule, would not have enough Phase 2A places for every family who applied in 2026, every Phase 2C place went to families within 2km.

Are the results different for permanent resident families?

The results on this page are for Singapore citizen families. In Phase 2A, permanent residents come after every citizen, in the same three distance groups, so a permanent resident family may not get a Phase 2A place even at a school where every citizen family did. When that happened, the school’s card says so for that year.

Why might 2027’s Phase 2A places differ from this page?

This page uses each year’s real Phase 2A families, with 20 fewer Phase 2A places at schools with 180 or more places. The real 2027 numbers depend on how many children get places through a sibling in Phase 1, how many Phase 2A families apply, and each school’s total places, which MOE can change: Shuqun Primary School had 200 places in 2025 and 180 in 2026.

Spot a mistake? Want to challenge a result, or see something missing?

This is a work in progress and it gets better when people push back on it. If a number looks wrong, or your school’s result doesn’t match what you know, tell me and I’ll look into it and update.

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More from Geek Out: Primary schools near my home: what’s their Phase 2C ballot history, and what changes in 2027?