School Placement Exercise

The 2008 School Placement Exercise for Returning Singaporeans (SPERS) is open for registration from 28 July 2008 for Singaporean children who are returning from overseas and wish to join our secondary schools, junior colleges (JC) or Millennia Institute (MI) at the beginning of academic year 2009.

This is the third year that the Ministry of Education (MOE) is conducting SPERS, a centralised placement exercise held at the end of the year for returning Singaporeans (RS). With SPERS, Singaporean parents working abroad can look forward to easier re-entry into the mainstream school system for their children when they return to Singapore. RS children will only need to sit for one set of centralised SPERS papers for school admission and will no longer need to take multiple school-based tests.

RS children seeking admission to Secondary 1-3 or Pre-U1 in 2009 can participate in SPERS-Sec or SPERS-JC/MI respectively. Applicants will receive their school placement results in December and will be able join our secondary schools and JC/MI at the start of the school term in early 2009.

Pilot Supplementary Placement Exercise

Last year, in response to feedback from some overseas Singaporeans who were unable to return in time for the locally-conducted SPERS papers, MOE invited applications for SPERS papers to be taken in Shanghai at the same time when the same papers were being taken in Singapore. Shanghai was chosen because our data showed that PRC had the largest number of RS children seeking admission to our schools. The pilot eventually did not proceed as there was less than the minimum candidature of 20 applicants. Owing to this poor response, MOE will not be conducting the SPERS test overseas this year.

Instead, to better facilitate RS who are unable to return in time for the SPERS exercise, MOE will pilot a supplementary placement exercise after the SPERS exercise. RS will be able to choose to take part in SPERS or the pilot supplementary exercise and enjoy more flexibility in timing their return to Singapore.

The centralised SPERS papers for this supplementary exercise will be held locally in early January 2009 and applicants will receive their school placement results in February 2009. Registration for this pilot will open later this year, in October.

Information/Registration Website

Details of the 2008 SPERS-Sec and SPERS-JC/MI exercises and the pilot supplementary exercise can be found in the Annex. For more details and registration, please refer to the MOE RS website or contact us at the following:

RS seeking admission to primary schools may approach MOE at any time of the year for assistance. MOE will offer the RS a place in a primary school with vacancies near his/her home at the level appropriate for his/her age cohort. The RS will not have to sit for any placement test for admission, although the primary school may conduct assessment tests after admission to ascertain the child’s current attainment level and provide the appropriate assistance to help the child settle into the school. As Secondary 4 and Pre-U2 are national examination years, RS generally would not re-join at these levels.

Annex

SPERS Exercise Format

Eligibility Phase - Applicable to SPERS-Sec & SPERS-JC/MI

Under the Eligibility Phase, applicants will sit for English and Mathematics papers to determine the schools they would be eligible for. Besides assessing literacy and numeracy, the papers will also include non-content-based general ability items that assess reasoning and thinking skills. This will more holistically assess RS who have attended overseas schools with curricula different from Singapore’s.

Following the conduct of the papers, applicants will each be provided with a list of schools that they are eligible for, based on their performance in the papers. This will ensure that RS are of similar abilities¹ as the students in the schools that they are eligible for.

As the number of RS seeking admission to JC/MI is usually small, there is no need for MOE to conduct a centralised posting exercise for this group. Hence, there is no School Option Phase or School Posting Phase under SPERS-JC/MI. After the Eligibility Phase, successful applicants will each receive a list of JC/MI they are eligible for and can approach any of the listed JC/MI directly for admission.

For RS seeking admission to secondary schools, they will proceed on to the School Option Phase.

School Option Phase - Applicable to SPERS-Sec Only

Applicants seeking admission to secondary schools (Secondary 1 to 3) will be required to indicate a maximum of six choices in their school option forms, based on the list of eligible schools given to them.

School Posting Phase - Applicable to SPERS-Sec Only

Secondary schools will admit a small number of RS, over and above their planned capacity, at the School Posting Phase. This recognises that overseas Singaporean children may have similar abilities as the local cohort in these schools, even though they have been away and were thus unable to seek admission into these schools together with other Singaporean children who had taken the PSLE. This change will not reduce the chances for students in Singapore to get into their schools of their choice as there will be no reduction in the number of school places available to them.

The School Posting Phase will take into account the performance of the RS at the Eligibility Phase, their school choices, and the places available in these schools. In the instance where an applicant is not successfully posted to any of his/her chosen schools, MOE will assign him/her a place in a secondary school with vacancies near his/her home.

After receiving their postings, RS should then complete the admission formalities at their posted schools. If they choose not to accept the posting, they can still approach another school directly to apply for admission. The child will be admitted if the school approached is on his/her list of eligible schools and if there is a vacancy in the course that he/she is eligible for. Otherwise, the school has the discretion to assess the child, including setting school-based assessments, and decide whether to admit the child.

Schedule for 2008 SPERS-Sec

Schedule for 2008 SPERS-JC/MI

Pilot Supplementary Placement Exercise

The pilot supplementary exercise is applicable for admission to Secondary 1-3 and is intended for RS who are unable to take part in the SPERS-Sec exercise. The pilot is similar in structure to SPERS-Sec and involves the same 3 phases, viz. the Eligibility Phase, the School Option Phase and the School Posting Phase.

Schedule for Pilot Supplementary Placement Exercise

Footnote

1. As students in secondary schools are admitted based on their PSLE performance, the abilities of the student populations in different secondary schools would generally differ. ↵

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