The 1km Primary School Rule: How Where You Live Affects P1 Registration

In Singapore, where you live can decide which primary school your child gets into. Primary 1 registration gives priority by home-to-school distance in the balloting phases, so the flat you buy years earlier can quietly shape your child’s options. This guide explains the 1 km and 2 km bands and how to screen blocks by them across our 182 mapped primary schools.

Why distance matters in P1

When a phase is oversubscribed, places are balloted, and priority is given first to applicants who live nearer the school. The bands that matter are within 1 km, between 1 and 2 km, and beyond 2 km. In a popular school a place can effectively require living inside the 1 km ring, which is why families plan their home purchase around it — sometimes years ahead of registration.

How the distance is measured

The distance used is a straight line (“as the crow flies”) from the home to a reference point at the school — not walking distance and not driving distance. That is why we deliberately score primary-school access on straight-line distance too, mirroring the official rule, rather than the walk-time routing we use for MRT or hawkers. A block 900 m away in a straight line is inside the 1 km band even if the pavement route is longer.

How to screen blocks by a school

• Open the school on the schools directory — each page lists every HDB block within 1 km and separately those 1–2 km away.
• On any block page, the primary-school card shows the nearest schools with straight-line distance and flags whether the block sits inside the 1 km radius.
• If a specific school is your priority, treat its 1 km ring as your search boundary and rank the blocks inside it by overall liveability.

A few honest caveats

Distance priority only applies from the balloting phases onward — earlier phases favour siblings, alumni and parent-volunteer connections, which no amount of proximity overrides. Catchment demand also shifts year to year. Use the 1 km rule to build your shortlist, then confirm the current year’s registration details with MOE and the school before you rely on it.

Figures on this page are computed from the current snapshot and update each rebuild. Contains information from data.gov.sg (Singapore Open Data Licence) and OneMap, Singapore Land Authority. This is general information for research, not financial or professional advice.