14 Standalone Primary Schools in Singapore

14 Standalone Primary Schools in Singapore

Brighton College (Singapore)

• Enrolment: Year 1 to Year 6
• Curriculum: UK, Key Stages 1-2
• Annual tuition fees: $21,750 – 35,010
• Location: Serangoon
• Opening: August 2020

This British public-school export, which we have seen thrive in locations across the UAE and in Bangkok, will retain major elements of Brighton College UK’s DNA; it will limit classes to three per year group with maximum of 22 students per class; and it will deliver a strong Mandarin programme.

It is located on a site that is dominated by the vast AIS school and its 3,000 students. A huge benefit of this location is that Brighton College can – and will – share the facilities on the AIS campus including playing fields, an indoor sports hall and swimming pool. Does this mean that Brighton College can offer the best of both worlds? A village primary school experience with access to all the facilities of an all-through school? Only time will tell…

Read our full review of Brighton College (Singapore).

The Perse School (Singapore)

• Enrolment: Year 2 to Year 6
• Curriculum: Cambridge International Primary Curriculum, Singaporean maths
• Annual tuition fees: $25,000
• Location:
• Opening: August 2020 (soft opening from January 2020)

If parents are looking for an affordable education in Singapore terms, The Perse holds promise for delivering a strong primary education built on British values and steered by a forward-thinking leadership team. Here’s a school that may deter some with its limited enrolment of Years 2-6, a lack of space and state-of-the-art facilities, and its move away from the IB programme – but it will appeal to families searching for a standalone primary school with centuries-long Cambridge roots, a strong Singaporean maths curriculum, and low fees.

Read our full review of The Perse School, Singapore.

The Grange Institution

• Enrolment: Year 1-6
• Curriculum: Cambridge International Primary Curriculum and the International Primary Curriculum (IPC)
• Annual tuition fees: $19,808
• Location: Serangoon

With fees that are nearly half of that charged by other international schools in Singapore, The Grange Institution is certainly going to appeal to families looking for a cheaper primary education for their child. Located in the north east, this standalone primary promises to offer “a broadly-British style of education for children of primary school age”. There’s a strong creative focus in The Grange curriculum, and it offers a more relaxed alternative to the very rigorous academic nature of some international and local schools in Singapore.

Read our full review of The Grange Institution.

Invictus International School (Sentosa)

• Enrolment: Grades 1-2
• Curriculum: International Primary Curriculum (IPC)
• Annual tuition fees: $17,000
• Location: Sentosa

Invictus Sentosa is a small primary with just 75 places for children aged six to eight years. The school offers expat families living in Sentosa a more affordable choice of international education with annual fees of $17,000; there is just one other international school for Grades 1-2 in Sentosa (EtonHouse Sentosa).

As well as its low school fees and location, Invictus (Sentosa) is one of only 10 schools in Singapore to follow the International Primary Curriculum (IPC). It’s a small school with just four classrooms and a large hall for indoor play and physical education; students visit the nearby Sentosa Cove playground to have a snack and a chance to play and the public library at Vivocity. By the age of eight or nine years old, children can move to Invictus’ Dempsey Hill campus to complete their primary education.

Read our full review of Invictus Sentosa.

Invictus International School (Dempsey Hill)

• Enrolment: Grades 1-2
• Curriculum: International Primary Curriculum (IPC)
• Annual tuition fees: $17,000
• Location: Dempsey Hill

The school currently offers the IPC supplemented by what it describes as “rigorous” English and Mandarin courses and an MOE Singaporean maths curriculum. Here’s a school that feels understated and welcoming, with a learning environment that’s built around nature rather than state-of-the-art facilities. It certainly won’t appeal to everyone; but while some families will be deterred by Invictus’ older, basic campus, others will be drawn to its homely, informal and rural setting.

In contrast to the many large campuses in Singapore, it takes less than 30 minutes to walk around the entire school – and its size feels well-suited to the five to 10-year-old students who are in class. Students will be able to move up to Invictus’ new secondary Centrium campus, opening in August 2020.

Read our full review of Invictus International School (Dempsey Hill).

Canadian International School (Tanjong Katong)

• Enrolment: KG to Grade 6
• Curriculum: IB Primary Years Programme (PYP)
• Annual tuition fees: $31,270-34,950 (primary, English programme)
• Location: Tanjong Katong

In some ways, the Canadian International School’s Tanjong Katong campus couldn’t be more different to its western sibling, the Lakeside campus. It’s much smaller, far less modern and only offers an International Baccalaureate education up to Grade 6. In other ways, though, these two schools are so similar.

They both offer a pioneering bilingual programme in Chinese and English to students aged four to 10, have a spectacular Outdoor Discovery Centre for kindergarten students, and take a unique approach to teaching STEAM (Science, Technology, Entrepreneurship, Arts and Mathematics). The Tanjong Katong campus, affectionately known as TK, is a small, intimate school for students from two to 12 years; there are approximately 900 students here.

Read our full review of Canadian International School (Tanjong Katong).

Rosemount International School

• Enrolment: Nursery to Grade 2
• Curriculum: Self-developed curriculum
• Annual tuition fees: $20,516
• Location: Siglap

With just 140 students, Rosemount International School is praised by existing parents for its personal touch. Formerly known as Rosemount Kindergarten, this pre- and junior school currently offers Prep 1,2,3 and Grades 1-2. The inquiry-based curriculum uses hands-on learning and exploration to learn English, maths, science, society and environment, creative arts, and PE in the three Prep years.

In Grades 1 and 2, the school moves to a more formal education. All students from the age of three learn Mandarin. Australian-born Cheryl Young co-founded the school with her daughter Alannah 20 years ago to meet the demand for international schooling from expat families living in the East Coast.

Read our full review of Rosemount International School.

Swiss School in Singapore (SSIS)

• Enrolment: Nursery to Primary 6
• Curriculum: Swiss curriculum of the Canton of Zug
• Annual tuition fees: $20,550-24,720
• Location: Bukit Timah

Located in the grounds of the Swiss Club, Swiss School in Singapore (SSIS) is a small, intimate school that is popular with the Swiss and German speaking expat community. Founded in 1969, SSIS is open from pre-school through to primary, and follows the Swiss curriculum of the Canton of Zug.

In primary school, lessons are taught in German alongside weekly English lessons and science lessons in English. Students in Primary 5 and 6 are prepared for a secondary education at SSIS’ affiliated school, the United World College of South East Asia; SSIS students can enrol in UWCSEA’s German language programme at its Dover campus, where they can study IGCSEs and the IBDP.

Read our full review of Swiss School in Singapore (SSIS).

Hollandse School

• Enrolment: Group 1-8 (4-12-year olds)
• Curriculum: Dutch curriculum, International Primary Curriculum
• Annual tuition fees: $23,150 (primary)
• Location: Bukit Timah

Describing itself as a “Dutch-language school with an international dimension”, Hollandse School (HSL) has been educating Dutch expats in Singapore for nearly 100 years. Located in Bukit Timah, HSL blends the Dutch curriculum with four to six hours of the International Primary Curriculum every week and daily English lessons; the IPC covers various subjects ranging from geography, biology and social studies to arithmetic and language.

The majority of students at HSL comes from the Netherlands and Belgium, and some from Dutch or international schools overseas.

Read our full review of Hollandse School.

Middleton International School (Upper Bukit Timah)

• Enrolment: Primary 1 to Primary 5
• Curriculum: International Primary Curriculum; the Singapore Ministry of Education curriculum for maths and Chinese
• Annual tuition fees: $18,000
• Location: Bukit Timah

Part of the EtonHouse group, Middleton International School offers parents a more affordable education with annual tuition fees of $18,000. Middleton has two quite different campuses; Bukit Timah is a standalone primary school for seven to 11 year olds, which is smaller, slightly cheaper and has a stronger bilingual foundation than the newer Tampines campus that enrols students from KG up to Grade 8 (Grades 9-12 will open from 2021).

No doubt parents with children approaching primary school will appreciate the lower fees that Middleton International School offers, but parents also need to be aware of the reasons behind these fees. As Ng Yi Xian, executive director of EtonHouse, said when opening the school, “The school can cut operating costs through relatively lower rent, using external spaces for sports and other co-curricular activities, and economies of scale from running many schools in Singapore”.

Read our full review of Middleton International School (Bukit Timah).

EtonHouse Thomson

• Enrolment: Nursery to Year 6
• Curriculum: IB Primary Years Programme (PYP)
• Annual tuition fees: $14,618-29,492
• Location: Newton

EtonHouse International School at Thomson is an IB (International Baccalaureate) World School offering programmes from Playgroup (9 – 17 months) through to Primary. Children follow a programme based on the Reggio Emilia system in Pre-Nursery and the IB Primary Years Programme from KG2; there’s also a strong dual-language programme in English and Mandarin.

Facilities include a Visual Arts Studio, Tinkering Studio, Construction Studio, Computer Studio and Light & Sound Studio; students are able to transfer to EtonHouse’s Broadrick or Orchard campus for the secondary years.

Read our full review of EtonHouse Thomson.

EtonHouse Sentosa

• Enrolment: Pre-nursery to Year 4
• Curriculum: IB Primary Years Programme (PYP)
• Annual tuition fees: $31,732
• Location: Sentosa

EtonHouse Sentosa offers families preferring to keep their children in a small "boutique" environment, the option of an IB PYP curriculum until the end of Year 4. Unique features include a nature education and outdoor programme and dual language classes with dedicated English and Chinese teachers.

Facilities include an indoor gymnasium, design and technology learning suite, visual arts studio and Edtech learning suite for lessons in coding, programming, multimedia authoring, animation, and 3D gaming. Students can transfer to EtonHouse’s Thomson campus for Years 5 and 6, then the EtonHouse Broadrick or EtonHouse Orchard campuses for the secondary years.

Read our full review of EtonHouse Sentosa.

Kindle Kids International School

• Enrolment: Grades 1-8
• Curriculum: Self-developed curriculum
• Annual tuition fees: $10,272
• Location: Thomson

One of Singapore's most affordable schools, Kindle Kids International School (KKIS) offers a bespoke education to Grade 1-6 students. Opened in 2018, KKIS teaches a self-developed curriculum that is based on the international Cambridge programme. The school follows the Indian academic year and runs from April to March. Lessons are held at a well-equipped, small campus in Thomson, and class sizes do not exceed 20.

Read our full review of Kindle Kids International School.

Olympiad International School

• Enrolment: Grades 1-6
• Curriculum: Self-developed curriculum
• Annual tuition fees: $9,000-9,600
• Location: Hougang

Olympiad International School is a small, basic school that offers a self-designed curriculum to children. The school has based its curriculum on the IB’s Primary Years Programme (PYP), although it’s important for parents to understand that OIS is not authorised by the International Baccalaureate Organisation (IBO) to teach the PYP.

Although OIS is open from reception (three to five years) through to primary (six to 12 years), it is only currently registered by the CPE for Grades 1-3. Located in Hougang, the school follows a January to December academic year and lessons run from 9am to 3.45pm. The school promises a low teacher-student ratio of 1:15, and a wide variety of CCAs.

Read our full review of Olympiad International School.