Tanjong Katong Primary School (TKPS) is a government-run local primary school that follows Singapore’s MOE curriculum. As well as being considerably cheaper than an international school, TKPS offers all the advantages of a local school: it immerses your child in the local culture, offers a world-class curriculum with an excellent reputation for maths and science, and embraces an English-based bilingual system where Mandarin is taught as a second language to international students.
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Hugely popular with Singapore’s expat community, this primary school has a reputation for being one of the city’s most ‘international’ local schools. Established in 2001, the school has grown to 1,700 students, with around 40% of the children being foreigners from 40 different countries.
The curriculum
The MOE curriculum focuses on English, maths, science, mother tongue languages, humanities, and the arts, as well as lessons in PE, knowledge skills, and character and citizenship education. Students in Primary 1 through to 6 work towards the Primary School Leaving Examination (PSLE) at the end of Primary 6. After school, students can sign up to various co-curricular activities.
The school’s mother tongue programme includes Chinese, Malay, and Tamil, it offers enrichment programmes in drama and IT, and it has a strong focus on developing student leadership qualities. TKPS also offers an impressive programme of co-curricular activities that includes activities as varied as golf, cricket, bowling, and pottery.
Admission and fees
All primary students must apply for a place through the Primary One Registration Exercise, which takes places from June to September every year. Also, all expats entering Primary 2 – 5 and Secondary 1 – 3 have to pass the Admissions Exercise for International Students (AEIS), which assesses English literacy, numeracy, and reasoning abilities.
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Annual tuition fees (2018-19) for international students from non-ASEAN countries are $7,800 for all local primary schools; additional costs include a miscellaneous fee, which the MOE says is “a contribution towards the cost of materials used by students”.
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