ACS (Primary) to move from Barker Road to Tengah and become a co-ed school from 2030
ACS (Primary) is one of the four primary schools and two special education schools that will relocate or open in the West and Northeast of Singapore from 2026.
SINGAPORE: Anglo-Chinese School (Primary) will move to Tengah and become a co-ed school from 2030, the Ministry of Education announced on Thursday (Feb 9).
The new site will be more than 12km away from its current site at 50 Barker Road.
All Primary 1 cohorts of ACS (Primary) admitted to the school until 2029 will remain at the Barker Road site until they graduate. When the Tengah site opens in 2030, it will accept both male and female siblings of existing students of the Barker Road site for Phase 1 admission.
From 2030, the school at Barker Road will only accept male Primary 1 students who are siblings of students currently studying at the site, said MOE in a press release on Thursday.
Cohort sizes at the Barker Road ACS (Primary) site will gradually fall, the ministry noted. Tentatively in 2033, the school will consolidate with ACS (Junior) at the nearby Winstedt Road, and operate under the ACS (Junior) name.
The new ACS (Junior) will then operate from both campuses before shifting all operations to the Barker Road site around 2039, said the Education Ministry.
The new ACS (Primary) at Tengah will accept 11 classes of Primary 1 students, or about 330 students.
“The changes thus allow us to strategically review and reorganise our primary schools to respond to wider national trends such as low birth rates and with more younger families moving to new and emerging estates,” said chairman of the ACS board of governors Mr Richard Seow.
According to MOE, it was ACS that had approached the ministry about relocating one of the two ACS primary schools to serve the wider community, and discussions started in early 2022.
MOE then offered ACS the Tengah site based on its plan for new primary schools, and explained that the relocated school would also have to take in girls to meet the local community’s needs.
The Housing and Development Board (HDB) launched two projects in Tengah in its November 2022 sales exercise with waiting times of just over three years - the shortest among the projects to be launched that month.
With the addition of these 2,077 Build-To-Order units, almost 17,000 units in total would have been offered in Tengah since the launch of the first BTO project Plantation Grove in November 2018.
Timeline of the relocation and opening of schools
2026: New secondary school to open in Sengkang. Special education school set up by ACS and Methodist Welfare Services to start operations at its interim site, the former Chua Chu Kang Secondary School.
2027: Bukit View Primary School to relocate from Bukit Batok East to Bukit Batok West
2028: New, as yet unnamed, primary school in Tengah to open
2030: ACS (Primary) to relocate to Tengah and accept both male and female students. Current students at Barker Road site will continue going to school there, and the school at Barker Road will still accept Primary 1 students who are male siblings of current students
2031: ACS and Methodist Welfare Services special education school moves to its permanent site in Tengah, next to ACS (Primary).
2032: Third Pathlight School campus moves from its interim sites at the former Chong Boon Primary and Secondary Schools to its permanent site in Punggol.
2033: ACS (Primary) at the Barker Road site to consolidate with ACS (Junior) under the latter’s name, to operate across both Barker Road and Winstedt Road sites.
2039: ACS (Junior) will combine operations at Barker Road campus.
Alongside ACS (Primary), MOE will open or relocate three other mainstream schools and two special education schools in the west and northeast of Singapore from 2026.
Pioneer Primary School will relocate to Tengah in 2026, and a new primary school in Tengah will open in 2028.
Bukit View Primary School in Bukit Batok East will relocate to a site 2km away in Bukit Batok West in 2027 to meet the growing demand for school places, said MOE in the press release.
It will continue to admit new P1 cohorts, and all enrolled students will move to the new campus in 2027.
A new secondary school will open in Sengkang in 2026 to meet the demand for places from Sengkang and Punggol, the press release read.
The names of the new schools will be announced at a later date. The new schools will also open with slightly larger cohort sizes.
NEW SPECIAL EDUCATION SCHOOLS
A new special education school that caters to students with autism spectrum disorder who can access the national curriculum will also be set up in a partnership between ACS and Methodist Welfare Services.
The new school, which will be the fifth school that accepts such students, is expected to open in 2026 at an interim site, or the site of the former Chua Chu Kang Secondary School. It will admit both male and female students.
It will move to its permanent campus next to ACS (Primary) in Tengah in 2031, said MOE in the press release.
“This will allow greater partnerships between the two schools and provide more opportunities for students from both schools to interact through joint activities and academic learning,” the press release read.
“We are deeply grateful to have this honour of serving students with special needs by providing them with quality education,” said Mr Seow of ACS.
“It is a vision the ACS Board of Governors have had for a long while now and we are truly appreciative that our constant discussions with MOE over the years have culminated in this humbling opportunity to serve humanity in a new way.”
A review of the geographical spread of existing special education schools that cater to students with autism spectrum disorder who can access the national curriculum has showed that there is a need for a new school in the Northeast of Singapore, said MOE.
The permanent site of Pathlight School’s third campus, which was previously planned for Tengah, will instead open in Punggol in 2032, the press release read.
The school will continue to operate at its current interim sites in the former Chong Boon primary and secondary schools.
Both Pathlight School’s third campus and the special education school next to the ACS (Primary) Tengah site will take in about 850 students each - 500 primary school students and 350 post-primary students.
“In planning for the setting up and relocation of schools, MOE takes into account the current and projected population, as well as planned housing development programmes, in order to ensure sufficient school places for our population,” said MOE.
“We will work closely with the schools to ensure a smooth transition to their new sites, and continue to respond promptly to the changing demand for school places across Singapore.”
