The portal for Direct School Admissions (DSA) to secondary schools opened on 5 May and will close at 3pm, 1 June. With these deadlines in mind, what are some things that parents can look out for when applying?
1. Some Schools May Not Offer DSA for a particular CCA
Primary 6 students can DSA to schools based on a category of talent areas. Based on the Ministry of Education DSA website, the talent areas are:
Sports and Games
Visual, Literary and Performing Arts
Debate and Public Speaking
Science, Mathematics and Engineering
Languages and Humanities
Uniformed Groups
Leadership (e.g. prefects)
However, it is important to note that although a secondary school may offer a particular CCA, they may not offer that CCA as a talent area for students to apply to for DSA. To illustrate, Jurong West Secondary School offers badminton as one of their CCAs. However, their DSA talent areas are only limited to Basketball and Volleyball under Sports and Games. Thus, it is important that parents do a careful check to see if the secondary schools that they and their child are interested in offers DSA in the talent area they wish to apply with.
2. Parents Can Look Outside CCAs & Leadership Positions to Use for DSA
As mentioned previously, parents may notice that there are other talent areas outside CCAs and leadership positions, namely, Science, Mathematics and Engineering and Languages and Humanities. These 2 are talent areas that parents can also consider applying through if their child is not in any CCAs or leadership roles.
For instance, in Science, Mathematics & Engineering, parents can mention any relevant workshops or competitions that their child has participated in. Outstanding past year results in Mathematics can also be included. For Languages and Humanities, parents can submit well-written English or Mother Tongue compositions that their child has written as supporting evidence.
3. What about specialised schools?
The last thing to note is that specialised schools like School of the Arts, and Singapore Sports Schools, are not in the MOE DSA portal. Students interested in applying to these schools are to apply there directly.