You are advised to apply only to 1 school.

According to MOE, children with moderate-to-severe special educational needs or have higher support needs should apply to a Special Education (SPED) school. Children who have applied to SPED schools do not need to participate in the annual MOE P1 registration exercise.

If you apply/have applied to both Pathlight and a mainstream school, you have to give up your child’s place in the registered mainstream school when you accept our offer of a place in Pathlight. No child can be registered in 2 schools.

We wish to highlight that our School Screening Assessment is to assess your child’s suitability for Pathlight (based on our Pathlight school setting, autism-friendly pedagogies etc). Our offer of a place in Pathlight should NOT be taken as confirmation that your child is suitable for mainstream schools.

For more details on Pathlight, please go to our website here.

The end in mind of our admission process is to ensure that those who are offered a place at Pathlight are right sited to benefit from our school’s programme. Please refer to our website for more information on our Admission Criteria here.

The School Screening Assessment (SSA) provides additional information for us to better understand each applicant’s learning profile and support needs in a group learning environment. During the session, applicants will have the opportunity to engage in common classroom activities, including individual and group activities. This may involve paper-and-pencil tasks, working with manipulatives, as well as group chats and games.

We wish to remind parents that being invited for the School Screening Assessment DOES NOT automatically grant your child a place in Pathlight. Observations from the SSA will be evaluated alongside data provided by your child’s school, psychologists and other documents in the application pack to determine if he/she is suitable for Pathlight’s programme.

Admission will also depend on various factors, which include the availability of sufficient physical and teaching resources, class suitability and overall school capacity.

Applicants will be informed of the outcome by post within 1 to 2 months after the assessment.

Parents will receive an Offer Letter to accept or decline the offer. Please respond by the stipulated date. If you are accepting the School’s offer, you would need to submit your reply slips with a commitment fee of 1 month’s school fees of $250. This commitment fee will be used to offset school fees.

Parents who have financial constraints in paying the $250 commitment fee may approach Ms Andie Ng, Student Affairs Executive at: 6459 9951 or Mr Augustine Tan, Student Affairs Manager at: 6592 8925 (during school hours 8am – 5pm), or email: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..

MOE has set up the Multi-Agency Advisory Panel (MAAP) to provide a more seamless process for admission into SPED schools. This panel comprises specialists and professionals from the Ministry of Education, National Council of Social Service, Ministry of Health and the SPED schools.

Applicants who are assessed to be not suitable for the 1st choice school will automatically be referred to MAAP. The panel will review the learning profiles of the applicants and recommend alternate school placement options for parents’ consideration. Parents are advised to list their 2nd and 3rd choice schools as these will be taken into consideration by the panel when recommending alternate school placements for applicants.

Parents will receive a letter on the outcome of your child’s application to Pathlight School and the alternative school(s) recommended by MAAP. Representatives from the recommended alternative school/s will contact parents to follow up.

Parents can re-apply to Pathlight School at any time. It will be important to provide updated information from your child’s school and any professionals working with him/her to support the application. For cognitive assessments, do note that the reports are valid for 2 years and your child should not be reassessed within one year of his/her latest assessment.

In light of the Covid-19 situation, we would need to take guidance from MOE/MOH on the latest restrictions/ precautionary measures in place. As of now, all large-scale activities like orientation programmes have been moved online. We will keep parents posted nearer the date.

a. Wearing of face masks/shields

• All adult visitors are to wear face masks on the school premises at all times.
• Parents of children who are unable to wear face masks/face shields are to inform the school for a rescheduling of their assessment dates, likely in the later part of the year. Parents are encouraged to train and teach their children to wear face masks/face shields.

b. Visitor Management

• To ensure no intermingling of groups, parents/guardians and applicants are only to arrive 10 minutes before their allocated School Screening Assessment time slots.
• Each child can only be accompanied by 1 caregiver (parent/guardian) when entering the school premises.
• Parents/guardians are not allowed to be with their child/ward during the assessment and need to leave the school premises immediately once their child/ward has been handed over to our educators.
• All parents/guardians must fill in a travel and health declaration form and state if persons in their household have been served with MC/Health Risk Notice (HRN). Anyone who has not registered and filled up the declaration form will not be allowed to enter the School.
• All visitors will be required to follow the TraceTogether process to check-in and out of the School.

c. Temperature taking and sanitisation

• All visitors are required to have their temperature taken. Individuals with temperature readings of 38 degrees Celsius or higher and/or are visibly unwell will be requested to return home.
• Our school facilities are cleaned and sanitised daily to keep the school premises safe for all students and staff.

At the School Screening Assessment, the Admissions & Review Committee will review and make the recommendation:

• If our school programme is suitable for your child
• If suitable, then which programme (Primary 1 Foundation or Primary 1 Standard) will benefit your child.

The academic content of Pathlight's Primary 1 Standard and Primary 1 Foundation are similar to mainstream Primary 1 curriculum. Both programmes provide a blend of academic and non-academic life readiness skills.

In the Standard programme, the content is covered at a similar pace as in a mainstream school.

In the Foundation Programme, the Primary 1 and Primary 2 syllabus will be covered in 3 years instead of 2.

The additional time taken to complete the Primary 1 and 2 content in the Primary 1 Foundation Programme allows for:

• More EXPLICIT and INTENTIONAL teaching of content vocabulary;

• STRUCTURED SCAFFOLDING in breaking down content and delivering in bite-sizes;

• More time for REPEATED PRACTICE to reinforce understanding and mastery of foundational skills;

• More opportunities to strengthen and develop the ability to learn at the pace of a group.

All Pathlight students are exempted from taking Mother Tongue (MT) as a subject. This is to free up white space for us to focus on life readiness curriculum such as:

• Daily Living Skills
• Social-Emotional Management
• IT Skills
• Gym

As Pathlight does not offer MT as a subject in our programme, parents who are interested to have their child take MT at PSLE would need to take full responsibility to support their child’s learning in MT and to keep updated with the latest MT curriculum.

Parents can approach School to register their child for MT National Examinations.

For Primary school, our typical class size is 10 to 14 students with 1 teacher and 1 teacher-aide.

Official school hours are from 7.50 am to 1.00 pm for Primary School and 7.50 am – 2.00 pm for Secondary School.

The School offers a range of CCAs from sports clubs to interest groups and the performing arts.

CCAs are introduced to students starting from Primary 3. These programmes are carefully selected for students based on the following 4 dimensions: Cognitive & Intellectual, Physical, Socio-Emotional and Contribution to Others.

All CCAs are conducted by qualified and specialised professionals who have undergone autism strategies training.

Pathlight does not offer after-school care services. Parents would have to make their own arrangements.

Pathlight follows a school model and not a therapy model. We have a team of on-site therapists who works closely with our educators to support students to access learning. This team also develops school-wide programmes and supports.

Students who have specific therapy needs should continue with their external therapy sessions.

Pathlight tries its best to serve as many children as possible. We are guided by decisions that are student-centric and based on right siting to ensure that every child who comes to Pathlight will benefit from our school programme. It is thus not meaningful to talk about numbers. Suffice to say that we have been consistently able to clear the applications for Primary 1 admission for the new academic year provided that applications are sent on time for us to process.

Our current school population stands at more than 1800 students.

As of January 2022, the cohort distribution is as follows:

This distribution may change every year depending on school needs.

Secondary school students attend lessons at mainstream satellite partner schools daily, as part of our satellite school model to promote integration. Our three satellite school partners are: Mayflower Secondary School, Peirce Secondary School and Yio Chu Kang Secondary School.

More information on our satellite school model can be found on our website here.

At Pathlight, our mission is to maximise the potential of every student in both academics and life skills. Thus, the School provides a unique blend of mainstream academics and life readiness skills for students on the autism spectrum and related conditions.

Our unique features include:

• A blended curriculum offering both mainstream syllabus and non-academic curriculum.
• All lessons are taught using autism-friendly pedagogy.
• Small classroom size with structured group learning environments.
• Strong on-site support from autism therapists.
• Assessments and reports for access arrangements for national examinations.
• Satellite school model for all Secondary level students to promote integration and prepare them for smoother transition to Institutes of Higher Learning.
• Value-added signature programmes such as IT & Design lessons to equip students with critical digital literacy skills; Artist Development Programme and Dance Talent Development Programme to develop special talents.

Please refer here for more details on our curriculum.

Yes. As the School follows the mainstream curriculum, homework, assignments, and examinations are essential in helping a child learn, as well as evaluating a child’s learning progress. Parents/guardians are strongly encouraged to work closely with the school to manage and monitor your child/ward’s progress in this aspect.

Should parents/guardians of students in Pathlight wish to transfer their child/ward to a mainstream school, they may do so. They are to inform Pathlight so that MOE can get involved in the process. MOE will work with parents on the application and with receiving mainstream school to assess if student is ready for mainstream school. If the mainstream school has a suitable vacancy, parents will be informed.

According to MOE, children with moderate-to-severe special educational needs or have higher support needs should apply to a Special Education (SPED) school.

Should you place your child in a mainstream school and decide to apply to Pathlight thereafter, you may do so. You can approach the MOE Educational Psychologist or any hospital/private psychologist to do a psychological assessment report if the current report has passed the 2-year validity period. When the diagnostic and psychological assessment reports are ready, send in the complete set of application forms, including school and medical reports to Pathlight School.

Applicants will go through the same application process, and School Screening Assessments for various levels will be scheduled depending on whether there are available vacancies in the respective levels.

The school fees are as follows:

Students from lower-income background who qualify for our school fees subsidy pay less than the listed school fees. Subsidies range from 20% off school fees to full waiver of school fees.

* School Fees cover:

• Student insurance
• All CCA fees and activities

Yes, school fees subsidies are available. No student, if deemed suitable for Pathlight, will be deprived of an education because he/she cannot afford it.

About 45% of Pathlight students, who meet our school fees subsidy eligibility criteria, pay lower than the listed school fees. These students receive financial subsidies ranging from 20% to full waiver of school fees, computed according to their household income.

In addition, students who meet our eligibility criteria will receive additional support such as:

• Monthly bursary
• Free enrichment activities up to $150 per annum (subject to future reviews)

More details on school fee subsidy application will be provided upon offer.

The School has outsourced school bus operators that are able to serve island-wide. The school bus operator will get in touch with parents during Registration. Students taking school bus can apply for Voluntary Welfare Organisation Transport Subsidy (VWOTS) administered by SG Enable (subject to meeting eligibility criteria).

More details regarding VWOTS are available here.