If you're moving your family to Singapore and your child is between 7 and 15, AEIS — the Admissions Exercise for International Students — is the single most important thing to get right. It's the Ministry of Education's annual sitting that decides which government school your child enters, and at which level.
This guide is for overseas families specifically: expats relocating for work, families already in transit, and SEA / global families whose children will sit AEIS from abroad. The mainland-China track has its own playbook; this one is for everyone else.
What AEIS is — and what it isn't
AEIS is a placement test, not a competitive selection test. The score determines:
- Which level your child enters (Primary 2 through Secondary 3),
- Which school the MOE assigns them to (you can rank preferences, but final placement is MOE's call),
- Or — if the score is too low for the requested level — a deferral to S-AEIS in February.
Two subjects are tested: English and Mathematics. There is no Mother Tongue paper at the AEIS level. The English paper is the harder of the two for most international students — Singapore's MOE syllabus assumes a much higher reading level than the equivalent grade abroad.
The 2026 timeline
| When | What happens |
|---|---|
| Apr-May | MOE confirms the year's exam structure and the level-to-grade mapping |
| Jun-Jul | Registration window opens (typically 4 weeks) |
| Sep-Oct | AEIS sitting — usually one day, English in the morning, Math in the afternoon |
| Nov-Dec | Results released; placement letters sent to passing candidates |
| Jan (next year) | Singapore school year begins; placed students start |
| Feb (next year) | S-AEIS — second chance for those who didn't pass AEIS |
The dates shift slightly each year. The MOE site (moe.gov.sg/international-students/aeis) is the authoritative source — always confirm exact windows there before you book flights.
The three outcomes to plan for
Most playbooks only describe "pass" and "fail". Overseas families need to plan for three outcomes:
- Placed at the requested level. Best case. Plan: arrive in Singapore by January, secure housing within the school's catchment, settle in.
- Placed at a lower level. Common when the English paper is the bottleneck. Plan: accept the placement (your child will catch up faster from a position of relative strength), or defer to S-AEIS in February.
- Not placed. Plan: S-AEIS in February (most overseas families get placed on the second sitting), or revisit private / international school options for the gap year.
Have a plan B for housing and visa that doesn't assume your preferred outcome. The visa pass for the child depends on the school placement letter — without that letter, no Long-Term Visit Pass.
Prep schedule: the 6-12 month version
If you have 12 months: this is the comfortable path.
- Months 1-3 — Baseline + foundation. Run a 30-second diagnostic, then drill the fundamentals: vocabulary breadth, sentence structure, comprehension stamina. For Math: model drawing, fractions, ratio (the three pillars of Singapore primary maths).
- Months 4-6 — Past papers + AI-assisted feedback. Move to real AEIS-style papers. Mark line by line; every mistake should yield "why I missed it → which concept → three similar questions". This is where adaptive AI tools earn their keep.
- Months 7-9 — Mock exams under timed conditions. Two to three full-length mocks per month, scored against the AEIS rubric. Track stamina and time-allocation, not just score.
- Months 10-12 — Sprint + polish. Tighten the weak topics surfaced by the mocks. Don't introduce new material in the final month — consolidate.
If you only have 6 months, compress months 1-3 into 4 weeks and double the daily intensity. Less than 4 months out and you're squeezing — consider S-AEIS as the primary target and use the AEIS sitting as a warm-up.
The five most common overseas-family mistakes
- Underestimating English. Your child's English may be excellent in their home country and still be a level below what AEIS expects. The MOE syllabus is dense.
- Drilling math at the wrong level. Singapore primary math uses heuristics (model drawing, unitary method) that may not appear in your home curriculum. Switch early.
- Skipping mock exams. Knowing the content isn't the same as performing on a timed paper. Run mocks under real conditions.
- Booking housing before placement. Rent a short-term place until the placement letter arrives — schools have catchment priorities.
- No plan B. Always have S-AEIS and a fallback school option mapped out before the AEIS results.
Where Siguan AI fits
We built AEIS AI for exactly this use case: an AI study partner that runs on your child's pace, marks against the real AEIS rubric, and is available across time zones — for the months when you're still on the other side of the world.
For overseas families: US$29/month or US$249/year (save 28%, roughly US$20.75/month). All four currencies handled via Stripe — your bank statement shows your local currency. Three-day free trial of every feature, no card needed. See the AEIS product page.
The mainland-China surface is at aeis.ai with ¥ pricing and WeChat / Alipay payment. Same product, separately priced for the market it serves.
Next steps
- Confirm your target AEIS sitting on the MOE site.
- Run the 30-second diagnostic to see your child's current level.
- Pick the prep schedule (6 or 12 months) that fits your relocation timeline.
- Have your plan B ready — S-AEIS, fallback schools, visa contingencies.
The exam itself is one day. The preparation is six months. The relocation decision is years. We can't do the last two for you, but we built the first one into a daily 15-minute habit. That's what AEIS AI is.