[Photo: Top PSLE students from South View Primary, John Zhang, 12, and Michelle Lim, 12.]

Related links: » Top girl could hardly speak English » Top student from Qifa Primary

NEIGHBOURHOOD schools have trumped their more storied counterparts in producing top students in the Primary School Leaving Examination (PSLE).

Seven of the 13 best students this year came from schools in the heartland: Qi Fa in West Coast, South View in Choa Chu Kang, Greenridge in Bukit Panjang, Rulang in Jurong West and Gongshang in Tampines.

Last year, only two neighbourhood schools produced top scorers.

Gongshang student rejected the gifted programme

Gongshang Primary School's Joyce Sin, 12, was accepted into the Gifted Education Programme, but chose to stay at Gongshang.

She told Shin Min Daily that she thought she could get a score of 275, and was pleasantly surprised at her score of 287.

Her elder brother also scored well in the PSLE two years ago when he scored 277.

She said that she was least confident of her science results as she did not have time to check the paper before submitting it.

Joyce Sin, 12

As for why she did not want to join the Gifted Programme, she said it was because she liked her current primary school too much, and did not want to change schools.

She was already accepted into Nanyang Girls' Integrated Programme before the PSLE results were announced.

So does this top girl spend much time studying?

"I spend two hours doing my schoolwork after school each day, time management is very important," she said.

Top scorers for PSLE 2009 

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