I knew it was going to happen and was entirely powerless to stop it. Here’s a video of the grounds where my two sons, my sister and I spent our primary school years – at New Town Primary School. Those buildings are no more.

The boys spent early primary school years in the original buildings and then moved to the new school building of New Town along Tanglin Halt Road in January 2009. My sister and I spent 6 years in those buildings, from primary 1 to 6.

The school was officially opened on July 26, 1965 by then Finance Minister Dr Goh Keng Swee. In the Google Map above, there is a building to the northeast of NTPS which is that of Permaisura Primary School. Permaisura was opened a few weeks before NTPS on June 7 of 1965 – not sure by whom. And if Permaisura was still around it would have turned 60 years old yesterday, 7 June 2025. NTPS, itself, will turn 60 on July 26, 2025.

Mind you, this was while Singapore was a state in the Federation of Malaysia and independence was just about 2 months away.

Some years later, I believe, in 1992, Permaisura was merged into New Town. By the time my sons attended NTPS, the Permaisura buildings hosted the lower primary classes (primary 1, 2 and 3) and the original NTPS the upper primary (4, 5 and 6) – happy to be corrected if I got that wrong.

This article in the one of the morning papers suggests that Permaisura and New Town were originally named Queenstown North and Queenstown South primary schools, respectively. I have no way to verify the claim in that publication. The publication does say that the name was changed from Queenstown North and Queenstown South to Permaisura and New Town, respectively, to avoid confusion by the postal service of another school, Queenstown Primary (I seriously doubt it, but I’ll let it pass).

Over the years, many primary schools from around the area were shutdown because of dwindling enrollment. And some of them merged into New Town Primary School. Permaisura, Farrer Road Primary School, Ghim Moh Primary School are the three that I know of.

The question one might have is, why did the name of NTPS remain post merger? And could NTPS itself disappear in a future merger?

Turns out the answer is the third paragraph above: the school was opened by Dr Goh Keng Swee. Hence, it appears that the school will remain under that name. This was a hint I was given by a former NTPS principal, when I asked that principal if NTPS as a name will remain in a future merger.

Here’s a set of screenshots of the article in a morning paper from January 2024 (added here in case it disappears or goes behind some paywall):