SINGAPORE - Four schools had more than half their places filled when the first phase of the Primary 1 registration exercise ended on Friday (July 1).

Phase 1 is for children whose siblings are currently studying in their primary school of choice.

Henry Park Primary School had 158 out of 300 spots taken up, and Nanyang Primary School had 197 places filled out of 390. Both schools are located in Bukit Timah.

Chua Chu Kang Primary School and Horizon Primary School in Punggol were also well sought after. They had 109 and 108 children signing up for 210 places each respectively.

There are fewer Primary 1 vacancies across primary schools for next year - a total of 39,790 compared with 41,860 for the batch this year.

Based on figures from the Department of Statistics Singapore, the number of babies born back in 2010 - who are entering primary school next year - was 37,967.

In comparison, there was more than 39,000 babies born in each of the three years before that.