September began with a milestone: my son officially started first grade today. For the past couple of weeks, my wife had been busy preparing everything he would need for school.
He went to kindergarten back in our hometown of Yangzhou, so enrolling him in a Shanghai primary school was a new process for us. Overall, it went fairly smoothly, though there were quite a few steps along the way.
This year’s admissions schedule in Shanghai was affected by the pandemic. In previous years, the process usually began in April, but this time it did not start until June. Registration and enrollment were handled online, with information verified through the Suishenban platform. Since it seemed to be the first time everything was done fully online, each stage involved several days of waiting. Pudong also appeared to move noticeably later than some other districts.
For children already attending kindergarten in Shanghai, the school can help register their primary school enrollment information. In our case, because my son’s kindergarten was outside Shanghai, we had to register through a district-designated enrollment point.
In early June, we filled out the draft version of the Shanghai Primary School Enrollment Information Registration Form as required, then emailed photos of documents including the household register, property ownership certificate, and birth certificate to the designated registration point. The next day, we received the official Shanghai Primary School Enrollment Information Registration Form, the enrollment notice, and the account and password for registration through Shanghai’s online government service portal.
Primary school admission in Shanghai follows a ranking system, and the specific rules can vary by district. In Pudong, priority is given to families whose household registration and residential address match. When I obtained Shanghai hukou through the talent introduction policy in 2019, my son’s household registration was transferred with mine, so we qualified as a matched household-and-residence case. Because of that, we were not too worried about getting into the neighborhood school assigned to us.
After that, we completed the registration on June 22. On July 4, we received notice for enrollment verification. On July 29, we were informed that he had been assigned to the corresponding local primary school. The period after the July 4 verification notice was simply a long stretch of waiting. Even though we knew there probably would not be any major problem, the silence still made us a little anxious. Some districts had already started sending out school placement notices around July 10, so there was always that feeling that things had not quite landed yet. Fortunately, everything turned out normal in the end.
On August 20, his homeroom teacher called. She said the class assignments had been completed, asked a few questions about the child and our family situation, and told us that only one parent could join the class DingTalk group.
Then came the final round of preparation based on the teacher’s list: pencils, ruler, eraser, writing board, schoolbag, name stickers, name tag, tableware, raincoat, water bottle, garbage bags, tissues, disinfectant wipes, hand sanitizer, masks, and so on. We also had to order the school uniform, fill in various registration forms, and upload the nucleic acid test code.
There was also the matter of the “little white card,” which Shanghai primary schools require after enrollment. It is issued after all required vaccinations have been completed, based on the child’s vaccination record. My son had already finished his vaccinations in Jiangsu, but after we went to the community health service center, we were told he still needed three more shots. It seems Shanghai requires slightly more by default than Jiangsu. Only after those extra shots are completed can we exchange the vaccination record for the little white card.
This morning, on the official first day of school, he woke up excited. Parents could only walk their children to the school gate, so we stood there and watched him go in with his schoolbag on his back.
Now that he is no longer surrounded by his old kindergarten classmates, I hope he can make new friends soon, adjust to primary school life smoothly, and grow up happy and healthy.