Given that T1W10 is the Milestone Assessment for the Year 4s, I would have preferred to just focus on marking scripts and analysing results. If truth be told, I was a bit dismayed at having to be the emcee for Awards Day. But that was announced early, so I had time to fit it mentally and psychologically into my schedule.

What threw a spanner in the works was the announcement on Term 1 Week 9 Wednesday that ICT Champs had to lead a sharing on the recent SLS features with their department on Term 2 Week 1 Tuesday. Presumably, each ICT Champ had Week 10 to explore SLS and come up with a SLS Lesson Modification Checklist as well as the corresponding SLS lesson. But that threw me into a frenzy because my Term 1 Week 10 schedule was already packed to the brim with tasks:

• Marking of 4HS1 scripts
• Setting & printing of Set B papers for absentees who took the Supplementary Paper
• Giving feedback for Milestone Assessment in regards to setting the Final Year Exam & editing the student workbooks
• Rehearsing for Awards Day

Adding one more task meant that I had to milk time out of a packed schedule to do these:

• Design a task on Goggle Doc
• Embed this Google Doc on SLS
• Let 2T6 try out this SLS lesson
• Take photos & screenshots when students did this SLS lesson
• Insert photos & screenshots into PPT slides meant for sharing to department colleagues
• Keep Marianne updated since she would be the one conducting the ICT champs sharing
• Inform Peng Peng that the focus would be on Team Quiz

To handle this additional task, I had to strategise my time and do the following outside work time:

• Team Quiz SLS lesson on Term 1 Week 9 Saturday
• Marking of 4HS1 Paper 2 scripts on Term 1 Week 10 Monday night

I was not particularly stressed but was running on adrenaline the whole week. So much so that I woke up at 4am on Term 1 Week 10 Wednesday and couldn’t sleep after that. The fear of not being able to complete everything on time was real. I wanted to avoid doing work-related tasks during the March holidays at all costs.

Eventually, I completed all major things on my to-do list:

• Marking of P1 scripts (Monday)
• Marking of P2 scripts (Tuesday)
• Analysing of 4HS1 results + Team Quiz ppt slides (Wednesday)
• Awards Day Rehearsal (Thursday)
• Analysing of Year 4’s WPLN results and collating the weakest WPLN section for all classes (Friday)

I was actually more productive than I had expected since I firmed up the direction I wanted to take as the Year 4 level coordinator next term (I.e. come up with speaking notes because that’s the students’ weakest area). Nonetheless, I think in my quest to complete the urgent things, I didn’t have the bandwidth to tackle the important but non-urgent things, one of which is the teaching of 2T7/2T8 students who have dyslexia. If given the opportunity, I would have liked to come up with Rebus puzzles and think of activities that get them to use their bodies since I suspect most of them have co-morbidity between dyslexia and ADHD. Also, some days were so tight that I only had half an hour for lunch - hardly enough time either to decompress or to allow for ideas germination.