Introduction
Singapore School Mathematics Olympiad (SISMO) is a student-organised online mathematics competition, led by the ever-so hardworking and passionate JC1 Mathletes Committee of SIS Kelapa Gading for the levels Junior to Advanced. In this year of 2021, despite the raging global COVID-19 pandemic which posed not only as a health hazard to hold the competition at a physical place, we still decided to take the initiative and hold this event online instead of chucking SISMO 2021 aside in the face of the never-ending list of challenges to be dealt with.
The Planning Stage
A couple of days before Term 2 ended (in December 2020), 2 math lessons were sacrificed (more math lessons are later sacrificed in Term 3) to plan for SISMO 2021. As a class, we met over Zoom to discuss the delegation of roles and responsibilities for the upcoming SISMO 2021 event. During the meeting, when it was called to have a group picture with the list of roles beside, my camera decided to turn black. My camera turning black exactly at this precise moment thankfully masked my expression of fear and worry, not just for myself but for my classmates as well, in juggling this mammoth-sized project with the already-daunting school assignments.
Role and Responsibilities
As stated in Figure 1, my responsibility is to serve as the Advanced Level Coordinator. I had a fleeting burst of ecstasy because ‘Advanced’ simply sounded better compared to ‘Junior’ or ‘Intermediate’ in my opinion.
The Long, Dreaded List of Responsibilities which I readily accepted:
- Save 43 advanced participants to my contacts, and add all of them into the Advanced Level Participant Whattsapp group where information regarding SISMO would be spread.
- Come up with contingency plans (if unexpected events occur during the actual competition day)
- Make introductory speech for Advanced participants in separate breakout room (in English).
- Invigilate the Advanced participants during the actual competition tests through Zoom (cooperated with DOC to catch one cheater, hooray!).
- Send 23 personalised emails containing certificates to winners ranging from merit to platinum.
- Attend all internal Zoom meetings for discussion regarding SISMO on a regular basis (never underestimate this task, the average meeting clocks up at least 3 hours).
- Juggle SISMO preparation with homework, assignments, class tests.
There are probably a couple more but I can’t remember the rest. Anyways heard from the DOCs’ that this workload is simply a drop in the ocean compared to their responsibilities. By the way, Responsibility #7 applies to everyone taking part in SISMO preparation, not just me.
Technical Meeting
First, we had a technical meeting simulation involving only those involved in the Advanced category, to make sure everyone is well-prepared for the actual technical meeting (February 27th). To be honest, the technical meeting simulation was chaotic since not everyone was fully aware of what needs to be done.
During the actual technical meeting (and the simulation as well), I had to know my lines while the Director of Curriculum translates my speech into Bahasa Indonesian since I can’t speak. Also told during the technical meeting simulation to say my lines with more emotion, instead of being monotonous and robotic (I don’t bother remembering who said that, maybe the whole class).
Workshop
The Workshop (11:30-13:00) is a mandatory session to brief participants about how the actual competition event would be, and also exposing them to some practice questions (so they wouldn’t be caught off guard during the actual competition).
Actual Competition Day
Tasked to arrive at school at 5:50. Arrived in the nick of time. Latecomers frustrated those who arrived on time.
Participants are admitted into the Zoom meeting at 8:00. However, only participants who adhered to the (unique code – full name) naming convention are allowed to be admitted, so unfortunately the ‘admit all’ button could not be used.
Took attendance during welcome speech, pleasant to see majority of the advanced participants joining this event.
In the Advanced level breakout rooms (separate rooms allocated for each level where test is conducted to make invigilating easier), I made a list of participants who did not adhere to the camera-angle rule (show face and workspace) and warned them.
At the end of the Open-Ended and MCQ rounds of the preliminaries, the top 3 scorers will proceed to the much-awaited Lightning Round. Only 1 participant would emerge victorious as the platinum winner, the rest still reserve their spot in the Gold category even though they lost the Lightning Round.
Post SISMO Final Moments
Alas, 6th of March had passed, and I had passed out as well (not sure about my fellow classmates though, my best regards to them). Even after the competition, more work still begs to be done. For me, I had to send personalised emails containing their respective digital certificates to the 23 advanced level awardees, ranging from the merit certificates to the one and only platinum certificate.
Evaluation meetings followed up at rapid succession, to reflect upon the ups and downs of this event – areas of improvement. Even though there were some hiccups during this grand event, I was sincerely thankful that the past mistakes were condoned, accepted, and forgiven for.
Any Last Words?
Despite taking up Math lessons for SISMO preparation, I appreciate our Math teacher for the efforts in making up for the lost time, by conducting his classes well despite at a fast pace.
In a nutshell, SISMO 2021 was a blazing success! Positive feedback from participants kept streaming in, the event in general proceeded smoothly, and the profits earned from this event were donated to the Pondok Kasih Agape orphanage. In spite of the rough challenges faced, all efforts were channelled towards a good cause (charity), and on a deeper level, contributing towards SISMO accounts for the Semestral Assignment grade (worth 30% of final grade).
However, let’s look at SISMO 2021 at a positive light, a smashing success. The author of this blogpost is kind enough to send his best regards to the next JC1 cohort in organising the SISMO 2022 event in the not-too-distant future ahead!!
TheMathOverload 