“I have scored an A in English all my life,” Mr Heng told his poker-faced students, not without a tinge of pride in his voice. He showed them his PSLE cert, O level cert and A level cert in quick succession.

“Of course, I hope that some of you can get an AL1 for your English,” he cast the bait and appealed to their desire for excellence.

“You will be able to tell your friends, ‘I beat my English teacher in his subject.’ And this is confidence no one can take away from you,” he continued persuasively in his best salesman voice. He could have been a top-grossing salesperson should he have ventured down that route - but nope, moulding young minds was ikigai for him.

Sealing the deal, he dangled the composition papers in front of his bemused crowd. “Who wants to write another Situational Writing piece? Not compulsory,” he stressed, his voice as sweet as honey.

Just like that, four students stood up to receive the composition paper. Mr Heng’s heart swelled with warm motivation, but he stifled his grin. Instead, in his best teacherly tone, he instructed the four of them to keep the writing to 20 minutes because “you need to develop your formula on how to spend 20 minutes during PSLE.”