The Anniversary Notice: Concord, Apostrophes and Audience
The anniversary committee of a school in Garoua writes: 'The principal, teachers and students is invited to the ceremony on Friday 12th June 2025, its going to start at 9am, students should bring there chairs and not enter the hall late.' The notice will be read aloud at assembly and pasted on the notice board. The school has 1,200 students and 45 staff. The hall seats 800, so only two students per class may attend; this rule is missing and must be added. The committee wants a formal notice of no more than 50 words. A teacher says the sentence is 'not wrong because the principal, teachers and students are one group.'
1. Correct the notice and add the seating rule in no more than 50 words.
Read the worked answer
The principal, teachers and students are invited to the ceremony on Friday 12 June 2025. It will start at 9 a.m. Students should bring their chairs and must not enter the hall late. Only two students per class may attend. This is 39 words. It changes is to are because the subject lists three groups; changes its to It and supplies a clear verb; changes there to their; replaces the comma splice with full stops; writes the date and time in a standard form; and adds the missing seating rule without adding anything else. The formal tone is kept, and the notice is short enough to read aloud and post.
2. Explain two errors in the original notice and why they matter for meaning or credibility.
Read the worked answer
The principal, teachers and students is invited has a compound subject, so the verb should be are. The singular would be possible only for a genuinely single unit, and here the three groups are listed separately. its going to start should be it is going to start or it will start: its is the possessive determiner, not the contraction of it is. there chairs should be their chairs: there is a place word. These errors matter because the notice is read aloud and posted; a public notice that confuses their and there damages the school's credibility and can confuse readers about possession. The comma splice also makes the notice sound like a draft rather than an official announcement.
3. Evaluate the teacher's claim that the singular verb is acceptable because the group is one unit.
Read the worked answer
The teacher's claim is only partly defensible. A compound subject normally takes a plural verb: The principal, teachers and students are invited. A singular verb could be defended if the phrase were a single title or a single collective unit, as in The school community is invited, but the notice lists three separate groups, so readers will parse them as plural. The test is not whether the referents form one group in reality, but how the subject is grammatically presented. If the committee wants a singular verb, it should rewrite as The whole school community is invited. Otherwise it should use are. Consistency matters more than pretending the original is correct.