Repairing a School Notice Before It Goes to Parents
The JSA of a school has drafted a notice for parents and must release it the same evening. The draft reads:
'All the parents are hereby informed that the Parent Teacher Meeting will be held on 18th March at 10:00 a.m. in the school auditorium. Parents are requested to attend the meeting along with their ward. Kindly bring the report card and the uniform slip. The meeting will be followed by a interaction with the class teacher. Your presence is mandatory.'
The Principal returns it with one instruction: the notice must be short, correct and courteous, and must fit on a single A4 sheet together with the school's standard header and a 40-word footer. The office has two versions of the closing line ready to paste - Version A: 'Parents who do not attend will be responsible for the consequences.' Version B: 'Your presence will help us plan better for your child; please reach ten minutes early.'
1. Identify the errors in the draft and give the corrected form of each, with a grammatical reason. Also state which doubtful-looking item is in fact correct and should be left alone.
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Corrections needed
- 'All the parents' → All parents. With a plural noun used generically, the definite article narrows the reference to a particular set. It would be correct only if a group had already been specified, e.g. 'all the parents of Class VIII'.
- '18th March' → 18 March. Formal notices write dates without the ordinal suffix.
- 'along with their ward' → their wards. 'Parents ... their' is plural, so 'ward' must agree; a parent may have more than one child in the school.
- 'a interaction' → an interaction. Article choice follows the vowel sound, and 'interaction' begins with /ɪ/.
- 'Kindly bring' → Parents are requested to bring. 'Kindly bring' is an imperative, while the previous sentence uses the impersonal passive request; switching subjects mid-notice breaks register consistency.
- 'Your presence is mandatory' → delete or replace with Your presence is requested. A school has no power to compel parents, and 'mandatory' contradicts 'requested' two sentences earlier.
Leave alone
- 'will be held' is correct: future passive of a scheduled event.
- 'hereby informed' is legalese but not an error; it should go only for brevity, not for grammar.
2. Choose Version A or Version B as the closing line and justify the choice.
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Choose Version B.
Register. The notice already uses 'are requested'. Version A shifts without warning to a threat, which clashes with the polite frame and with the Principal's instruction that the notice be courteous.
Factual accuracy and enforceability. A school cannot make a parent's attendance compulsory, and 'responsible for the consequences' names no consequence and no authority. A vague warning of this kind invites exactly the dispute it is meant to prevent, and a parent who misses the meeting could reasonably ask what rule has been broken.
Purpose. Version B does something Version A cannot: it gives the reason (planning) and one usable instruction (arrive ten minutes early), so the sentence earns its space on a page limited to a single A4 sheet.
One check before pasting. Version B introduces a fact not in the draft - that parents should arrive ten minutes early. That must be confirmed as the actual arrangement; if the auditorium is not opened early, the line is false and must be changed to a time that is true. A pleasing sentence that is untrue is worse than a plain one.
3. Rewrite the notice in about 55 words, keeping all essential facts, and state what you removed and why.
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Rewritten notice
NOTICE - Parent Teacher Meeting. The Parent Teacher Meeting for all classes will be held on 18 March at 10:00 a.m. in the school auditorium. Parents are requested to attend with their wards and to bring the report card and the uniform slip. The meeting will be followed by an interaction with the class teacher.
(54 words including the heading.)
What was removed and why
- 'hereby informed' - legalese that carries no information for a parent.
- 'All the parents' → 'All classes', which is shorter and tells parents which classes are covered.
- 'Your presence is mandatory' - unenforceable and contradictory; Version B or silence both serve better.
- The ordinal suffix in '18th' and the redundant 'the meeting ... the meeting' repetition.
What was deliberately kept Date, time, venue, who must come, what to bring, and what follows the meeting - these are the five facts a parent acts on. 'The uniform slip' was kept although it is operational, because without it the class teacher cannot complete the uniform record on the same day. Nothing was cut that a parent would have to ring the office to ask about.