You want to start a new club in your school. Write a letter to your Principal requesting permission to start the club, explain your role in it and give reasons to prove that the club will be beneficial for the school.

MODEL ANSWER

104, Nalanda Apartments Noida 201301

24 January 2019

The Principal St. Mark’s School Noida 201301

Subject: Request for permission to start a Cultural Club

Madam,

I am a student of Class X-B, and I write on behalf of about thirty students of Classes IX and X to request permission to start a Cultural Club in the school.

The club would meet once a week, on Friday afternoons after school, and would organise four events a year — a music and dance evening, an inter-house drama competition, a folk-arts workshop, and a Founder’s Day performance. We have already spoken to Mrs. Sen of the English department, who is willing to be the staff adviser.

My own role would be that of Secretary. I would draw up the year’s calendar in consultation with Mrs. Sen, keep the register and minutes, book the hall through the office, and be answerable to her for the conduct of every meeting.

May I give three reasons why the club would benefit the school:

1. It would draw in students who take no part in sport and who at present have nothing to represent the school in. Talent of this kind is at present entirely untested.
2. It would teach teamwork and organisation in a way classroom work cannot, since the students themselves would plan and run the events.
3. It would improve the school’s showing at inter-school cultural competitions, for which we have had no standing team.

We shall require no funds beyond the use of the hall, as the students are willing to meet the costs of the first year themselves.

I shall be grateful for your permission and am happy to meet you at any convenient time.

Thanking you,

Yours faithfully, Varun Sharma (Class X-B)

WHAT THIS QUESTION SPECIFICALLY REQUIRES

THREE tasks, and content marks are counted against all three:

1. REQUEST PERMISSION to start the club
2. EXPLAIN YOUR ROLE in it — a separate task, and the one candidates fold into the first and lose
3. give REASONS TO PROVE it will benefit THE SCHOOL

Note the wording of the third: benefit THE SCHOOL, not benefit you. Arguments about your own enjoyment earn nothing; arguments about students the school currently reaches, or about its standing in competitions, earn everything.

NUMBER the reasons. It makes the content visible at a glance and is how such a proposal would really be written.

PRACTICAL DETAIL is what makes a request credible: a named staff adviser, a meeting day, four specific events, and an assurance about funds. A Principal reading it can say yes without asking a single follow-up question, which is the point. FORMAT AND MARKS DIVISION: see the Formal Letter and Informal Letter references in the Writing Formats & Marking (Reference) chapter.

USE THIS AS A MODEL, NOT AS AN ANSWER TO MEMORISE. The question asks for an ORIGINAL composition, and every year examiners identify scripts reproduced from guide books; a memorised answer can be penalised for plagiarism and will in any case read as borrowed. Study this piece for its STRUCTURE — how it opens, how the paragraphs are ordered, where the required tasks are answered, how it ends — and then write your own, about your own school, your own family, your own town. Your own specific detail is worth more marks than anyone else’s polished sentence.