You are being considered for a Head boy/Head girl position in the school. Write a letter to the principal explaining why you think you would make a good Head boy/Head girl. Why does the role interest you? Describe ways in which you would carry out your responsibilities.

MODEL ANSWER

Ananya Sen Class XI-A St. Xavier’s High School Kolkata 700029

25 April 2022

The Principal St. Xavier’s High School Kolkata 700029

Subject: Candidature for the post of Head Girl

Sir,

I understand that I am among the students being considered for the post of Head Girl, and I am writing, as required, to explain why I believe I would serve the school well in that capacity.

I have been a student here since Class I. I have captained Loyola House for two years, represented the school at the inter-school debate for three, and worked with the Eco Club since Class VIII, where I organised last year’s paper-collection drive across all four houses.

The role interests me for a particular reason. In my experience the Head Girl is most useful not at assemblies but in the ordinary weeks between them — as the person a student of Class VII will actually approach with a complaint that seems too small to take to a teacher. I have been that student, and I remember how much it mattered that somebody listened.

If appointed, I would carry out my responsibilities in these ways:

1. Hold a fixed half-hour each week, at a known time and place, when any student may come to me with a difficulty.
2. Work with the house captains to make the inter-house events genuinely open, since at present the same forty students represent the school in everything.
3. Assist the staff in maintaining discipline by example rather than by complaint, and bring serious matters to the teachers promptly.
4. Continue the Eco Club’s work on waste segregation, which needs a student to keep pushing it.

I am aware that the post is a responsibility before it is an honour, and I should be grateful for the opportunity to hold it.

Thanking you,

Yours faithfully, Ananya Sen (Class XI-A)

WHAT THIS QUESTION SPECIFICALLY REQUIRES

THREE tasks, and all three must be visible:

1. WHY you would make a good Head Boy or Head Girl — give evidence, not adjectives
2. WHY THE ROLE INTERESTS YOU — a separate question, and the one candidates fold into the first and lose
3. HOW you would carry out your responsibilities — concrete, and best given as a numbered list

FORMAT: a FORMAL letter — sender’s address, date, receiver’s designation and address, SUBJECT LINE, "Sir" or "Madam", and "Yours faithfully".

THE COMMONEST WEAKNESS in this question is a letter full of self-praise: "I am sincere, hardworking, honest and disciplined." Adjectives prove nothing. Naming what you have actually done — captained a house, organised a drive — proves the same claim and earns the marks.

The closing line that a post is "a responsibility before it is an honour" is the right register for this letter: confident without boasting. 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.