Dear Mummies,
As part of our Letterland focus on Eddie Elephant, we will be making a trip to the Singapore Zoo to see the elephants! As this is the last field trip for the year, we would like to invite the parents to join us.
Details as follows:
Date/Day: 6th Nov/Thur
Time: 8.30am to 2.15pm
Venue: Singapore Zoo
Cost: $15 (child) / $21(adult)
Attire: Uniform
Do note that the cost per person includes zoo admission, tram ride, a snack and transport charges. Please make confirm attendance and payment by Wednesday 5th Nov. As I will be off tomorrow, do make payment to either Lao Shi or Shirley. However, should you need more details about the trip, please either email or call me.
For parents who are Friend of the Zoo, admission charge of $4.50/child or $9/parent is not applicable. If you would like to make your way there, do also let me know by Tuesday.
Feedback for week 6 & 7 will be emailed to you on Tuesday, do let me know if you don't receive it by Tuesday night. Also, please note that 7th November, Friday is a schoolholiday. School resumes on 10th November,Monday.
Thank you & regards,
Shareen Ng
Principal
RightStart Kindergarten
Tumble Tots (S) Pte Ltd
2 Sembawang Crescent
#02-02, The Jelutung Community Club
S(757632)
Tel: 72570109
____________________________________
My Critique
Firstly, I think that the letter should address to 'parents' instead of just 'mummies'. Moreovee the letter should start off with a subject heading like 'Field Trip to the Zoo' to give the reader a rough idea of the purpose of this letter.
On the whole, the tone of the letter is pretty informal and the some of the sentence structure is not quite correct. Instead of 'Please make confirm attendance and payment by', it can be change to 'Please confirm your attendance and make payment by' which sounds more appropriate.
The letter ended with a note about the sending the feedbacks of the child via email and the schedule of the new school term. This is a side track from the initial purpose of the letter which is to inform the parents about the trip to the zoo. I feel this second issue should be address in another letter with a proper subject heading as it will make the letter look more formal and professional.
When ending off, 'Thank you & regards' cannot go together. I feel the principal should end off with 'Thank you' in the final statment and 'With Regard' when signing off.
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Hi Sherry, I would like to point out that I think the author of the letter wants to add a personal touch and be just a little informal when addressing parents as mummies. However, she does take it too far with some bad sentence structure as you have mentioned. Maybe it's to give the parent a sense of familiarity such that it seems like a child wrote it? haha
ReplyDeleteLester
Hi Sherri,
ReplyDeleteI do agree with you about the subject heading. It would have made the reading of the letter much easier, as I would be looking out for information related to the heading as I read.
Also, the letter has too many 'If you need this, please call this person or that person' type of sentences, making me feel confused due to the information overload. As such, I had to read the letter again to iron out the details.
Lastly, as per your advice: Thank you!
With Regards,
Abdullah
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteHey Sherri!
ReplyDeleteI agree with you and Abdullah that there's too much unrelated information in the letter and the principal need to write another to address the unrelated issue. That affects the coherent and cohesion of the letter. She also need to check through her letter for grammar and spelling mistakes. It is irritating to read understand the points in the letter with the mistakes. She is the principal and her tone does not reflect her professionalism.
Besides all the negative points, I think the principal did at least state the detail of the trip is clearly, though it is not properly organised. She should actually put the information about 'friends of the zoo' after listing the details.
That's all from me;)
Cheers,
Huixin
Hi Sherri,
ReplyDeleteI think the letter do have some good points also, which is it mentioned who to contact and also by when should they reply.
I do agree with you on the point about starting the letter with addressing "mummies" because I think it might offend the child who lives in a single-parent family with the dad only.
In addition, like Huixin, Abdullah and you, I also think the letter included too many irrelevant issues which may cause information overload. Furthermore, it also affects the clarity and the coherence of the letter as well.
Another point to note is what you've mentioned about her poor sentence structure. I think as a principal of the school, her language proficiency does reflects badly on the school.
That's all.
cheers,
siewcheng
Hey All,
ReplyDeleteThanks for your comments. Point Noted :)
Cheers
Sherri