Y05W20WR Welcome to Our School

Part 1

How to Write

Transactional – Informational guide

An action plan proposes concrete steps to address a specific problem or achieve a goal. It is written for an audience who needs to understand what will be done, who will do it and how. The tone should be practical and organised — the reader needs to believe the plan is genuinely workable.

  • Ideas & content: Identify the core problem clearly before proposing solutions. Each step in your plan should address a specific aspect of the problem and be genuinely achievable.
  • Structure & cohesion: Organise your plan logically — state the problem, list the actions and explain how each one will work. Use numbered steps or clear headings to aid clarity.
  • Voice & audience: Write in a clear, professional tone appropriate for a formal document. Avoid vague language — your audience needs specifics, not general principles.
  • Language choices: Use precise verbs for actions such as identify, assign, implement and monitor. Write in the future tense for proposed steps. Keep sentences short and direct.
  • Conventions: Spell all key terms accurately. Use clear sentence structure and consistent formatting. Punctuate lists correctly.

Common pitfalls: Proposing ideas that are too vague or too ambitious to be realistic — an action plan needs to be something that could actually happen. Skipping the explanation of how each step would work in practice.

Part 2

Your Task Plan for Today

The brief

Question: Write your contribution to the welcome booklet. Give genuine, practical advice to a student who is new to your school. What do they need to know? What would help them feel comfortable and find their place quickly? Write in a friendly, helpful tone.

Stimulus: Your school is creating a welcome booklet for families who are new to the area and have just enrolled their children. The booklet includes a section written by current students giving honest, practical advice about settling into the school. Your teacher has asked each student to contribute a short piece.

Task Analysis: Write what a new student really needs to know. Be honest and helpful. Tell them about the place, the people, what is hard, what is good. Help them feel less nervous about starting.

Quick Plan

Before you write, plan:

  • What you wish you had known when you started
  • Three things to know about your school — good and real
  • One thing that is different here — maybe better, maybe just different
  • Advice for feeling welcome — join a club? Sit with different people?

BLUF line

Start directly: ‘I was scared when I started here too, but now I love it.’ Or: ‘Here are the things that helped me.’ Do not explain the whole school first. Jump in.

Key details to include

Be specific. Not: ‘The teachers are nice.’ Better: ‘Teachers eat lunch in the staffroom, but they listen if you have a problem.’ Real details help more.

Tone & voice

Write like a friendly student, not a teacher. Be warm and honest. You remember being new. You can help. Let that show in your voice.