it might turn into a pathetic plea for pity - but i want information on a letter format fro GCSE..ta!

[Tortington]

so went to see he kids secondary school teacher - they are all in special needs because the boys arnt interested - and my girl is deaf and so her reading is behind apart from that shes alright but refuses to wear her hearing aids - feeds them to the dog - hides the replacement onces - will not re charche the "radio aids" designed to get the teachers voice directly to her ears, she forgets the radio aids then will take her hearing aids out and will not give the radio aid to the teacher.

my youngest lad is rude, agitated refuses help - quite the opposite of the quiet lovely adorable child he is at home - he does turn into a completely different person when put in strange situations he is uncomfortable with -he is seen as being very immature in his behaviour - acting like a baby in class?? he is very immature compared to his peers - its just the way he is - i want to take him home and home teach him - but i cant or we will become bankrupt and wont eat again!

at 11 he has a reading age of 9 - he doesnt like reading - he likes being read to - which i do - sometimes i alternate it and make him read a page - but i dont read to him on a regular basis. he doesnt like being different or singled out - he want to blend into to the furniture

my eldest boy - hes such a worry he is 15 - gone from being quite nice - respectful - please and thank you - to a monster - calling a teacher a rude name, generally being lippy - the kinda kid you want corporal punishment for KWIM? smoking, being late for a special college placement i bullied school into getting - school is supporting and he cant be arsed to even turn up on time - or go back to class on time after lunch
he is so disrespectful to other people ( never to us) i am ashamed of him - utterly ashamed to call him my son
i dont care how well he does academically - i will support him all the way - as long as he tries his best and works his hardest is kind polite and respectful - i dont know who he is - and being a teenager is no bloody excuse.

anyway - the teacher gave us a look at the english GCSE foundation paper - and it seems so terribly easy - am so relieved!! - one of the parts is to write a letter persuading a friend to do something or not to do something

how i write a letter at work - is not how i was taught at school - at work the customers/tenants address goes on the left hand side.

at school i was taught to put the persona address top right, leave a line, write the date leave a line sart over to the left - put your home address - and i cant remember anything about punctuation and do not know whether it is valid for GCSE

feel free to comment on the disgusting children i have

but please can some teachers give me the correct information regarding GCSE

so we have got a tutor in for the twins - he does an hour he did some comprehension & spellings is there something the teachers think this tutor should concentrate on? ps my youngest lad did enjoy the tutor on saturday - but hates school

TIA
& ta for listening

[Hulababy]

Depends on the actual teacher I think, but in my school there are different letter formats depending on whether a letter is hand written or typed.

Hand written:

Your own address - top right
(comma at end of each line of address. full stop after last bit before postcode)

Date on right under it

Adress of receiver gors on left under that
(punctuation as before)

Dear....
(comma after name)

Paragraph one - first word is INDENTED a bit

No lines between paragraphs. Each first word of new paragraph is indented.

Yours faithfully/sincerely (comma)

sign

name underneath

[Kelly1978]

Hi, the address goes at the right when it is hand written, at the left if it is word processed as far as I know.

I can understand exactly what you are going through with your daughter. I am deaf and have refused to wear aids since I was about 10 years old. I am surprised it has affected her reading though, I was permanantly buried in a book as I was so good at blanking out all the noise in the classroom.
If your daughter is as stubborn as I was you are probably fighting a losing battle over the aids, although it might be worth talkign to the ppl at the hearing aid dept to see if a different type of aid might be more acceptable to her.
I've always got by without them, because I lipread extremely well, most people can't even tell I have a hearing impairment. It might be good to encourage your daughter to learn to lipread.
I can honestly say that I manage better without the aids than I do with them, as I found the sound very distorted and difficult to understand.

Sorry if this isn't what you wanted to hear!

[Hulababy]

Typed is slightly different:

Your address - on left, no comma/punctuation at end of each line

Leave single ine

Date in format 10 January 2005 (or similar, but no th, st or nd after date)

Leave single line

Recievers address (again no comma at end of lines)

Leave 2 lines

Dear ... (no comma after name)

Leave single line

Paragraphs.... no indenting of paragraphs, leave single line between each paragraph)

At end, leave single line

Yours...... (no comma after sincerely, etc.)

Leave 5 lines (for signature to go within)

Your name

[Hulababy]

HTH!

[donnie]

to be honest the format of the letter is not very important, it is the contents : paper 1 ( both tiers) requires the candidate to ' argue, persuade, advise' and paper 2 that they ' analyse, review, comment' ( whether AQA, EDEXCEL OR OCR). Therefore the use of persuasive language is key here and he won't be marked down much for incorrect placing of addresses etc. Get him to look at speeches, news articles, anything which is intended to be persuasive. Good luck!

[Tortington]

thanks all

[CarrieG]

What they'll be looking for is clear expression & ability to marshall his thoughts.

You could get him to 'brainstorm' - jot down all his arguments (so if it's eg. persuading the friend not to take drugs, he could look on the internet for lots of reasons not to!), then he should pick out the most important (in his opinion) 5 (ish) arguments & write a paragraph on each. He'll get better marks for linking them, too ('on the other hand' or 'I also think that') & for using flourishes such as rhetorical questions ('Don't you think you should be more considerate to others?' etc.)

You could help by doing a 'writing frame' for him - ie. actually drawing a framework of boxes labelled 'your address', 'their address', 'paragraph 1' etc. Or I believe there's a wizard on Word which will guide him as to format. If this task comes up in the exam, it'll get him better marks if he DOES know how to set out the letter, but arguing his case clearly is much more important iyswim.

I know this is very prescriptive & some may feel it trammels creativity or whatever, but sadly this task at GCSE is all about the examiner ticking boxes!

[fisil]

Have you seen the CGP revision books? They are very good for this kind of info.