Letters
Understanding the different
purposes and styles of letter found
in newspapers and magazines
T12, T17 – Summer Term
Do these letters inform, protest, complain or persuade?
Dear Residents,
I am writing to inform you
that the unfenced stream running
alongside your properties has now
been fenced in.
This was brought about because of
the incident six weeks ago when a
parent walking her children home
from school slipped on the path and
fell into the stream. Carried by the
swollen waters, she managed to
crawl to safely after grabbing a
overhanging tree. Badly shaken by
the experience, her husband
informed us of this danger, which
indeed could have been potentially
fatal.
We were alerted to this and used
our emergency funds to sort out this
problem.
I hope that this remedy is to your
satisfaction.
Yours sincerely,
M. Richards
M.K. Richards (Chairman of the Local Council)
Dear Sir,
We recently read about plans to
close the local cinema in the village.
We are very angry about this as a
promise was made only two months ago
to keep the cinema open.
We have an increasingly elderly
population in the village who cannot
afford to use their cars (if indeed
they own one) to drive to the nearest
town and public transport has become
so unreliable in recent years.
In addition, I should also like to
point out, the youngsters in the village
love the Saturday morning shows and
regularly meet up with their friends at
the cinema café.
This decision really must be
discussed with the whole village. I’m
sure you will find, I am not alone in my
views, indeed a petition with three
hundred signatures has been sent with
this letter.
Shame on you.
Your faithfully,
E Major
Mrs. E. Major
What about these letters?
Dear Headteacher.
I am writing to complain
about the behaviour of some of your pupils
when boarding the local bus.
For three days in a row I have need
to catch the 97 bus from outside
Somerfield Supermarket, near to your
school.
Every single day I have been pushed
to one side as a certain group of children
from your school boarded the bus. I admit
I am rather slow but I am elderly and
need to walk with the assistance of a
stick.
I asked the driver to speak to them
but he said it was nothing to do with him
and added he has a family and to quote,
‘kids nowadays might carry knives’ and thus
he was reluctant to put them off the bus.
He suggested I write a letter of complaint
to you.
I am very annoyed about this – when I
was young we always showed respect to
our elders, but it seems that this is no
longer the case!
From a very angry O.A.P.
Your sincerely,
J. B. Williams
Mr. J.B. Williams
Dear Parent,
I am writing to tell you about our new
strawberry toothpaste, which has just been
launched in your area.
As a discerning parent who genuinely cares
about the health of your children’s teeth, you
will be interested to know that this product took
three years to research and has been proven
to prevent tooth decay more effectively than
any other product on the market.
Children love the taste and choose this
flavour more than any other on the market as
the results of our extensive market research
suggests.
What is good taste makes good sense!
At the bottom of the letter you will find a free
voucher for three tubes of our new product. At
no cost to you, this product can be tried out: we
hope you will agree that this is without doubt
the most effective toothpaste ever created.
We hope you like the product and we mean
this most sincerely!
P.C. Masters
(Managing Director)
Features of a Letter of Complaint
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

Opening sentence states what the complaint is
about;
Following sentences give further reasons to back
up the complaint;
Angry, emotional tone and phrases, including the
letter ending. (Alternatively the tone might be
formal but assertive)
Imagine we have returned from a disastrous school trip to Raby
Castle, how would be set out a letter of complaint?
Dear Custodian,
A group of Year Five pupils and I recently visited your castle on the
th
20 June, as part of our history project and we were very disappointed by the poor
service throughout the day.
We expected the guide, Mr. Sweeny, we have always used but he had been placed
with a different school.
The guide we had spoke so softly we could not hear him, and when some of my
highly motivated class asked him their questions (prepared prior to the visit), he said
he had no time to answer them! This was quite irregular and extremely unsatisfactory
as the guides job is to inform the visitors and assist them in any way possible.
Many of the captions on the walls were written in such small print we had great
difficulty in reading them. Some were missing completely.
This is not at all what we had expected, and I am expecting a full and immediate
response to my letter, with a full refund for every pupil in the group.
What an utter waste of a day! My pupils who had spend many long hours working
hard on their history topic in preparation for the visit are finding they have to spend
even more time researching using books and the Internet to locate the information
they should have access to at the castle in order to complete their projects. Surely
you can imagine my disappointment?
Yours faithfully,
Mrs. J. Armstrong.
Your task:


Using your
Features Card,
draft a letter of
complaint to the
manager of Wet
and Wild in
Prudhoe;
We have been on
a class trip to the
swimming pool
and have many
reasons to
complain.

What could we complain
about?
1.

2.

3.

4.

5.

This is the list of the 20 most frequently misspelt words in the Year 6
SATS over the last few years. Your assignment is to learn them during
the half term holiday.
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
10.
change
advertise
injured
serious
surprise
nastiest
designed
regardless
attempts
individual
technique
12. swimming
13. ready
14. vanishing
15. known
16. stripes
17. perfectly
18. future
19. produce
20. themselves
11.