Your school is considering whether to allow students to wear their own choice of clothes at school, rather than the uniform they wear now. A student and a parent have shared their opinions with you. You have decided to write an email to the principal, giving your views. Write your email to the principal. In your email, you should: • evaluate the ideas and opinions in both texts • give your views about whether students should be allowed to wear their own choice of clothes at school, based on what you have read in the texts. Base your email on what you have read in both texts but be careful to use your own words. Address both of the bullet points. Begin your email with 'Dear Principal' and supply a suitable ending. Write about 250 to 350 words. Up to 10 marks are available for the content of your answer and up to 15 marks for the quality of your writing. Text A Ali, student. Personally, I think it is great that we have to wear a school uniform. It saves time in the morning, because I don't have to think about what to wear, and so I get more time to sleep! I want to do well in school, so it's important to me to be able to focus in class. I feel as though I'm more focused when I'm wearing my uniform. If we were allowed to wear our own choice of clothes, I'd be too relaxed and wouldn't be able to concentrate so well on my lessons. I also think that wearing uniform makes us feel that we belong to our school – like we're all part of the same 'team'. This is definitely a plus when we take on other schools in debates and sports competitions. I'm proud of my school, and I like it when I go out into the community and people can see which school I'm from. I feel good knowing that I'm improving the school's image by being well-dressed. I know some students don't like wearing school uniform because they think it stops them from showing their personality, but for me this isn't an issue. I'm comfortable and confident in who I am, no matter what I'm wearing! Text B Amina, parent. As a parent, I'm always spending money on clothes for my children and I object to having to pay for a school uniform as well. The uniform for my children's school can only be bought from the school shop and it's expensive. As it isn't possible to buy the uniform from anywhere else, I have no choice but to pay the high prices. Children grow so quickly, and constantly buying bigger uniforms leaves me with less money for other things that schools ask us to buy, such as stationery and books. My daughter is always complaining that wearing school uniform stops her from being able to express her personality, and getting her to put her uniform on leads to arguments every morning. This is also an issue for teachers as they have to spend a lot of time and effort dealing with students who don't wear the uniform correctly. It must be so frustrating and exhausting for them! In my opinion, students learn best when they're comfortable; wearing their own choice of clothes helps them feel more relaxed and able to concentrate better. Schools often say that wearing uniform helps students to do better in their studies, but I don't believe this is true.