In this lesson you are participating in the craft of tailoring. The same person, the same facts, two paragraphs that do not read alike.

Every application you will ever write has an audience with a job to do. A SUSI grant officer is checking circumstance and need (SUSI itself is mostly documented means-test information; today you practise the clear circumstance-and-need voice those answers still need, not a long literary essay). An apprenticeship employer is checking whether you will turn up, learn fast, and be useful on a real site or in a real team. Same you. Different questions. Today you learn to answer both without becoming two different people.

Before you see any samples, mark each claim true or false on what you honestly think right now. The point is having a baseline to compare against once you have sorted real sentences and rewritten your own paragraph. Guessing well matters less than answering honestly.

Key terms for today: audience (who is reading and what decision they make), format (the shape the writing takes), and tailoring (re-shaping true facts for that reader without inventing a different you).

Below are twelve sentences taken from the same fifth-year student’s real applications. Nobody is told the answers first. Your job is to label each highlighted line by the audience it was written for. The tells surface faster from short sentences than from reading three long samples end to end.

Pick a label, then click the sentence it fits. When the class is ready, reveal the model and argue any line you placed differently. The arguments are the teaching. Compare what you find with the true/false baseline you set in the last step.

The build is a rewrite, not a description of formats. Study Cian’s worked case in the interactive (same facts, two readers), then do the same with your own material.

Open your Strand 1.1 portfolio and copy one paragraph of your own existing material (from Tell Me About Yourself or any later draft) into a new document called Personal Statement Formats. If you have no saved paragraph, use the short spare your teacher will share, or paste four to five true sentences about school, work, or home right now.

Keep the facts true. Re-shape that paragraph twice:

• Version A, SUSI grant audience: circumstance and need. What would a grant officer need to understand about your situation to judge support? (Remember: real SUSI is mostly means-test forms and evidence; you are practising the clear need voice, not writing a full literary statement.)
• Version B, apprenticeship audience: whether you will turn up and be useful. What evidence of reliability, learning, and real tasks would an employer reader need?

Then add three lines naming what you changed for each audience and why that audience needed it. Same person. Same facts. Two paragraphs that do not read alike.

Minimum viable output if time is tight: both versions at four to six lines each, plus the three-line note. Save the file as Personal Statement Formats in your Strand 1.1 folder (original, Version A, Version B, three lines).

Boundaries: only use circumstances you would be willing to put in a real application. If money or home detail feels uncomfortable, write the SUSI version in the third person for a realistic fictional applicant and keep the apprenticeship version in your own voice. If this topic lands hard, talk to your guidance counsellor, or check Citizens Information and SUSI.ie for real grant questions. This lesson only practises format; it is not a live application.

Today you participated in tailoring: same person, same facts, different reader jobs.

• You committed to true/false claims about what SUSI, apprenticeship, HE, cover-letter, CV-summary and competency formats actually need.
• You labelled real sentences by audience and saw the tells (need and means; tasks and reliability; course fit; named role; STAR evidence; scannable pitch).
• You rewrote one paragraph of your own material for a SUSI audience and an apprenticeship audience, then named what changed and why.
• Your portfolio now holds Personal Statement Formats, ready to feed ALT 1 drafting in the next lessons.