Building a panel prompt template library

The problem: the best prompt in the panel left with the teacher who wrote it

One Chinese Language teacher had written an outstanding composition marking prompt. It knew the panel's rubric, it knew the six errors Secondary 3 students make most, and it wrote comments parents could actually read. Everyone had asked her for it and everyone kept it in their own WhatsApp thread.

She transferred to another school in September. In October the teacher taking over Secondary 3 went hunting through the thread and found a version — from March of the previous year, before the rubric changed, and nobody could remember which two constraints she had added since. Everyone went back to writing their own.

The prompt was not the problem. Treating a prompt as personal rather than as a school asset was. A good prompt is worth as much as a good worksheet or a good rubric, and no school keeps its rubrics on somebody's phone.

This lesson turns "that prompt Ms Chan had" into "Chinese Language T-03 composition marking v2.1".

Why this works

A template library is not fundamentally a technical problem. It is a versioning and trust problem. Colleagues do not skip your template because they cannot find it. They skip it because when they open it they cannot be sure of three things: whether it is the current version, which year's rubric it matches, and what is already known to go wrong with it.

Picture the panel's worksheet folder with files but no labels. Three years on nobody dares print anything, because nobody knows which files match the current curriculum. The answer was never to sort the folder more neatly; it was to add one line to each file giving year level, last revised, and by whom. Prompt templates are identical.

The second principle: constraints belong to the panel, parameters belong to the teacher. Within a template a teacher can adjust the role and task lines for her class, but the constraints line — do not rewrite student work, flag uncertainty for verification, never output personal data — is the panel's shared floor on safety and quality and is not for individual editing. Draw that line clearly and a library can be consistent and flexible at once. Every constraints line in the earlier lessons of this course is a concrete instance of that floor.

A template metadata format

Put this block in front of every template — at the top of a document, in the platform's template description field, or as columns in a spreadsheet.

Template ID: CHI-T03
Template name: Secondary 3 composition marking feedback
Panel: Chinese Language
Year levels: Secondary 2 to Secondary 3
Purpose: first-pass marking and feedback on narrative and argumentative writing against the panel rubric, for teacher review before use
Version: v2.1
Last revised: 2026-09-11
Revised by: panel head
Linked document: Chinese Language Writing Rubric 2026, section 2
Known limitations: unreliable on classical Chinese quotations; word counts are inaccurate and need teacher checking
Teacher may adjust: year level in the role line, text type in the task line, number of comments in the output line
Do not change: anything in the constraints line

Known limitations is the field people skip and the one that earns its keep. It saves the next user from falling into the same hole.

Template 1: bringing a colleague's prompt into the library

When a panel receives a useful prompt from a colleague, use this to put it into library form.

Role: you are a prompt template librarian for a subject panel.
Task: convert the teacher's prompt below into the standard template format.
Output:
1. The reorganised prompt rewritten as role, task, output and constraints lines, with anything the teacher fills in each time turned into a [bracketed parameter].
2. A metadata block with the fields — template name, year levels, purpose, teacher may adjust, do not change.
3. A "for the panel head to decide" list covering anything in the original that is ambiguous, likely to vary by class, or affects marking standards.
Constraints: do not change the original prompt's teaching intent or marking standard; reorganise the structure only. Do not add constraints the original did not have — propose them in section 3 instead. Anything where you are unsure of the teacher's intent goes in section 3 rather than being guessed at.
Original prompt:
[paste the colleague's prompt]

Template 2: the termly review

Once a term the panel head runs each live template through this check.

Role: you are a quality review assistant for prompt templates.
Task: review the template below and identify anything that may be out of date or risky.
Output format: a four-column table — review item, finding, risk level (high/medium/low), suggested change. Review items must include at least: whether it cites a school document that has since been updated; whether the constraints line still forbids rewriting student work and requires uncertainty to be flagged; whether it could output personal data; whether the output format still matches how records are kept; whether the examples still match current practice.
Constraints: judge from the template text only and do not assume how the panel actually works. Where the template does not let you tell, write "panel head to confirm" in the finding column. Do not rewrite the template — suggest only.
Template:
[paste the current template and its metadata]

Template 3: a handover note

When a teacher transfers or leaves, use this to turn their templates into something the next person can follow.

Role: you are a handover documentation assistant for a subject panel.
Task: turn the template below into usage notes for the teacher taking over.
Output:
1. One sentence on what problem this template solves.
2. "How to use it" — three to five steps, including what documents to have ready.
3. "What to do with the output" — every item the teacher must verify, listed point by point.
4. "Common situations and how to handle them" — three items.
Constraints: use plain language the incoming teacher will understand, with no abbreviations only the original author knows. Do not describe capabilities the template does not have. Where the template does not reveal a working habit, write "confirm with the previous teacher or the panel head" rather than guessing.
Template and metadata:
[paste]

Naming and storage

Four segments are enough: subject code, task type, number, version. For example CHI-T03-v2.1, MATH-W05-v1.0, ADMIN-N02-v3.2. Keep task types to a handful of fixed letters — T for marking, W for worksheets, L for lesson planning, Q for question setting, N for notices. A plain alphabetical list then groups itself and you need no folder hierarchy.

Storage has one rule: school level, never a personal account. Chat histories, private cloud drives and the "my prompts" collection inside someone's personal AI tool all disappear with the person. A platform template library at school level, a panel shared drive or the school's document management system all work. What matters is that a new colleague can see it on day one, and that leaving requires no export.

Common mistakes

1. No version number, so several versions coexist. Everyone has edited a copy and nobody knows which one they hold. Fix: put the version in the template name, and let only the panel head publish a new one.
2. Storing the prompt without the metadata. Six months later nobody remembers which rubric it matches. Fix: use the metadata block above, and above all do not skip the linked document and known limitations fields.
3. Building it once and never reviewing. School documents change and the template still cites the old version, which is more dangerous than having no template at all, because people trust it. Fix: review once a term as a standing item on the panel meeting agenda.
4. Letting individuals rewrite the constraints line. Some copies keep "do not rewrite student work" and some do not, so quality and safety stop being consistent. Fix: draw an explicit line between adjustable parameters and fixed constraints.

Going further

• Templates shared across panels: administrative templates for circulars, letters and minutes should be maintained by one responsible role and referenced by every panel, rather than written separately in each.
• An induction pack for new teachers: bundle the five core templates with their handover notes into first-week materials. A new colleague producing her first worksheet from a template learns more than any training session delivers.
• English and Chinese Language differ: English templates usually share one structure across text types, while Chinese Language needs a field naming the text type, because the marking standards vary more between them.
• Science and Mathematics: add a field on how units and values are handled, and fix a constraint forbidding the model from calculating a final answer for the student.
• Visual Arts and Physical Education: templates here need an explicit constraint against commenting on a student's talent or physique, limiting output to observable performance and practisable items.

Where to go next

A template library is not a folder. It is the arrangement that lets good practice survive. Four-segment naming, one metadata block and one review a term are enough to keep a panel's prompt assets alive through staff changes.

When a template is in place and the output is still wrong, the systematic way to find out why is the final lesson, a prompt debugging checklist. To make template output follow your school's own documents, see grounded prompts with citations and the school knowledge base.