Schools shouldn't teach cursive writing

How does that work when Chinese characters are taught to be printed clearly, yet the overall standards of mathematical ability and attainment are so much higher?

If they were taught properly using handwriting books (as I was 60+ years ago) it works.

But it has to be done properly every day (even if only 5 minutes)

But as most children don't have proper pencil holding (which is much more comfortable and efficient) enforced, it's a struggle

DD was the same. It all improved once cursive became a memory.

And as professionals there's nothing to stop them from writing to the Secretary of State for Education and copying in their MP and the Director of Education at their Local Authority. It's what committed professionals should do and it would raise the public's opinion of the profession. They could demonstrate they had thought through the intellectual arguments rather than rote quoting mantras.

DS was taught cursive from the start. His writing his awful. He’s a teenager now and having to learn how to print. During lockdown I realised he had no idea which letters needed horizontal joins rather than vertical joins and that took a lot of time to put right. He had poor fine motor skills and I think learning cursive didn’t work for him at all

Dh is an English examiner for GCSE and cursive causes poor marks. If they can’t be read, doesn’t matter how intelligent they are, they won’t get the marks.

DS is autistic and since learning cursive, he’s illegible. He now has special arrangements for exams to type all of it. But when he was reception / year 1 - his written print was really good. As soon as cursive was pushed, illegible.

one rule for all never works.

They don't teach cursive in Finland which I was a bit miffed about but thought it's no big deal. Until now, when my teenager got her penpal for her class's German exchange project and she's struggled to read his cursive writing, because she never learnt it herself.

I would like to know how they teach handwriting in Poland. All the Polish children who I taught who came to the UK after a few years in Polish schools had beautiful clear handwriting.

Me too.

Exactly this. There’s a reason for cursive. It is much faster, helping children to write more fluently and quickly in exams. If it’s taught properly it shouldn’t be messy.

Unfortunately it seems to be one of those skills (like holding a bloody knife and fork properly) that’s getting lost.

We were taught cursive but only so far as learning to join up specific letter groups which used tails and starters. We were also taught to use discretion about what and when to join up so that what we wrote was legible. GDD is doing cursive writing and it is causing all kinds of issues for her. It slows her down so much that she is slow to complete work and then it is virtually all but impossible to read.

People saying people in jobs no longer write by hand!!! I can assure you I do and it can be for hours. No way would I be able to do my job without writing in cursive script. Writing is still important and not all jobs do everything electronically.

It does help with spelling. If children learn cursive from the start, they develop a degree of muscle memory for the most common blends, and it's certainly helpful for dyslexic children who often get those the wrong way round. It's way quicker than printing, too.

When my children were young, they started with printing first. The youngest is dyslexic, and we were fortunate enough to find a specialist tutor who basically took his writing apart and started again with cursive. It definitely helped him, and he now has much the nicest and most legible writing of the three of them.

I was taught cursive writing and my handwriting is beautiful and readable- as stated by many people!
I don't think writing styles are that important- cursive or print, but in primary school they should be uniform as to not confuse the children to much.
I don't think the problem is in the writing style but more in the way it's taught. I remember having notebooks with 3 distinctive lines to help with the writing - my DC were given bog standard notebooks....

I’ve never understood it, personally i more often find it illegible. One of my ec does beautiful cursive but it’s still difficult to read, another can’t master it and I find it so hard to figure out any words. I would guess it was originally for speed and style but not sure. The teacher admitted a few people in the class have decided to go back to print and she doesn’t mind and I felt like asking could she not try to get everyone back😅

When my daughter started printing instead of cursive in primary her writing age went up by 2 years.

Sadly the average professional educator has little say about the content of the curriculum!

That's ridiculous.

Well, that's something that needs to change. Professional educators need to think about all the children.

DD's primary head was obsessed with cursive and her handwriting was beautiful. It was such a shame her grammar was awful and made her appear ill educated.

The curriculum and accompanying key stage two teacher assessment framework state that a year six child cannot be considered expected standard if they cannot write in a cursive style.

Yes, of course. I don’t disagree with you.

It isn't a problem if it works for the child. If they are dyspraxic/dyslexic, etc, then alternatives should be available.

Yet with the SATS majority of the actual exams does not take it in to consideration.

We teach cursive, from early on. They get lots of practice.
The standard of writing is incredible. It is easy to read, and the presentation is good.
My kids went to the same school before they did this, their writing is terrible, and my eldest had to have laptop dispensation for his exams.
I don’t see the issue, why not learn cursive?

I completely agree that phonics doesn’t work for all children!
Children can have a ‘weakness’ (I really hate that term but it’s the one that is used when assessing/moderating) taken into account with the end of KS2 data however the fact stands that for the majority of the children, they need to demonstrate legible cursive to achieve the expected standard, according to the NC.