Pen licences

[JassyRadlett]

Eldest has just hit year 4 which is when pen licences start getting handed out. I had no idea of their existence until this week.

Have they always been a thing? I didn’t grow up here - we just started using pens halfway through year 4.

They seem pretty grim to me, but that may be because I’ve got a 9yo next to me who’s just been crying that he’s useless, he tries really hard at his handwriting and he’s so ashamed that he didn’t get it.

Is there any evidence that they have a net benefit? I would have thought that for every child who’s spurred on by the desire to get one, you’d get another who’s massively demotivated by it.

Pen licence? WTAF?! Do they have to pass a theory test first too?

At some point in p5 or p6 we were just told that the class were now allowed to write with a pen if we wanted. That was it... no fanfare, no fuss.

I read the OP and thought it was some kind of joke. I have never heard of “pen licences” and thought it was the most over the top ridiculous thing I had heard, until I read on a few posts and found out it was real. I went to school in England and Scotland and have lived in various other places, and the first I heard of it was today.

I now have 2 kids going to school in Scotland and thank good we don’t do “pen licences” here! But then we don’t do SATs either, we just support the child’s individual learning.

@wannabebetter and @SociallyDistantPenguin - reading both of those comments in quick succession made me snort my tea out of my nose laughing

My dd didn't get hers till nearly the end of year 6. She was over the moon.

I loathe the word "resilience" when it gets lumped onto the children that are already struggling and have to use that extra energy to get through a school day. The ones who can't remember which way round their numbers go. The ones who can barely write their name legibly. The ones who never get "writer of the week" because it always goes to the same 7 children with a talent for writng and can breeze through literature without the words wriggling around on the page giving them a thumping headache.

The children who doggedly turn up and face the same difficulties day after day, year after year tend to be the resillient ones. The need for resilience can usually be found in those cruising comfortably just under the top. I'm not knocking the kids that geniunely work hard and push themselves up there, but there are a core that go a long way through the education system before finding a real challenge.

I’ve never heard of these - I went to school in thr west of Scotland, my kids in the east, and none of is have heard of this.

Any other Scots recognise those system?

Both of mine had pen licences. I liked it, they liked it. I think you are viewing it wrongly. At most primaries they have tonnes of similar things. Getting stars to learn your time tables. Going from reading levels to free reading. Are you opposed to all such things. It's like anything else, an incentive. Encourage your child to view it as such, but never to get upset by such things.

@JassyRadlett

I’m a fountain pen devotee myself but

I’m a fountain pen devotee who can’t finish sentences.

It’s a very different style of writing to biros and ballpoints that’s require a lot more pressure to write - I find my hand gets much less tired doing extended writing with a fountain pen.

In rather the same vein I realise I didn’t explain that I believe the friction feedback thing is behind the idea that pre-school age shouldn’t just be handed felttips etc I don’t think it has relevance to (?)8 year olds.

Funnily enough I hate real fountain pens - we had to write with them a school & I can vividly remember my Latin master shouting at me that my page looked like a spider had fallen in the ink well (which the desks still had!) & then dragged itself across the page...

We home Ed so I find the idea of a pen license quite fascinating (& mine are concentrating on touch typing just now!)

My year 3 son tried for ages to get his pen licence, he finally managed it 4 weeks ago. A few days later he came out of school to tell me he much prefers pencil and had asked his teacher if he could give the license back!

I blame my stationary obsession to similar schemes.... we were able to go from pencil to pen then to fountain pen for the exceedingly good.

Except they stopped the fountain pens before I got to it. Now I own more pens than one should to compensate for my loss....including a fountain pen.

Currently debating buying a converter for it for proper ink too!

DS1 had appalling handwriting.

I can remember saying to his teacher he'd be more likely to get his driving licence than his pen license.

Years on I'm not entirely sure what I was worried about 😀

We effectively had them at secondary school in year 7 which was ridiculous. You got told to use a fountain or cartridge pen which was totally stupid as they were school supplied and they had right handed ones only. I lost mine within a week because when you are left handed using a right handed cartridge pen your writing is never going to be neat.

Ours were in year 3. The shame of having the only child writing in pencil.

As I said, looking back it didn't go on to hamper his educational success 😂

DS was so happy when he got his pen license. He was the only one in his class who was still writing in pencil. Sadly, he lost it after two weeks and is now in year 6 and writing in pencil.
His dsis got her pen license in year 4.

She is 18 months younger and I feel really sad for him.

I frigging hate, loathe and despise the damned things. Sadly year 3 in our school is populated by a teacher who is obsessed with perfect presentation - to the extent that she's removed the technology used by some children who struggle with writing (and I include DD2 in that who has a diagnosis of dyspraxia and an OT specifically recommending reducing the handwriting burden down) and started bollocking them for untidy writing and going on about how they'll never get pen licences.

I'm having a meeting with the SENCO next half term and there will be WORDS.

DD1 gets very disheartened by them as well - her writing isn't the neatest, but perfectly legible, perfectly punctuated, good content... and she was denied one all year as well last year by the same teacher.

It is going to be a LONG year.

I used to be bemused at losing your pen licence. How often was it up for renewal ? A driving license lasts 70 + years.

I really feel for everyone upset because I was there back in the day.

However, believe me you it makes absolutely no difference going on.

I had this in year 4 which would've been 2004/2005. What annoyed me though was in year 5 some kids didn't have their pen licence so carried on using pencil and the teacher told them off for it! I felt awful for them.

I remember feeling smug getting mine because my friend always showed off that her handwriting was better but I got mine first .

i haven't read the full thread but Pen licences are the work of the devil.

My daughter never got one. She is autistic, dyslexic and hypermobile and was in pain when she wrote.

She could never achieve it and it set her out as different and was a major part of the anxiety at school that led her to not being able to cope with going.

It is not the same as complaining about a f*cking swimming badge. It is public and some children can't do it no matter how hard they try.

Ask any Occupational Therapist working with children what they think of pen licences.

My kids were in schools that gave them in y4 if you had good handwriting but gave everyone a pen license in y5 because SATS have to be done in pen.
None of my kids qualified in the first batch given out in y4. Two had them by the end of the year with the third automatically given one in y5 when it suited the school. His handwriting was poor until mid y5 when kids with poor handwriting had targeted help and now it's above average and stayed that way. He wasn't bothered about using a pen.