School have asked year 4 children to switch from Cursive

[Rp735]

This is causing me stress so worth getting the opinion of MN. DD went to first day of year 4 today and her teacher has told the class that they are not to use cursive or joined handwriting anymore and need to practice broken. I have checked with other children too who have confirmed. They have been in the school from reception and are quite competent in writing cursive by now. The class as a whole has been struggling due to lack of learning during covid and many teachers leaving in the years following that. I was really hoping this would be the year the would finally be able to catch up. However, this new change will set them back considerably, in my opinion. Also annoying that there was no communication regarding this. AIBU to be angry and to complain?

My DS is going into year 2 and we were told last year they are not going to be taught joined up. My nephew is the same age and lives in the next town along and writes fully joined up.

@Confetto oh it was definitely American style cursive at my daughter's (English) primary. Totally different to the "joined up" handwriting I was taught back in the 80s.
Absolutely ridiculous and such a waste of time.

What has stopped is the cursive lead in during earlier years in primary. Google teacher assessment framework - year 6 - writing. A child not joining in Y6 will not meet standard in England. It’s in the TAF in black and white and has not changed. Whether people agree or not - that’s the reality.

I had a brief phased in primary teaching about 20 years ago when cursive writing was introduced, and I hated it and moaned about it a lot! I think it's a dreadful mistake.

I was never taught joined writing at school in the 60s and 70s. We just formed out own style, which worked well. Some people joined everything, others formed an italic style, others joined some letters and not others. No problem at all. I had a nice, italic style with some joined letters.

Then I had to teach cursive which has totally ruined my own handwriting to the point where nowadays I can hardly do it any more. I felt all the time I was teaching it that it was wrong, and I could see some children, who could barely cope with forming printed letters, getting more and more confused and bogged down. It was totally bonkers.

I was an English graduate and had been a secondary school teacher and the reason I left primary teaching was the craziness of the Literacy Strategy (in so many ways), which I felt was utterly wrong-headed. I'm so glad that the Victorian madness of cursive writing seems to be going out of fashion at last - is this the case? Let children develop their own writing style naturally - anything else is a hindrance. Handwriting should be as individual as a fingerprint.

When my DD was taught cursive I too complained. However, when DS started school I could see the sense of it, because he was and is mildly dyslexic and writing cursive really helped him to learn to write the letters the right way round.

I have dyslexic children. DS2's print was age appropriate legible when he started writing... then cursive was introduced...

I fail to see how a cramped, spidery, illegible mess can meet any form of standard better than a legible print. Especially in an era where beyond the classroom where any extended writing will be typed. Touch typing is a neglected skill in the education system
Handwriting still has a value for general fine motor control, but micro managing a generation into a particular style of writing can be very detrimental to some, and plain out of touch with reality for all of them.

You mention the class as a whole has struggled due to missing learning during covid - is it possible the Cursive writing is not working for most of the class and the teachers could not read their work and therefore they have decided to change to make sure they can cover the topics needed

Just crazy. Why can they not write how they like. My sons at college and they don't even have notebooks. Everything is done on a computer. If they need to take notes they take them on that or on their phones or simply just take a picture of the information they need.

Writing is such a fundamental skill. It utterly baffles me that a school exerts so much control and pressure over this. Let a child write how they are comfortable and capable. It’s absolute craziness.

This thread is the perfect reason why teacher assessment can never be valid.

Professionals across the country can't agree if joined up writing is a y6 "expected" requirement. Yet they're all working from the same document.

LAs tell their schools something different to the next door LA. How can it be consistent?!

All I can say is that 50% of my year 4 children's joined up handwriting is illegible, despite hours of lessons! I hate it. I’d much rather they didn’t use it.
However, I wouldn’t be stopping the other 50% from using it if I could read what they’d written.
Legibility is what matters to me!

Why would you expect them to consult parents over something like this?

Thank you for the insights. I am not an insider to the education system,so they were very helpful. I will speak to the teacher at pick up time today to understand the reason. My concern is not whether they are taught one system or the other. But that they are being asked to switch when they are already good at writing cursive. The school has joined an academy so that may be it. I don't expect parents to be consultedbut definitely informed.

It might be worth suggesting a meeting with parents to talk about this and how they can support their children.

Oh I hate this!

My son was taught to write using singular letters, no mention of cursive then all of a sudden, one year cursive was introduced. He had beautiful print handwriting and once he started cursive it became fairly illegible. It’s never recovered really and is something he is still pulled up on yearly (now in teens).

If you begin learning one way, that’s the way it should stay. If a school wants to change that, then begin implementing it at reception age and then it will slowly fill the school as the original print writers leave. You can’t change a child’s writing after years of learning one way and then berate them for poor handwriting later on as they did my son.

But that is like all learning. No one tells you when you're 5 that you'll have to deal with letters not numbers when you start learning algebra. How can you learn to join when you haven't learned to form single letters? You have to start somewhere. If letters are formed correctly and joining is taught it discrete handwriting lessons, most children can follow the national curriculum expectations (which in other areas are ridiculous compared to children's level of development) which is diagonal upstrokes at end of Y2 (eg joining t and i), joining most letters in Y3 and having a fluent, joined style in Y6.

Different professionals can argue as much as they like but it is very clearly stated in the Y5/6 English curriculum. It is shocking how much moderation differs, I agree, but in that case you'd no doubt have a similar issue with an exam model (which there was for writing pre-National Curriculum 2014).

cursive is a babyish habit, and causes the writers issues if they try to persist in secondary school - best dropped now.

I don't expect you know any adults that still write cursive

It's very easy as an adult to "print" on those few forms that require you to, and write cursive all of the time.

Cursive was a disaster for dyspraxic ds, I loathe formal cursive - who actually writes like that? It's just nonsense. Simple joined up writing is what they should be teaching. Print is obviously going to be slow, formal cursive is ridiculous - I don't understand why anyone would think otherwise. I don't understand why it has ever been taught, ds's school were really big on it in Yr 3/4 (over 10 years ago now).

However trying to 'make' kids stop using cursive and print instead, after they've taught them cursive for years is even worse! I understand teaching kids to print first, but why teach cursive and then tell them not to use it?

Is cursive different to regular joined up writing? I don't understand a PP comment about it being babyish.

@TimeForTeaAndG I don't understand the "babyish" comment either.
This is cursive. Old fashioned and difficult to read if messy

I wish they didnt have to do cursive at all! My oldest DCs cursive writing was horrific - so bad that when he was doing exams he was told that if he didnt improve it significantly there was a liklihood that his exams wouldnt get externally marked as it was so illegible. I spent so long trying to get him to stop doing it but it was so ingrained in junior school that he couldnt stop it at senior school. Im not sure why its so important to learn cursive for their SATS in year 6 when surely its better if there writing is clear - regardless of if its joined up or not.

It is in England here - black and white. Absolute hard fact. Unless a child can write at speed, legibly and joined they have not met standard. Simple.

https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/1119094/2018-19_teacher_assessment_frameworks_at_the_end_of_key_stage_2.pdf

Frankly, if they don’t know this they shouldn’t be teaching and should certainly be no where near KS2.

I LOATHE the fact that printed handwriting can stop a child being deemed expected standard.
I’ve taught many exceptional writers with poor handwriting. Some well above expectations for all other areas. It makes me very cross that handwriting has such weight in this.
I also get cross with people who insist on sticking rigidly to silly rules like this. Good handwriting doesn’t make a good writer..