Pen licence - Year 3

[whatk8ydid]

Morning all, was hoping to get a hive mind view on this - particularly from either primary school teachers or those with primary age children.

My 7 year old is in Year 3. His school apparently have "pen licences" - which I'd never heard of before. When their writing is deemed "neat enough" by whatever subjective criteria they use, they are given a pen licence and are allowed to use pen instead of pencil to write with.

He, and quite a few others in his class, feel quite disheartened and "not good enough". I think about a fifth have a pen licence so far.

DS is normally a pretty robust little thing, it's not often his injustice mode is activated but he's really quite sad about this. Last week I decided the whole pen thing was bloody nonsense, sent him in with a pen and wrote a note in his reading diary saying that as he is left handed, he finds it easier and neater to write with a pen rather than a pencil and as such had sent him in with one, and to contact me if there were any issues with this.

Yesterday, I received an email from his teacher - 7 paragraphs of clearly AI formulated text which didn't actually address any of the issues or explain what he is doing with a pencil that can't be done with a pen, or what objective rather than subjective criteria needs to be met. This has annoyed me further. Everything I've read online says that pen licenses are outdated, aren't part of the curriculum, and put dyspraxic/left handed children at a disadvantage as they end up having less time to practice writing with a pen in comparison to their peers.

I think as far as parents go, we have pretty easy to meet expectations. There have been a few annoyances along the way but we've broadly speaking let them go - as in we're not those parents that are emailing once a week, or catching the teacher "just quickly" at the end of the day (and delaying everyone else by doing so). I've approached it from a trust the school to do their job, and we'll do ours at home sort of way. So I'm not sure whether this is just the straw that broke the camels back and that's why it feels such a big issue. I could do with a bit of a sense check on how hard to push on this one issue.

Apologies in advance - I'm at work today so may not be able to keep up with the thread in real time.

YABU - let the school do what works for them and don't interfere

YANBU - nothing changes if nobody challenges systems that are outdated and no longer fit for purpose

I’m 62 we weren’t even considered for a pen till yr 6. We had twice weekly handwriting lessons and remember clearly being allowed to write in pen in class.
Now despite being told at university I have moderate dyslexia I have a degree am an HCP and my boss regularly comments on my ability to write and report things clearly. When I read the absolute incomprehensible crap some of my young colleagues write the endless malapropisms I think being allowed to write with a pen/pencil/chalk/paintbrush/sharpened finger at yr 3 is the least of anyone’s problems in education.

Where I taught, we had a pen licence and when the children achieved it they got an engraved pen in a presentation box. In order to obtain the licence they were awarded certificates for different stages of handwriting.
The national curriculum states that children should have fluent, legible and speedy handwriting. Joined handwriting is, once joins are correctly mastered, the speediest and most fluent.
I taught plenty of left handed children who achieved pen licences. Yes it can be more difficult to master to begin with.
Perhaps rather than going against school policy you should meet the teacher to discuss ways in which you can support your child with their handwriting.

Thought that's the whole point, learned with a more difficult one, then fill your boots.
Like learning to drive a manual then go for an automatic.

Let the school carry on OP, don't be one of those parents.

Because they'd learnt handwriting at primary school.
You'd need to be able to read handwriting to mark it, if they hadn't been taught it, secondary would be needing to teach it.

Agree, I didn't get a licence but it didn't scar me for life as some PP are saying.

Parents should build enough confidence in their kids, not blame the school for their child going into therapy as an adult because they didn't get a pen license.

Feels more like deflection.

My parents didn't dwell on it, but also didn't dismiss it as a silly rule.
It was, keep practicing and you'll get better and if not, there are loads of other things you're good at, which I focused more on.

I love my handwriting, pen or no pen.

If you bring up your kids yo believe they have to be good at everything, you're setting them up to fail.
Embrace the differences, it's what makes us unique.

My partner is a secondary school teacher, yesterday at home marking assignments
he had to give up on two of them as he couldn’t make head nor tail of what was written - between the two of us we made out the words “loch” and “zero” - yes, these children often type their work (as their handwriting has been given up as a bad job in primary school) but in this instance there wasn’t that option, for whatever reason , and so really the only mark they could get was zero
Neither child had additional needs , just crap handwriting

What I take from this thread is that all children are different. Some won't care and some will care. This is demonstrated by the adults here who feel it had a large impact going forward, those that barely remember etc... Some people have described it creating a situation that gave other kids an excuse to bully one of their children. We try to avoid that by eg. uniform as the great leveler but then we introduce it in other ways anyway.

We don't know how this pen license has been marketed. If it's much coveted as a reward for the right sort of handwriting, but the right sort of handwriting seems like a vague and moving target, some kids will stop caring and not really bother (I have one of those. She's a perfectionist in that if she can't do it well, she can can stop bothering), some kids will be frustrated or angry or feel it's unfair, some will really feel a sense of shame and failure. As parents were can model how we think they should feel by being breezy, encouraging them to try more, practising at home and that may help to some extent but our children still are their own people with their own personalities in a situation that we are not in.

If it's a matter of fact thing and the target is defined so it feels attainable, that's a whole different scenario. I suspect in many schools it's the carrot that eventually becomes the stick once the last stragglers are still using a pencil..

I agree we can add to their feelings by going into a flap over it, so there's a line to be toed between empathising and encouraging and trying not to feel their feelings for them and get caught up in the story and then it into a bigger drama.

Op - I feel for your son and any child. I understand what you were trying to do in sending him in with a pen. My reading of the email was that the pencil was so that they could erase and correct but it doesn't say that very well, if so. Perhaps you could explain? If the teacher is clear with the children that it's just so they can erase and correct, then I can imagine it landing very differently.

I'm a lefty and my handwriting was beautiful until my book was held up as an example to the rest of the class, then it got really scruffy very quickly out of a sense of not wanting to stand out or be on the receiving end of snarky comments by my classmates. It's hard for us adults to remember that for children, school is their world. Little stuff can be very big stuff when you're 8 and have to go daily into the same environment with all the subtleties and undercurrents of societal hierarchy that teachers can miss or reinforce.

I think what I would want to know from his teacher is can we fix the target so he knows what he's aiming for?

Can you see some examples of what they are aiming for? So that you can help better and also help to explain better so he hears constructive comments.

What resources can you get hold of so that you can help him practise?

I hope you don't mind a few suggestions...
At home I would have pots of pens, pencils, mechanical pencils, fountain pens, erasable gel pens, paper, nice notecards, stickers to decorate, postit notes, lots of things as special as you can make it seem. Everything in each living space so that he can play at writing with some of the pressure taken off.....

Ooh I just thought, invisible ink pens for secret messages were a hit when my children were younger. They show up under black light.

And find tricks that are play and games for improving fine motor skills and strengthening hands and fingers. Decorating biscuits, Lego, Meccano, colouring in etc...

I think my DD was in year 5 before her teacher, reluctantly, granted her a pen license. She was one of the last in her class to get one despite being one of the brightest.

It didn't bother her a jot. DH and I both have poor writing, each for different reasons, so we just used to joke it was a family failing.

BTW I am not overly experienced at these things but wondered why you are so convinced the email they sent was AI generated rather than just a standard email sent out in response to pen license queries.

Sure. These things aid legibility, but they are not essential. An examiner will be able to mark an exam paper if the writing is scruffy. They can’t mark an exam paper they can’t decipher.

I think you are raising a snowflake here op!

Say something. Be that parent. I didn’t realise pen licences were a thing, and couldn’t figure out why my son wasn’t wanting to go to school on Wednesdays (he would make himself throw up because he was so worried) but Wednesday was “test day” so everyone who hadn’t got their licence were given a “test”. He still hadn’t gotten his by term 2, and something clicked, I asked what was going on, and we fought the school to give it to him, regardless of their stupid arbitrary rules. It didn’t inspire him to get neater handwriting, it stressed him out so much he was missing school. I’m sure they would rather he was in school!

Completely Outdated and demoralising. I have heard of identical twins with different handwriting abilities with one gaining their pen license before the other! So very damaging in this scenario.

Having said this, it sounds like the class teacher is set on maintaining the system and it may be that fighting it will be futile. I would probably just tell my son it is a silly system that you don’t agree with but as it’s what the school does atm he should try not to worry about it. You have already challenged this on his behalf and, although it is unjust, it won’t be the only time your son is faced with things that are unfair in life. Trying to empower him to manage his own feelings in this situation may be more beneficial in the long run.

You could continue to email the teacher periodically asking for an update on when she feels he will be “ready” to use a pen, hopefully this will speed up the process and make her reconsider for next year’s class.

To conclude, yes, it is a shit system.

Research says it’s a poor system, the majority of parents think it’s a rubbish system, why do schools persist with this stuff?

Because they’d quite like the children to be able to write legibly ? And it’s a decent incentive for the majority of children
The only people/parents who are bothered are the ones who don’t get it straight away and have to put in some effort
SEN is a slightly different kettle of fish, but given it’s 2026 not 1926 I’m pretty sure most primary school teachers won’t die on that hill.
(I’m dyspraxic (now - used to be careless and clumsy) and my primary school teacher c1998 ripped up my work and made me do it again, so it’s not like I didn’t suffer the indignity )

Ugh!! Fucking pen licences were the bane of my life when my kids were at primary school. Both of them had awful handwriting and faced all their classmates getting rewarded with a pen in assemblies throughout the year. There was no such celebration when my daughter was the 1st in her class to become a free reader - apparently that would be to upsetting for kids who struggled with reading. But no worries about the kids who can’t form perfect letters 🙄

And how would you feel if some random stranger on the internet who knew nothing about her life called your granddaughter pathetic? Words have power. It's okay for you and I to have different approaches to things. It's not okay to insult people (even my potentially mediocre son knows that one).

Please tell me you are not a teacher…

Well I think they're basically rubbish. One of mine was one of the last in his class still using a pencil. Their writing was and is reasonable and legible
Why I think they're rubbish is after the summer in a new class, the teacher asked why they were using a pencil; when told they hadn't got their pen pass, teacher said don't worry, just use a pen. Same handwriting as before, what was the point of not having one

When I was at school in the 1970s I was the second to last in my class of 26 girls to get a PL. It annoyed my for a long time, in the days when if you didn’t get your PL you were doomed to ever more practice tracing cursive templates. But it made me grimly determined to prove myself, eventually going to Oxford and then the Bar. My sons both got their PL very late - one is dyslexic dysgraphic. He eventually got his PL and the whole class applauded - a big day for him. He is a determined, resilient young man now. Frankly, leave the school to do the school stuff unless there is something very wrong, in which case raise it, but support the teachers in front of your kids.