To feel a bit sorry for children whose parents don't do anything creative with them?

[flamingobingo]

I expect a lot of people will think I am, but I don't care.

I don't love doing crafts (in fact it drives me mad most of the time), but isn't it part of parenting?

You kind of signed up for it, didn't you, the day you got pregnant?

I don't know why you (and others) find it so difficult to attribute the qualities or failings of different societies (cultures, nationalities) to what is actually taught in schools.

The French, on average, have better handwriting and are far better at mathematics than the British. The British are far more creative and have better verbal skills.

Those examples are easily attributable to different priorities within the education systems of each country.

Is handwriting really an important skill though?

Interesting statement Anna. I shall test it with a friend who recruit graduates in both the UK and France.

Yes, I think it is. I say that as someone who, living and working in France for many years, is of my French contemporaries' ability to take fast notes legibly.

stealthsquiggle - and you will find it to be true . I am afraid it is not a great insight!

I think it's over-rated. My handwriting would look difficult to decipher to others, but if I am taking notes they are for my use only and for my writing-up later, and my handwriting is perfectly easy to read to me. It's not a new thing - I have a friend who works in Oxford deciphering 17th-century manuscripts and agonising for ages over what they actually say.

I think it is a very useful skill to have fast handwriting that is also legible to others.

Of course, having lived in France for a long time, I want to have the best of France and the best of England

Doodle2U - "if you have a dog and you spill glitter, let the dog lick it up....he'll do a sparkly turd within about 4 hours. Astonishes other dog-walkers and I like to tell him he's just gifted that way"

• do you think you could submit that to tip of the day please?

BonsoirAnna I watched Etre et Avoir the other day (lovely film everyone, do watch it if you get the chance), about a very small rural French school. Was struck by how the children were drilled in handwriting in a way neither of my DSs have been.

DS1s writing is quite bad, he holds the pen awkwardly and finds writing painful. All (I think) because he does not do enough practice at school, and we are having to make up for that at home.

PFB, 2shoes? I think not! I've got FOUR children!

I saw Etre et Avoir when it came out and cannot remember specifics. I didn't like it because I don't like rural France one little bit and there were too many things that reminded me of that in the film. But I believe you when you say that the children were drilled for handwriting - children do lots and lots of handwriting practice here.

My three children do an awful lot of handwriting practice as do most children in good independent schools.

I'm surprised so many people hate craft, I am really looking forward to it
but my DS is only 1 and can't do it yet, he has a paper eating habit so cant let him near all that just yet. Wonder if I will change my mind after seeing how much mess will be produced..
But if they do it at nursery, childminders, kid's clubs or wherever then its no harm for them not to do it all at home, and some don't even like it. It't not the most important thing as long as they get to have fun, play & enjoy themselves in some way

@ whole idea of craft

I'm an ex art teacher btw....i think this has got something to do with it.
Pompoms and glitter, felt shapes and twinkly pipe cleaners.

I went to a state faith primary school and we did a lot of handwriting practice. Every morning for an hour I think, during the first few years.

And when it's finished ... it looks crap

I have to say I find the french style of writing very dull - they all look the same with just varying degrees of scruffiness to differentiate them. Some people will always be neater than others no matter what style of writing you have.

I still disagree with you though Anna. They spend a lot of time on fine motor skills at pre-school and in reception before putting pen to paper and doing letter formation. Can't spend too much time on that without moving onto writing as it is deadly boring as an exercise. My DS1's class (Yr 4 8/9 yr olds) still do handwriting practice even though a lot of them have lovely handwriting now.

DS1 has dyspraxia and finds it very difficult to write neatly. A recent meeting with the OT has resulted in him giving up on practising cursive writing and going back to basics and also learning to touchtype. Our reasoning being that in reality very few of us have to write for anybody's benefit but our own anymore and it wasn't worth the struggle for him. I tend to agree with UQD - so long as he can read it, does it matter to anybody else what it looks like?

.

I had extremely neat handwriting at primary school - I was the nauseating type whose exercise book with coloured-in-by-hand margins would be held up at the beginning of term as an example - but I forgot all about Marianne Richardson when I got to senior school and now my writing is so tricky I'm wondering if I should have been a GP.

Swedes - the reason that the widespread teaching of Marion Richardson handwriting (of which I am a victim) was discontinued was due to its frequent failure to mature into adult handwriting. It was easier for small children to learn than cursive (which was why it was initially successful) but undoubtedly contributed to poor adult handwriting.

BonsoirAnna - Oh that's interesting, I didn't know that was the case.

I would far rather my kids learnt about how to write than how to write. What they say much more important that the hand it is written in.

I can't think of many situations in which fast accurate neat writing is a massive advantage, compared to say thinking hard about a problem and solving it.

Except for examinations. In which both volume and legibility matter. But still, the former much more important than the latter (if we really can't read it, we get someone to transcribe it)

And the former is mostly determined by their speed and clarity of thought, not their actual handwriting. Focusing on it too much at an early age seems to be counter-productive to creative writing or even any kind of writing IMHE.

I agree with Lupus. There is something very anal and controlling about this obsession with "neat writing".

DD gets the comment "try to keep it neat" all the time on her homework - probably because they can't fault her spelling or sentence construction, so they have to find something to say.

My God, what kind of work environment do you all operate in where you don't have to take notes?

The last time I operated in an office environment for any length of time, the person from the admin team doing the minutes for meetings always brought her laptop into the meetings and took notes on that. It meant the minutes almost got done as she went along and got to us all a lot more quickly.