Pencil grip and scissor grip: does your pre-school help with this?

[MGMidget]

I wondered whether your pre-school helps or helped your child to develop a good pencil grip and scissor grip or is it something they are supposed to naturally develop without teacher help? I'm curious because I had a meeting with my son's pre-school key worker the other day and she made it clear they don't help or guide on pencil grip or scissor grip. Apparently there's no such thing as a correct pencil grip (so she said), any pencil grip is OK and children figure out scissors for themselves. This is an OFSTED outstanding nursery so they presumably do most things right. However, I wondered if this was the norm as I have read articles suggesting you need to actively teach children the right grip. What has been the experience of other Mumsnetters on this?

my ds is being shown how to hold a pencil at school, nursery never showned him, but then they did not do much with him at all, i think it is called clever hands or fuzzy hands, he still is having trouble, but is getting there

A good pre-school should offer a full range of activities that will help with fine-motor skills, and scissor skills should be helped/demonstrated. Children should be encouraged - but not forced to develop a good pencil grip.

Having an 'outstanding' can simply mean they have all the correct paperwork in place, and the manager knows how to talk to ofsted!

I was told today when I picked DS up from nursery that they were working today on using scissors (cutting out shapes), he is capable so far of 'snips' but they are now working on him using just one hand and holding them properly. So yes, our nursery definitely works on them!