Does your primary school give out pen licences?

[emkana]

dd is chuffed to bits that she's been given pen licence - she's in Year 3. So now she can use a ball point pen not just pencil. Does every school do this?

Ours has pen licences.

Ds1 is in Yr6 and has problems with writing due to fine motor skills issues. He still doesn't have a pen licence and tbh is unlikely to get one at all. It takes him so long to write and the end result is so difficult to read that he now types a lot of his work - and calls this his "laptop licence".

In his case the pen licence was never going to be an incentive. Right from Yr1, when he was first starting to be able to actually hold a pencil, it was always known that he would eventually need to start typing his work.

Yes and DD2 Yr3 has one. DD1 Yr5 doesn't.

Is this the dark ages?! Children should be free to write with whatever implement suits them and their abilities best. 'Licenses', good grief I've never heard such a crock...

If giving a pen licence to those with better handwriting is "discriminatory" would not the same apply to those who move on to higher reading levels or who are given maths extension work?

We have to provide a Berol handwrigint pen for Year 4 and they are allowed to use it when the teacher feels they are ready. Dd isn't quite on pen yet.

My daughter earned her licence in year 4 but half way through year 5, her new teacher made everyone in the class start using a pencil again. She still uses a pencil even though she is in year 6.

I think its some bonkers primary school teacher thing. The teachers at DS's school don't seem to care a fig about handwriting.

I will probably end up going in for a moan at some point. At the moment none of the year 3's in Dd3's class have got one and I am trying to pick my battles.

Dd3 is beginning to become aware that she finds writing hard and I will not be a happy bunny if her confidence suffers due to the stupid pen licence rule.

But it isn't discriminatory. Schools are supposed to teach handwriting. It's one of the things they do.

Giving a pen licence is a prize - moving a child onto another reading level or giving extension maths is just progressing their learning.

Giving a pen licence doesn't progress learning at all. It would be like giving out a certificate every time you moved up a level in reading and that would discriminate in a minor way against children who find reading difficult. It is unnecessary. The children should be learning for the sake of learning not to earn prizes.

It is discriminatory. There are plenty of pens which children can use who are poor at handwriting which will actually help them to write.

EXACTLY Niecie! Barring children from using a pen instead of a pencil does not improve their writing, handwriting can be taught as easily using a pen as a pencil and it's certainly not true that only children who can write neatly benefit from a pen. QUite the oppostite in fact, as there are special pens for children/people who have difficulty with grasping due to low muscle tone etc, and for people who are left handed.Banning children with specific disabilities and difficulties from using a pen when their classmates do is likely to humiliate them (witness all the people on this thread who remember being the last to get their idiotic 'pen license') and make them stand out, which can only dent their confidence. What is that teaching them? That they should be punished for their disabilities and difficulties?

aaargh 'pen licence' - typing goes to pot when I am cross.
I bet all you licence-lovers would like to see the dunces cap reintroduced for children with special needs. Let's really humiliate them, eh?

And yes, I missed out the apostrophe. Just stunned by people's casual lack of concern/callousness really.

But the strange thing was, DS' handwriting improved dramatically when he started using the fountain pen at home. This was before he "moved onto pen" at school. If a pen helps you to write better, wouldn't it help all of them to use one?

It might help, but that wouldn't achieve the aim of punishing and stigmatising children with handwriting difficulties, would it? And that is what some people apparently think is a good teaching method.

I see giving a pen has been compared to moving a child onto more difficult books. I think it would be better compared to giving special privileges only to children who grow to a certain height. For some children having neat writing is as impossible as growing six inches in height. It is beyond their control. A system that ends up rewarding all but one or two children, when those one or two have disablities/inherent difficulties will always be humiliating and wrong and discriminatory.

It was a rhetorical question Nickie, it certainly seems to me that rather than teaching them good handwriting, they simply reward the ones who pick it up by osmosis. (and humiliate the others). It's one of the (fewish) beefs I have had with DS school; they don't correct their pencil grips right from the start, then the DCs get into bad habits. eg DS is right-handed, but gripped his pen more like a left-hander; using an ink pen has started to correct this. Using the special pens with the dents in can help with the way you hold the pen as well.

Sorry if I attacked you. I am pretty cross with this sort of thing at the moment, as getting yet another wretched diagnosis for my child. The worst one yet. Disabled and sick kids are often so, so disadvantaged in schools and all this petty stuff - 100per cent attendance certs, sitting nicely certs, pen licences etc that my kid would never be able to get - pees me off a great deal. I want to scream, he hates being sick all the time, he hates going to hospital, its much more fun to be well and go to school every day - so where is his certificate?