School stating which pens parents HAVE to buy

[Verbena37]

We recently had a short note from deputy head telling us that following an outside inspection, they were introducing a handwriting policy. This meant that every child in school would be given two gel pens.....one for all writing at school and home and the coloured pen for marking their work.

They would only be allowed be allowed to use those specific branded pens and the school would supply them for 40p per pen.

DDs pen ran out a week after she was given it and they smudge.

Today, DS got a note from the tescher in his diary.....to me.....telling me he needed to take in 80p to replace the pens (DS has told me one pen was stolen and one was placed by another child under the table and squashed).

My problem with it all is that (in the words of www.gov.uk) state schools cannot charge parents for materials or supplies.

Surely if they have a problem with handwriting, they should.....errrr......teach handwriting. The NC states that years 5 and 6 should still have handwriting lessons.....DS says they never do. How, by giving them specific pens, will this help handwriting? I'm thinking that either they're trying to make money out of selling them or b) just trying to impress Oftsed.....they are being monitored following issues over the last couple of years.

I feel as though I'm being a bit OTT about it all but it's just another thing where actually teaching the kids seems to be override by another crap idea!
I was going to email his teacher that wrote in the diary....something like:
If the school is going to enforce those pens, then they need to resource them bla bla bla. Should I go ahead and send it? With two kids there, it's going to add up buying 4 gel pens for them every other week!!

I'm a primary school teacher and this sounds completely mad. I cannot imagine having to keep track of all the pens, who they belong to, and wait for parents to bring money in every time they needed to be replaced. Pens get misplaced in busy classrooms all the time, surely parents shouldn't have to pay for them? I think you should definitely question this OP, to be honest if this policy was abandoned I bet the teachers would thank you!

And yes, gel pens make for horrible handwriting anyway, rendering the whole thing even more ridiculous!

upthewolves at my ds school each child is given a number, according to alphabetical place in the register, and their equipment is labeled with this number. Berol pen, pencil and ruler - to reduce costs and encourage responsibility.

From year 3 - I think.

It does sound odd...and illegal! Do ask if any of the staff or governors have any connection at all with the pen company. (Or perhaps someone donated them to the school and someone decided they would made a nice little earner!)

Eraser pens are often frowned on, or banned in primary schools, as if the pupils rub out their mistakes, the teacher can't help them with that mistake Or more often, the teacher can see the child is 'getting there' with that particular word and can move on to something else.

Shocked at schools charging for pens - we have up to yr2 in pencil then pen licence issued yr3/4 when handwriting good enough but we allow them to try a range of handwritting pens and biro to see what they prefer - different children have different preferences! By yr5/6 expect all to be using pen but some still prefer pencil!

Surely they aren't allowed to require particular pens in any case? My dyslexic ds also had fine motor control issues and so we bought him a whole variety of different shaped pens and pencils in primary to try and find ones that helped (before ultimately giving up and getting a netbook instead). The school seemed pleased that we were being proactive.

Gel pens are useless for all the reasons stated.

I have never experienced a school system where schools provided free writing implements or paper. As a child, my school stipulated fountain pens, and biros were banned. So maths, compositions, etc., were all done in fountain pen, and we had to use blotting paper too, all bought by parents. My own DCs get a writing supplies list from school annually. I buy packets of red and blue biros in bulk, as well as packets of markers and crayons and special erasers and fine point black markers for art (Target or Walmart at back to school sales where a packet of twenty blue pens costs the equivalent of 50p). The DCs learned American copperplate handwriting in pencil, and after that they switched to erasable pens, per the supply list. The erasable pens weren't popular as they ran out quickly. Most students disregarded this item on the list by the time they were about 12. After kindergarten in both systems, students carried their own writing supplies in pencil cases.

Rambling a bit, but I think if they want to improve handwriting then fountain pens or pencils are the way to go.

Presumably they are correcting grips too? It used to bother me immensely that the DCs' teachers never minded how they held their pencils.

UK state schools provide all equipment/stationary. I thought it was a bit crazy to be given a huge list of stuff to provide the school with when my children went to school in New York for a short while. It seemed so incredibly inefficient apart from anything else. We had to buy things like boxes of tissues and wipes as well as pen and paper type stuff. I don't know where the school stored it all!

Yes indeed -- my DCs set off on the first day of school loaded down with classroom supplies like paper towels, antibac wipes, antibac gel, boxes of tissues, ziplock bags in various sizes, as well as folders, composition notebooks, binder paper, binders, graph paper, rulers, erasers, pencils, pens, markers, crayons. They always got their textbooks free in elementary though, and for some reason poster paint was always provided in school but I had to get watercolours for them myself. I reused as much as I could from previous years but bought all those boxes of tissues, etc., every year until my friend who is a TA showed me the storage room one day, lined from floor to ceiling with stuff that hadn't been used. After that I ignored the classroom supplies section of the list.

The HS has a family charge of $300 for book rental. This is a new policy. When DD1 started out I spent just over $800 for her first year books and got $500 of it back thanks to books that were discontinued or novels that had been annotated. In both cases, if you lose or ruin a book you pay to replace it. I am currently dreading May because DD3 lost a physics textbook just before Christmas.

In Ireland we had to buy the textbooks on top of classroom supplies (nothing as ott as my DCs' had to get however) all the way through school, and also all copybooks, pens, art supplies, markers, etc.

hi zzzz

actually the big fat nib means DD2 spends 2x to 3x as long writing in class because she attempts to press lightly so that she can maintain her handwriting style.

The real issue was when she started joined up writing at her previous school she had naturally beautiful writing which was fairly small sized. Not too small to read - but didn't fill the big lines. Her teacher forced her to fill the big lines and she totally lost the plot.

fine tip pens seem to be helping - when she uses them her writing is legible (because she is more comfortable with small style) - when she used medium nib she just battles the pen and fails to finish work in class.

Yes can confirm what Verbena says: they can ask or a contribution (are you sure that they haven't done this and it was just clumsy phrasing by teacher concerned?) but deffo cannot charge. Illegal.

Nope, checked and double checked. It says you can buy the pens from school for 40p per pen. It doesn't tell you the brand so we can buy them ourselves.

Perhaps I will email them and ask what the brand is and then it might be more wroth while buying in bulk.....the pens are still really crap though and run out in a week.

We usually buy zebra pens or similar.....they seem to last ages and he kids have no problems writing with them.

They say they want parents to support their handwriting policy by buying those specific pens.

I'm old. When I was at school (primary) we had to write in pencil. Cheap, and easy to correct! Maybe suggest this to your DC's school?

I used to hate the scratching noise that the Berol ones used to make and avoided using them. That's the reason I still can't write joined up.

You have to buy a 40p pen, and you reckon your civil rights are being infringed??
I grew up in Ireland; there you can expect to shell out in the region of two to three hundred quid per child per year. And that's a conservative estimate; could be considerably more now.
A pen???

It's more the fact that they legally cannot enforce charging for equipment but are trying to. Why can't they just tell parents to buy a rollerball or gel pen of their choice?

When you put it like that floggingmolly it sounds slightly miser-like of me yes but how on earth they think a specific type of gel pen is going to turn the school around is beyond me!

That's the whole point floggingmolly: it starts with the little things then escalates. If questioned now it puts some brakes on at least.

Actually zzz the problem is I can see that the fine tip version of her handwriting is nicer looking, more legible and her speed of writing down her thoughts is good. So no I don't support writing with a wide nib - and to be honest I personally avoid doing so myself.

I didn't push or complain - I just provided a fine tip pen and told DD2 to ask the teacher if it would be alright for her to use that instead.

At first the answer was no.

Dd2 persevered and I said well I guess the teacher feels this is better.

At home we did all homework writing tasks with the fine tip pen. Beautiful handwriting - work was done fairly swiftly - I just left DD2 to it - no coaching/ or helping from me.

At some stage Dd2's teacher asked her what pen she uses for her homework book and DD2 showed her the pen in her pen case - and the teacher said let's try that today.

Since about January she's been using her fine tip quick drying black ink pen and teacher is happy that work is getting completed and Dd is happy she can write with her fine tip pen.

I don't mind supplying the pens - so as far as I can work out everybody is happy.

I do find it a little odd that on one hand schools say that every child should learn at their own speed but on the other hand they say that every child MUST write with blue berol pens (at least here in Birmingham). I figure if I struggle to write clearly with them - it isn't exactly straightforward for kids to do so.

I still don't get why biros (less likely to smudge in my opinion vis a vis a felt tip) are BAD and felt tip is GOOD for learning 'joined up writing'.

I also don't get why in senior school students suddenly have to use blue biros here. No prior training just insisting all work in blue biro. Apparently you can't use a pencil for maths work. I get that by using pen the teacher can see all attempts - but I think that can be shown as easily in pencil and kids are naturally hesitant about making mistakes. I also think things like labelling/ annotating geometric drawings/ graphs/ etc.... is easier with a pencil - as soon as you make a mistake in pen - the graph/ chart/ drawing is a mess.

Why all the angst? If you feel it's an unreasonable request don't buy the pen.

In a school of 300 pupils, buy pens at 30p, sell at 40p, 2 pens each, 10 per year...

£300 per year to pay for an extra couple of teachers.

Exactly Tiggy.....there's my point. Enforcing something they're not supposed to to make money!

buy them yourself if you can source it cheaper.

of course it is crazy, it is also down to ofsted, not the school or the government.

It doesn't matter what is said about paying for materials, you are paying for a pen, nothing else, and you have to pay for pens anyway.

The school HAS to stick to this policy. It isn't even an unusual policy. Create waves by refusing to cooperate if you want to, but you won't change the policy, you will just put further expense, obstruction and time wasting in the way of the smooth running of the school.

( In my school, pupils need 4 colours, and the exact shade is so specific, it can only be bought from one source, either directly or through the school - In my cousins school very similar - at Christmas she had a major crisis because she lost her pencil case, had hundreds of pieces of work to mark, and is only allowed to use this one precise shade, and couldn't get hold of it from the part of the country she was in. Had to abandon her Christmas holiday and return to the school to pick up more.)