My daughter is in year 2 (6) and her class teacher is pretty militant about using cursive. I thought it was quite young to insist on cursive as I was still learning how to carry letters together at that age and didn't use reliable, continuous cursive until 8/9 years old.
Apparently they do not get breaks if they don't do it (!) my daughter actually quite likes writing in cursive but some of the other kids really struggle and the parents - like me - think it's a bit strict and too early.
Does your child's school do this too? If so, which year group is it insisted upon? It reminds me of my old head teacher making us miss break if we were out of line.