“Year 2 children need to be ‘using the diagonal and horizontal strokes needed to join letters in most of their writing’ to achieve the Greater Depth Standard in the SAT’s tests.”
As handwriting experts, Morrells Handwriting disagrees with this handwriting statement in the Interim Teacher Assessment Framework, which contradicts the handwriting statements in the current National Curriculum. Testing joined up handwriting puts schools under pressure to cut corners and rush children into joining up their handwriting before they are ready, causing an epidemic of illegible handwriting in our secondary schools.
There is no long term benefit of rushing a child to join up their handwriting; it is simply to tick the boxes of the handwriting statements. We believe that children should not be tested on joined up handwriting, but taught on ability with the focus on legibility. Likewise, it should be a statutory requirement that left handed pupils receive specific teaching to meet their needs, to help them master legible handwriting and continue to love writing.
Government Petition
We have created a Government Petition to ban the testing of joined up handwriting in primary school SAT’s. We would appreciate it if you could sign our the petition if you believe that there is a rush to join which are causing serious issues for the handwriting development of children.