This is a hypothetical question: “Would you be happy with this?”

I would like to think that no one who has any understanding of handwriting, be they parent, Early Years practitioner, teacher, SENCO,  Head teacher, School Governor, education advisor, Teacher trainer, Education Minister and even Secretary of State for Education, would consider such a grip to be “good”!

It is blatantly obvious that such a grip would mean that the child’s hand would cover their writing as they go along and would smudge, making messy writing, messy hands, difficulty reading what they have written as well as lower marks than the content would necessarily merit.

If the child was trying to get their pen license, what are the chances of getting it?

I could go on! What I find frustrating is that it appears that no one in authority has the inclination to say “Let’s do something about this”. It’s not rocket science, time consuming or expensive to sort, and yet left-handed children are NOT being given appropriate help.

When the new Initial Teacher Training curriculum was being put together, we had some input into that. However, when published, there was not a word on left-handed children. Potentially over, 1,000,000 children and their needs are not being adequately met. If they were, children wouldn’t be coming into our shop for handwriting help!

Appropriate teacher training and guidance for the children will improve the educational outcomes. Win/Win all round; I reckon so.