Handwriting in the Primary Curriculum ✍🏼

This is part of the Handwriting Matters series exploring handwriting, learning and classroom practice. Previously, Why is handwriting so hard for children? explored how essential brain functions are still developing — and learning to work together.

The struggle for control we witness is good though! It’s normal and to be expected. Our role is to reassure, encourage and guide (with explicit instruction and feedback). Persisting and mastering a complex skill like handwriting supports ability to do hard things in the future and fuels self-belief.

I can do hard things and it feels great when I achieve my goals.

Quote reading 'All things are difficult before they are easy' over a mountain landscape.

quote attributed to Thomas Fuller - 17th century historian So handwriting has always been — and will always be — a difficult skill for children to master, but why is it particularly challenging now, in 2025?

There are a number of reasons. One — our focus today — is an overcrowded primary curriculum. Too many priorities. Talking with teachers in recent years, the problem that almost always comes up first, is time… ‘There’s no time. We can’t fit it in. We have to do phonics and everything else.’

Over the last 50 years handwriting has gradually slipped into the shadows of the curriculum.

Before that, it was a very high priority because most communication was handwritten — letters, forms, job applications, records, accounts, voting documents… Neat, legible handwriting ensured people could participate effectively in society, do their jobs and make the best of opportunities to expand and improve their lives. Handwriting was at the heart of classroom practice.

Thinking about it, my handwriting secured me my first teaching job 32 years ago! Applications and supporting statements were still handwritten then (I’m really not as old as that makes me sound 😂). From 113 applicants, 5 of us were shortlisted and, after I’d been given the good news, the headteacher told me the final decision had come down to a comparison of our handwriting, on the basis of who would be able to model most effectively for teaching. I’ll be writing about teacher handwriting next time!

The 1960s saw rapid social change and challenges to traditional approaches. Throughout the 70s and 80s primary education became highly decentralised. Approaches varied. Some schools were highly structured, others child-led or topic-based. Some taught handwriting rigorously, others barely at all. Individual headteachers had significant influence over curriculum priorities and organisation.

I was at primary school in the 70s! 😁 Mr Griffiths, our charismatic Welsh headteacher loved to sing! He also valued handwriting highly and recognised the importance of teaching it explicitly, often popping into lessons to spot-check our understanding with questions like, “Should a capital letter be the full height, or three-quarters the height of the lines?”

And although I had no memory of entering, I will never forget winning second prize in a school handwriting competition. I was five and so proud! Although I must be clear, I’m firmly against handwriting competitions (as I am ‘pen licences’). The intention to motivate is well-meant but the risk of damage to self-concept is high, for both winners and losers. That’s for another blog but in the meantime see this great post from Peps McCrea.

The point I want to draw attention to is, handwriting was definitely centre-stage in the school curriculum. And you might be interested to hear, we learned to read with phonics and decodable books too!

School prize book plate with handwritten name 'Nicola Carey' and text '2nd prize Handwriting, Young Infants, May 1975'.

There are also fond memories of making viking longships, butter, truncated icosahedrons (stapling the tabs of card hexagons and pentagons together), doing yoga, country-dancing and of course… knitting a square, then transforming it to become the cylindrical body of Dougal from Magic Roundabout!

I was lucky. I learned to read and write early. But I must also share, I moved on to secondary education without understanding how to punctuate speech, or that two quarters was equivalent to one half.

I can still picture this scene, in the sweetshop next to our school…

Me: Two-quarters of cola-cubes please.

Shopkeeper: You mean one half.

Me: (smiling politely) No, two quarters please.

Shopkeeper: (rolls eyes as he weighs out the sweets)

At some point soon after, I had an a-ha! moment… and felt deeply embarrassed! I went on to get at an A in O-level maths (a year early) so it worked out okay, but still…

By the early 1980s several national studies had raised concerns about inconsistencies in provision across the primary curriculum. The 1988 Education Reform Act set out to address the situation and a National Curriculum was introduced.

Statutory expectations relating to handwriting were (and are) in there, but then something happened that pushed handwriting back into the shadows.

Technology advanced — keyboarding began to compete with handwriting — and the internet was born. The explosion of fast access to on-line information blew our minds. It’s an expression that’s in danger of becoming a reality as we increasingly reach cognitive overload day after day. And now AI has joined the party.

As information has become more instantly accessible, school curriculums have added additional knowledge content, and lessons have become in-depth earlier. It’s as if we’re so excited by all this knowledge as adults, we feel compelled to share it with the children we teach.

The problem is, there are now too many priorities. Everything is important… all subjects , all components of subjects, all aspects of learning. Pupil (and teacher) overwhelm is a genuine concern. And in an overcrowded curriculum, time and space to teach vital skills like handwriting gets squeezed. Teachers just can’t see where to fit anything else in.

A curriculum heavy on content but light on skills risks creating a generation of pupils who know things (or how to look them up) but can’t use them. In the long term, this weakens learning, creativity, independence and opportunity. Brains won’t get the exercise they need. Without activity, struggle and repetition, neural networks can’t form and strengthen. If we don’t use it, we’ll lose it.

So how do we decide what to include and what to leave out? Teachers must look to school leaders for clarity. School leaders must look to national bodies for clarity - for guidance and expectations.

I’m sure this is why The Writing Framework was released in July 2025, well ahead of the revised National Curriculum, which is due to be published in Spring 2027 and implemented from Autumn 2028. It couldn’t wait. Clarity is needed now, so an essential process of gradual change can begin. It’s an exciting time!

The Writing Framework - Take a look at pages 31 — 39 ✍🏼

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