Welcome to Thank you Deeply about Primary Education, the podcast that makes Time a space to think about pedagogy, teaching and learning, professional development.

Anything of interest to Time per but enthusiasm rich primary teachers?

This week I'm joined by handwriting expert Nikki Parr.

And Nikki, it's wonderful to have you here.

Thank you very much for joining me today.

Thanks for having me Kieran, it's really lovely to be here.

We're going to explore handwriting and perhaps in the context of the the new writing framework and which was published in July 2025.

And actually, this episode's come by recommendation of a listener, Sarah, Sarah Harrison, I think is the.

Sarah Harrison.

Yeah, Lovely Sarah.

Absolutely.

Well worth flagging because, you know, I, I very much value the, the insight and the, and the recommendations of listeners.

So, you know, so Sarah, I think emailed me in July.

So I'm thank and thank you for, you know, I do get around to these things.

Yeah, and thank you to Sarah for me too, because she introduced me to the podcast and, you know, I've really been enjoying it.

That's fantastic.

So I thought normally try to start with a little bit about background.

I mean, can you tell us a little bit about who you are and how you got here today?

Yeah, sure.

So I'm I'm Nicky Parr and I was a classroom teacher for 24 years and had leadership roles in math and literacy in that time.

But my real passion is teaching handwriting and supporting teachers with teaching handwriting so that they can help more children, essentially.

So my attachment to teaching handwriting actually started with my own son.

He's 29 now, but when he was very young he was identified as having dyspraxia, now more commonly known as developmental coordination disorder, and clearly had attention deficit issues as well, although that didn't get diagnosed until later.

And I'd been teaching myself for about 6 years at that stage when he was starting school and I could just see that becoming literate was going to be so important.

And at that point his speech hasn't developed effectively, didn't know if his hearing was OK.

There's so many factors, but as a teacher and as a mum, I just really wanted to give him the best chance of developing and becoming literate.

And I got to work with fantastic occupational therapists and speech therapists and, and that's where I developed a lot of early knowledge that I could then bring into the classroom as a poor children I worked with.

So that's, that's the background to, you know, my very early origins and had such success with Jack by committing to a really short, simple practice process.

So then obviously I had my teaching career when I used, when I moved locations some years later, I decided that was my opportunity to really focus on, on this passion of mine.

And I started better handwritten.

And it's all about supporting parents, teachers, adults as well, actually, with feeling better about handwriting and knowing how to do that.

And that that connection between, you know, something that's really purposeful for you from both the professional and a personal level, you know, it must be.

Yeah.

It must have been great to see your Santa Fe, I'm assuming overcame those difficulties in.

This, yes, yeah.

And I have got a picture I can share with you actually.

So you can see the before and after in terms of the time when he was in reception.

And I think that's really relevant for the in terms of the writing framework that we've we've now got.

So you just let me know when you'd like to see that and I can.

Yeah, absolutely.

I mean, you do your sub stack every week.

I do like a A Beehive newsletter that goes up with the podcast.

So I think that'll probably be the best place to share it.

And I'm on LinkedIn.

I don't know if you're on social media, but maybe if you want to post it underneath.

Yeah, LinkedIn, I'll find you on there.

Just starting out on there.

I'm trying to find a home really, because they're all the others are.

So I don't know they're, they're not the same as they used to be.

Yeah, no, I mean, I I met some fantastic friends and colleagues on Twitter X but yeah, I've decided to come away.

So I'm on sub stack now and LinkedIn.

Yeah, some say, some say looks really good actually, because you're, you're, I followed you and then you recommended other people.

And I followed someone called Ben Cooper, who's working in, I think Panama at the minute.

And he recommended like 5 people who I should have been following.

So it looks like it's got a really good ecosystem.

Yeah, and you can do podcasts on there, you can do video.

It's it's, it's, it's new to me, but it feels really nice.

And for any, for teachers, it's fantastic because there are so many creatives on there.

There are so many fantastic art ideas and and yeah, so you can just fill your feed with all the things that you love and that make you feel good.

If we move to hard riding, so I think imagine you walk into a classroom and you're looking at students writing.

Is there anything you see that could frequently or easily be missed?

And do they tell you anything about the learning culture in a given classroom?

So going into classrooms is really, really important to me.

And that's where I really, you know, get my sense of connection with what we we're there to do.

So I love that experience.

If I, when I go in, in the first instance, it's obviously because I've been invited in.

I'm, I've started work with the school and actually I'll normally be taking on a tour with the head teacher or the literacy lead.

And, you know, in all honesty, I don't spend too much time looking at handwriting because I'm very aware, having been in that situation myself, that, you know, I'm a stranger in the school.

I'm coming in, the staff know I'm there in relation to handwriting.

And what I've come to understand is that, you know, we all can feel very vulnerable about our handwriting or as a teacher about our children's handwriting because it's so visible and it's so open to judgement.

And it reminds me actually of many years ago when, you know, I, I had numerous Ofsted inspections and, you know, the whole range of experiences.

But I remember when we got a call and, and there was one time when I, I literally went and hid my science books in the boot of my car because I was so worried that they were too messy.

And that's not a reflection on the children and the work that we do.

It was great.

But it was, it was my fear of judgement.

So I'm always really mindful that when I go into classrooms, you know, I'm not there to judge, I'm there to help.

But in order to do that I need to build a relationship with the staff in school.

So my primary thing when I'm going round is to smile a lot.

And I do take in lots of information, like I can sense quite quickly whether the children have been made aware of who I am and, and why I'm there when they are.

I note which, you know, often children are really keen to show me their writing, but then I'm also looking for the children who are hiding because they're always there.

And I and I also want to understand how the teachers are feeling.

And some people are, are really open to me being there and some people not so, which I completely understand.

But the things I probably noticed most when I just scan a classroom and have a look around at things like pen hold, generally paper position, book position, whether there's any awareness of that because I'm looking more from a distance.

It's like how a line's being used because that's fundamental to the process and posture.

You know, it's a difficult one in schools because children grow at different rates.

And, you know, it's, well, it's all very well saying that the tables and chairs should be at the right height, but that's not actually a reality.

So yeah, just seeing what is happening and how I might be able to make some suggestions to to support things.

What sort of decision making process would have led to a school bringing you into focus on handwriting?

I'm trying to think what the what might the scenario be if they're thinking they've identified as as almost like a blocker to outcomes in writing and and that kind of thing Or is it, are there, what sort of reasons might they might they give?

It's not been easy, you know, actually initially getting into, into too many schools in the fact that, you know, we're driven by priorities and school budgets and you know, what's going to be looked for when our school is assessed.

So quite often it's because it's been picked up by some form of inspection or it was in a lot, it was mentioned in the last previous report.

And so there's a fear that somebody comes in again and they they don't see progress and improvement, then they're you know, that that's going to be picked up on.

And sometimes it there are leads and, and staff who recognise the foundational importance of handwriting and can see that that needs to become more automatic for automatic for children and an important part of them enjoying the writing process.

Because when you are so self-conscious or it's so uncomfortable to physically write, you have an unconscious resistance.

And so we we have a lot of reluctant writers in school because it's a, a challenging process to be meeting the expectations of handwriting and making it legible and clear at the same time as processing all your thoughts.

Yeah, there.

There's so much going on there, isn't there?

You know, So obviously I'm just thinking, obviously we've got lots of proactive schools, but sometimes, you know, yeah, it can't take that that sort of nudge from.

And it isn't.

It's no criticism at all.

It's a reality of the the pressures and the priorities and what's in your school improvement plan and what what budgets are attached to it.

So handwriting, as I was talking about actually in the blog that's just come out today on sub stack, it's kind of slipped into the shadows over recent years.

And I think there are, you know, another thing I'll be looking at in future blogs is, you know, assumptions.

And there's an assumption, I think, that because we can write as adults, that we can teach handwriting.

But it's actually a very complex skill.

And teachers need a level of knowledge and understanding about how the brain works and what's happening and why it's such a struggle and why that struggle is important in order to bring it into focus in classrooms again.

Yeah.

I mean, I mean, judging by a lot of teachers handwriting, I'm not sure they can make that assumption.

You know, there's only bested by doctors in terms of eligibility.

Well, get ready for next week's blog, Kieran, because that's going to be looking at teacher training and in particular teacher handwriting because I think made a note of it.

But it says in the writing framework something like where are we can't find it, of course, but to the effect that teachers should, you know, must be modelling good handwriting, not just in handwriting lessons, but across the curriculum.

And one of the things that, you know, I'm very excited about the writing framework.

I think it's a fantastic piece of work, not an easy piece of work to collate all of this knowledge and all of this research and try and communicate it in a way that doesn't feel threatening, that actually feels that it's there to support, which I absolutely believe is the intention.

But there's, there's so much to unpack and there's so much that couldn't be included because it's already 150 pages long.

And so there's a lot there.

So I think the writing framework, it it's all going to depend on where a school is at, but where individuals are at as well.

You know, literacy, literacy leads head teachers because there's clear accountability in in those leadership roles.

And that can feel like overwhelming, particularly for literary Leeds, I think, because there's so many components that need attention.

But yes, how do you feel as a teacher if you don't think your handwriting's good enough for modelling?

And there's that expectation.

So again, there's a wait there if you know someone's going to come into your room and there's a risk that you might be judged for it.

So the good news is it doesn't have to be threatening.

And I've worked with teachers in on individual basis to support them with this.

And my recommendation is often just to learn alongside the children, practice alongside the children because we've got a whole range of teachers who probably weren't taught effectively themselves.

And then we're also busy adults.

And if you're not writing, you know, slowly and carefully often, then your handwriting inevitably will look, my handwriting looks really messy most of the time because I'm using it.

It's not for someone else to look at.

So yes, there's certainly a lot to unpack around teacher handwriting and looking looking forward to that.

But you know, really don't want people to feel overwhelmed by the content.

It I do think it's there to to help.

Yeah, I think it's well within our grasp to to sort of, it's like it's like you when you don't use your times tables for a bit, it doesn't take much to bring them back again, does it?

So I think and it's the same, isn't it?

Yeah, lots of things.

I mean, I, I was, I sometimes I do my chat.

What I do with ChatGPT and AI is I, I chat when I'm thinking, when I'm wondering something to myself, I have a chat with it.

And I said to, you know, why do I, you know, I think I was always quite proud of my ability to sort of use punctuation and various things.

But I said, why, why do I need to check that more these days?

What's going on there?

And it was written to respond to, it was said that the brain doesn't remember the rule.

Sorry, the, the brain doesn't remember the rules.

The brain remembers the patterns, and if you were taught in the 70s like I was, they were very strict, simple patterns.

But language is evolving and changing and the way we use it means that punctuation is being used in different ways and and so, you know, there's always changes, aren't there?

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Talk us through your thinking process from the the moment you almost like you see this imaginary pile of textbooks to the point where you have a clear picture of what's really going on in the school.

You know what are the key clues you're looking for and how do you wear them up?

So as I said, when I first go into schools, it, you know, I'm, I'm actually, that's about starting the relationship and building the connection.

Because what I've learned is it doesn't work.

Just going in to do a staff meeting or even a couple of staff meetings.

What often happens then is I try and share too much information and it's overwhelming.

So I will only work with schools now when they, when, when we can find a way to commit to, to a longer term process because otherwise it's, it's wasting everybody's time.

And, and I just want to make sure that we succeed in, in what we're trying to achieve.

So sitting down with the books is a completely separate thing for me.

I mean, I need that time and I need to be able to really focus my attention because I need a full set of data.

Again, Quite often when I first went into schools in the earlier days, I'd be presented with three books from each class and of course they would be selected completely understandably.

And, and there's, there's lots of fantastic, lovely handwriting going on in schools, but that doesn't help all children.

And my goal is very much to make sure every child gets the opportunity to feel good about their handwriting, for it to be legible and for it to be useful to them.

So you're not going to use it if you don't feel good about it.

You're not going to feel good if if you can't read it back or someone else can't read it.

So yeah, I, I love the sitting down with the books And when I do a school review, I actually look at every child's books in the whole school right from reception through and I can end up with about 3000 pictures.

I have to take photos.

So when I'm, when I'm, when I'm photographing those examples, my brain is just scanning for some of the things it's got used to, to seeing always.

I start with how the lines are being used because you'll see children writing between lines.

You'll see letters like Y&G that dive below a line, not diving.

There's so many things, little patterns that that jump out to me when I'm, when I'm doing that.

And, you know, the encouraging thing, I think maybe for everybody is that I see the same things.

So it's not down to like an individual school or an individual teacher.

This is, and, and I just get curious about why what I do, once I've done my first sort of have a look at the books and see what jumps out, I've developed a sort of very simple practice process.

And one of the things I like in the in the in the framework is it says it's talking about reception, but it applies to everything is, you know, it's, it's important.

Keep things simple and do them well, and that's a process that I've developed.

But I need to help teachers understand what that process is and why each step in the process is really important.

So I scaffold things very much at the start.

I will share some of the findings and then I usually create a personalized course for the school where we start practices together.

So I literally release content each week for them to just do the next thing, do the next thing.

And actually we all do the same focus across the whole school.

So if you're thinking about the writing framework and it says, you know, there needs to be clearly sequence steps and progression, yes, that's coming.

But in my experience, to really get to grips with and establish a practice habit, it works for us to all work on the same thing.

Younger children using larger lines, older children practising in the dictation parts or joining the focus.

But it's it's sort of a progressive thing because we've got to feel comfortable.

I don't know if you know, the author of Atomic Habits, James Clear his work, it completely aligns with everything that I do.

And one of the things I I like is he says a habit needs to be established before it can be improved.

And when I'm introducing a new process in school and I'm always so mindful, this is my thing.

But teachers have got hundreds of other things going on.

We just need to take it slowly and build that understanding.

And So what I do alongside that is, is, is, you know, build that relationship with teachers.

And then I know things are going well.

When I start to get questions, when, when we finished this recording today, I'm, I'm going to be putting together a recording for a teacher who messaged me.

I I love this because this means teachers are starting to see what I see and, and be curious.

So he was asking about, I've noticed the letter lot of children in my class letter P is sitting up on the line like a capital.

You know what, why is that and what can I do about it?

And then I get a question like that and then I can, you know, give a response That might be a good point to mention why I called my company better handwritten and not better handwriting.

1 is the neuroscience has shown us that writing by hand is really important to the brain, supporting memory and you know, areas of the brain activate when we write by hand that don't when we type on flat keys.

So that's a key thing for me.

I'm very interested in all the research and drawing that together, the resources that I've produced to support the work I do.

All the sheets are handwritten by me, and that's intentional.

It would be so much easier, wouldn't it, to just have them all printed up and typed up.

But when children go through the process, the first thing they do is look along my examples and there are several across the line of of each on each page.

And they have to look really closely and choose the best example.

And that forces their eyes to compare them.

If it was done by by, you know, computer, that they would all be the same.

And the research that I came across many years ago, Karen James, who's in America, was looking at early writing handwriting development, was that actually children need to have lots of handwritten examples so that their brains can sort of collate that data that it's taking in visually.

And then when they've had enough data, then the brain can lock it into memory so the sheets are handwritten.

And then the other reason is that I've learned so much through the actual handwriting.

You know, it's made me think about where.

Let us start where they where, why they're formed in certain ways.

And again, when you're not doing that yourself as an adult, as a teacher, it you know, you might just not think about it.

This is all about very deep thinking and then me sharing what I discover with with teachers and schools.

Yeah.

I mean, it sounds both labour intensive and expertise intensive, you know, so if schools wanted to engage with us and, you know, it would take a somewhat a long time to build up the level of expertise that you've got.

I mean, where, where did you go to get that expertise?

I mean, sounds like you were reading research at the same time as other things.

What would?

What was that process like?

Yeah, I, you know, so many, so many things have filtered in that that there's obviously handwriting research and that's become more prevalent in recent years, but it's it's behind, it's been behind all of the reading research.

So some of the earliest researchers, as I say, were Karen James and Audrey van der Meer in in Norway, who's done a lot of work on the importance of struggle.

So because our lives are busy and because school lives are busy and because of the technological age, it's so easy to think this doesn't matter anymore, you know, just focus on typing.

And I'm a big, you know, I type, I keyboard, you know, it's, it's really, it's a separate skill, though.

And there's something about the way we interpret things that means we've pitched handwriting and, and typing against each other.

But actually they're separate skills and they're both important and we need to understand as adults where they're beneficial and, and take that time to reflect and we need to make sure we communicate these things to children so that they can see it.

But it it goes far wider for me.

I have become so attuned to, you know, I constant my brain because of the data and because it's constant, I can't stop making connections with everything.

So I sit down and watch strictly every Saturday, and I'm probably the only person who's watching it and thinking about handwriting and thinking about the fact that those dancers, those professional dancers you quite often get glimpses of when they were at Blackpool when they were eight, you know, just how long they've been doing this constant rehearsing to the point where their brains have automated movement.

So things like that.

You know, I'm fascinated by Formula One and thinking how, you know, those drivers can travel at those speeds And, you know, again, through repetition and repetition, they've automated certain aspects.

That means they can get into a state of complete focus and do their job.

I watched the Beckham documentary on Netflix and was thinking about handwriting.

You know, from a very early age, he was taken out to do practice and practice and practice and practice and got to the point of automation where he has the freedom to notice what else is going on the pitch and to, you know, focus on other aspects of the game.

And that's really what we're talking about with handwriting and what we want for children.

We want to then develop this complex skill and free up their, then their capacity then to communicate all of their incredible thoughts and ideas.

Did you watch the Formula One this weekend?

Do you know?

I didn't because I'm away and I was working, so I was in deep in my deep zone.

But my daughter did, actually.

Yeah, no spoilers, but I know that Eric and Santa used to talk about this zone he used to go to where he couldn't feel the road anymore.

It was just him, you know, it almost translated is reality.

And that's almost that's that's that level of automaticity that you're.

Yeah, it really isn't it.

Yeah, and I think you'll find a lot of people I talk to, you know, bikers, a lot of people find that when they're on a on a road, on a bike, they, you know, you're in the that you're, you have to be so in the moment to be safe.

But you've you've obviously learned all of your controls.

Same with drive that you, you know, you can get into the zone and I find, you know, I, I do a lot of long journeys actually.

And I and I and I look forward to them because I get into the zone, you know, you know, I, it frees up my thinking space because I've got long enough as well.

You need long enough sometimes to to sink deep.

You know, you almost, you start listening to something and then you start thinking about the thing that you really should have been thinking about anywhere.

It sounds like it triggers you off then then you realise 1/2 an hour later that you've been thinking about something totally different from.

Yeah.

And I'm the, I'm the reverse of what I should be.

You know, I sometimes get so lost in this work that I forget to put a wash on or to get anything for tea, you know?

So, yeah, your attention can only be focused on on one thing at a time.

I, I listened to a podcast with Brené Brown a while a good while back and she had neuroscientist Amishi Jaron, who specialises in attention.

And she just had such a great simple analogy.

Because I need things to be very simple.

I need, I need those kind of visuals, thinking about attention as like a torchlight and the fact that you can only direct it at one thing at a time.

So the whole multitasking thing being a myth, we can switch attention and we can switch it rapidly, but that is cognitively draining.

And I always think, you know, that's why so many of our jobs, teachers, as you know, and others are so exhausting because there's so much task switching going on.

Yeah.

I mean at at this time of year in particular, that decision fatigue is never more prominent.

You know what it is almost like 12-13 weeks into a 1516 week term.

Absolutely, absolutely.

And it does come a point, I think, where our brains just go, I, I can't do any more.

And, and you know, we have to know that that's, you know, that's enough.

You know, we can only do what we can do because there's a danger that we all sometimes feel we're not enough, we're not doing enough, but we're all doing the best we can.

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In your experience, are there ever any assumptions that perhaps school leaders might be making when it comes to writing and handwriting?

And what happens when you challenge those assumptions, you know, perhaps with the evidence that you've collected?

OK.

I think probably the first thing to say would be that handwriting is probably quite often off the radar.

I mean, in one sense, in the sense that obviously books are are are monitored and looked at and, you know, taken in.

But the actual teaching of handwriting, I think the assumption could be that it's something that teachers can just work out and that if you get a scheme, if you get a resource that that's going to solve the problem.

One of my favourite quotes, I'm I'm somebody who latches onto quotes because they're very simple and I like that is from Temple Grandin.

Do you know of her?

So she, I've actually found this quote through James Clear's newsletter, which is a, which is, which is a great newsletter every week.

And she said people are always looking for the magic bullet.

There is no magic bullet.

Progress is about bridging the gap between what we observe and what we can imagine, one careful step at a time.

And I think the assumption might be that, you know, we can just get a resource and solve the problem and just get on and do it.

But it doesn't matter what resource you get.

There are some fantastic resources.

I have my own resources.

There's this all kinds of handwriting resources out there, but if you don't really understand how to use it, you're not going to get the outcomes you want.

Now, one of the tempting things, I think historically, and I've done it myself in the past, is you know, it can be, it's such a nice calm activity when you all do handwriting.

And but what you can't do is just give the children a sheet and let them get on with it because they will do the best they can.

But the way they perceive letter formations and joins and how to connect things means that they might just be reinforcing issues.

So I think the assumption that I could see would be a resource will solve the problem, but actually it's teacher training that will solve the problem and actually help teachers to love teaching handwriting.

So I've done a lot of thinking about this and a lot of trying things out, seeing what doesn't work, thinking about what would and that's why I'm on the next stage of of my work.

So when I write my weekly blog on sub stack, my intention is to keep it short enough that I'm going to trying this at the moment with a couple of schools I'm working with that the literary lead or we have handwriting leads in some of the schools that I work with who because the literary lead is so big, they can just have a look at that on the Thursday when it comes out and then use it in the following week staff meeting to spend 5 minutes everybody reading it.

And I'm, I'm keeping it short, even though sometimes there's lots I would love to share keeping it short so that we can week by week, gradually build professional understanding.

Because just like handwriting itself, I actually really believe that this needs to be an ongoing drip, drip, drip process.

And then the other thing I'm starting in New year is a support group for training.

So low cost, a whole year of professional development walking alongside me basically.

So every month and nine months of the year, a session for literacy leads or handwriting leads so that we work on strategy in schools.

And then once a term, a session for each year group so that we can niche on a little bit of of CPD that's relevant for that age group and that stage.

And I can people can submit a question in advance and we can build collective knowledge that way.

So yeah, it's a journey.

And I do think that the reason the handwriting the writing framework's come out so far ahead of the, you know, the revised national curriculum is to give us that chance to take things slowly.

What I have seen is some people panic and think this is out and we've got to have it all in place now.

And, and I've seen that in some places, school leaders, trust leaders have actually said like, let's just stop.

Let's just stop and work out what we're going to do before we sort of commit to anything.

And I think that's a very wise, sensible decision.

Absolutely.

Always.

I mean, have you thought about starting a support group for the parents of children who refuse to write properly?

I've got an 8 year old who you know, Like I say, if you just give him practice, he's going to practice the wrong thing consistently.

Yeah, it's, it's a difficult 1.

You know, I've, I've worked with lots of parents with children.

I've done 1:00 to 1:00 work with some very, very reluctant writers.

And quite often I do that online and I and, and I've had children who don't, who won't even come near the screen to start with.

We don't do it live.

I, you know, we have a, we have an initial live sort of chat, but I send little recordings through with an activity for them to do.

And I have had children even who won't come near for the recording to start with.

But if you want to help a child as a parent, is it, you know, when I look back to my experience with my Jack when he was still, he was 4 when he started reception, he was five in the November.

So he was all over the place.

He really probably wasn't ready to start school, but start school he did.

And I remember going to the first reception meeting and, you know, feeling quite devastated really, because I was told by a very experienced, wonderful teacher, she was great.

He's not ready.

He's not ready.

He doesn't he, he just needs to play this year.

And I completely recognize what she was saying.

Because he didn't have core strength.

He couldn't sit on a seat.

You know, he, he, he'd had, no, he'd hadn't got that control.

And with dyspraxia, as I'll call it still, because that's what I was used to calling it for him, the messages from the brain aren't quite reaching their destinations.

So I literally had to work with Jack to help him learn to move his tongue, putting jam around his mouth, all these kinds of things.

But he didn't want to do it.

I had to make some things fun, but I also had to just make things simple and quite quick.

And if you want to help your child with handwriting, you have to work at almost like how old is your son.

The one in question is 8.

Eight yeah.

So you've got to tap into kind of dopamine and rewards and things initially to to get things going, but you basically need to have a a very simple routine, a 5 minute a day routine.

But as the parent, you're going to say, you know, we're going to do this, and what you don't want to be doing is.

Sitting over your child while he's doing it and saying no, no, no, do that, do that, do that.

No.

A nice thing to do is to get to do the practice sheet yourself.

Sit alongside and, and you know, make sure it's not.

So you, you just literally do learn to focus on your sheet.

And then when you've both done a line or a bit, then you swap and you tick, you know which one you like best on each other's.

You've got to find a way to make the process enjoyable and that can just be through having a little bit of attention and time together.

So yeah, the routine is essential.

And it's things like, you know, it's like when people go to the the gym or do exercise in the new year, lots of us will start with good intentions, but try and do too much probably and then it all falls away.

So it's about getting really clear on the commitment and finding ways to make it actually quite a pleasurable experience.

And you know, that can take a little bit of time to get through.

There can be resistance, but you don't judge the resistance.

You're interested in it.

You're curious and you know you, you're there to walk beside and, and to make sure that you see your child through that little bit of struggle.

We can talk about that more another time.

I'd be happy to help Kieran, thank you.

That's really wise advice.

And I can see what you're saying about the curriculum assumption, you know, because like in maths, we've got this sort of watered down experience that a lot of students get, you know, no matter where they are in the world, because, you know, they don't actually get the opportunity to do the reasoning and the and the problem solving that the sort of slightly high retaining pupils.

Yeah, and the importance of the written process.

I mean, I'm, I, I haven't listened to it yet.

I'm desperate to the you did an episode about maths journaling.

And I'm really curious to listen to that episode because, you know, I'm sure a lot of mathematicians, without even realising it or maybe do realise it, but imagine if you couldn't write out your thinking by hand, if you couldn't explore it in that way, I think it would be a different experience.

What do you think?

Yeah, absolutely.

Yeah.

You need to make shorthand notes because for working memory is limited by design, you know, so you've got language comprehension that puts demands on it, mathematical difficulty, problem difficulty.

You need to have those notes there to help you, yes.

And if you, if you can't make legible sort of recognisable notations, you know, I think you're trying to hold too much in your head, I think.

And you want, you want that ability that, that opportunity to look back, don't you?

To, to, to the I mean, I was just doing a Sudoku yesterday.

Did did a couple of them.

The second one I rushed a bit.

So I made a mistake.

But I wanted to look back to, you know, you've got to look back to things, haven't you?

And have that moment where, where you recognise, oh, that's where I went wrong.

That's where it was.

Yeah, absolutely.

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If you could give every teacher one almost new way of seeing students written work that you think might change what they do next week, what would that lens be and how would you expect it to show up in their day-to-day practice?

I think the way I'd look at it differently is to make sure that you're looking at the hand, that handwriting as treasure, it's gold.

It's everything you need really to be able to work out what the children need for your teaching.

So rather than looking at the overview of that's messy, that looks beautiful, you know, these sort of judgments that are very natural but not particularly helpful.

Start small and just start with one child's book maybe once a week, but or just start a little routine where you get a cup of tea or you take a moment, you attach it to something you're doing and you just look really closely.

I like to use the analogy of Magic Eye pictures.

Do you know those 2D patterns?

And when you look in a certain way and adjust your perception, the 3D image pops out.

So that's what happens to me with handwriting.

If I, if I, if I glance over it, I just see the 2D, you know, But if I stop and spend a little bit of time and I'm thinking about things like where let us start where they are in relation to the lines, things just start to pop out to me.

And it's as simple as then sharing what you see with the children in your class.

So if you could take, you know, one example of writing, look at it, find something that you noticed that you hadn't noticed before.

And then you just share it with interests and curiosity with your children and say, oh, I was looking at some writing and I noticed that this started here.

And actually, for example, I was looking at a piece this week and the letter O starting at the bottom line and coming around clockwise and finishing at the bottom on the left, it looked like a no.

But when that child comes to join that letter, they're in completely the wrong place.

So you can just explain that to share what you see and explain why it's it's useful to do it a different way.

So that'd be my recommendation.

Start seeing handwriting as treasure evidence that's going to help you teach well and small details.

Let those small details because once the way our brains collect data and generalize, you know when you're thinking about where that small letters, where that letter starts, you know which other letters start in that place as well.

You can start to gradually build connection.

So in I think with with English grammar, I think strong and white seems to be like the the dominant convention forming duo.

And I remember 2016 Sats there was a big thing about apostrophes underneath a join or on top of a join and how that's not acceptable.

And I remember my first head teacher telling me not to loop my G's and my Y's.

Is there is there like a standards convention for handwriting that we that we subscribe to in English schools?

Or is it potluck as to where you're?

This, this again is coming up in next week's blog because it's, it's really interesting once, once I've started to develop, delve into the history of teacher training.

And you know, the, in the period up to the 60s, handwriting was part of a teacher's teacher training.

So teachers had practice books in the same way that children did.

And teachers had to get, have a certain standard of writing to pass aspects of their teacher training.

So although there wasn't a formal handwriting test, there were aspects of their training they couldn't pass if their handwriting wasn't, if their penmanship wasn't up to standard.

And of course that raise the importance in awareness and through practice.

And I think it was Marion Richardson was the sort of dominant style used as a as a basis then, but no things of a 12.

So you know what, the 60s came along and you know, there was resistance to some of the more formal techniques and things and and more of a move towards freedom of personality and expression and personal style.

And in a way, that's where things have fallen apart for handwriting because it becomes muddled and the writing framework doesn't go as far as as stating exactly, you know, it leaves lots of open opportunities for doesn't want schools to change and, and think if it's working well.

But it is a it would be, it would be much simpler for everybody if there was a completely uniform style as you see in countries like France.

And a teacher when I was in school last week was saying in Romania, you know, everybody's taught these same formations.

So it gets very confusing here when there are different opinions about formations, but there is a, a a basic script set out in one of the documents that supports the national curriculum.

And what I do is tend to respond to I can't have so many different formations because I hand write the sheet.

So I have very clear formations and with things like GI do a practice where it's, you know, just a regular GI do a loot practice.

Children love doing a loot practice.

Actually, it can be a really, for example, your son at his age, I would, it can be one of those little motivating things that feels a bit more adult, a bit a bit more mature.

And so it can be motivating if you're trying to, you know, do something to do something a little bit differently.

But there are, you know, not all letters have to join, but letters and really apart from X, they can join.

Some schemes, for example, won't join letters like BP and S because they end on the left, not on the right.

So it's, you know, it's not as easy, but you can you can join them.

It's just a slightly longer stroke.

So it's a really interesting point to raise.

And I think what you have to do is make sure that in your school you agree because it's not helpful for children if they are taught one formation by 1 teacher and then a different one.

That's not going to support the way the brain works as they get older.

You can have like alternative formations, as I said, for G and the way that I describe it to children and to teachers is to say it's like having a new pair of trainers.

So you can have more than one pair of trainers And you know, the one that you've used worn the most, that you've used the most is likely to be the one that will you'll use more automatically.

But you might want to sometimes put on your other set of trainers if you and put a, put a loop in and that's absolutely fine.

So yeah, it's about a balance now between having a a core set of formations, for example, our C base letters, and then looking at simple adaptations to as children get older and they have more control and they want a bit more autonomy and and self-expression.

Yeah, that makes a whole lot of sense.

I like the I like the trainer analogy.

I can imagine that you.

Use it all the time with pen hold actually, because again, as we were saying, as I was saying with handwriting, you know, the visual production of handwriting, we can feel very vulnerable.

It's out there.

You can't hide it.

Often children will try and make their writing small to, to hide it and then that becomes a habit and then it so.

But Penhold again, when I was at, when I went to secondary school, I was in one of my English lessons and Mr.

Cowan, the teacher, who was quite a strict teacher, kept me behind at the end of the lesson.

And I was with, I was going to say I was quite a good, good girl at school, not always, but quite often.

So I was a bit shocked at being kept behind and even more shocked when he said to me, I've noticed that your pen hold is wrong and you're going to go to some lunchtime sessions to correct it.

And it was a really quite a traumatic thing for me because I, I was very proud.

I had neat handwriting and I didn't know my pen hold was wrong.

So yeah, I felt very embarrassed.

I felt quite angry.

I didn't want to give up my lunchtimes to go and do something.

So I was actually became a little bit more rebellious at that age.

And I went to a session and I, and then I actually refused to go.

But I have my, my, my established pen hold is a quadrupod grip where I have two fingers on top.

And this is again, something, you know, the writing framework is saying that the majority, in the majority of cases, children must have a tripod grip.

And again, I understand that with a document like this, because it's speaking to the masses.

And if we can get children right in reception writing with a tripod grip with one finger on top.

So it's the three digits touching the pen, then that will become normal.

Their bodies, their brains, their body, they will learn to calibrate and that will become stable.

For me personally, I I've taught myself to write with a tripod grip, but a quadrupod grip is more stable for me.

And So what we want is distal control where the fingers have the ability to move.

We don't want thumb wraps or thumb tucks, anything that's going to cause long term, you know, pain and discomfort if children are writing for any length of time.

But I've gone off at a tangent here, but to go back to the parent new trainers thing, children feel very resistant to changing a pen hold because it's going to feel uncomfortable.

It won't feel familiar to start with.

Their handwriting is likely to look worse because the brain hasn't calibrated.

Things are wobbly.

So my approach is always to give them the, you know, it's just like having another pair of trainers and actually once you've done it enough, it will start your brain and work it all out.

So don't feel you've got to use it all the time.

You can always put your old comfy trainers on, that's fine.

But every time you do a practice, if you just do one line with your new trainers, your new pen hold and give your brain and body a chance to get used to it, and before you know it, your brain's going to go.

Actually, that's a lot more comfortable because I've watched children, I've videoed children with pen holding without them even knowing when they've got a thumb tuck, when it's they'll have to release the thumb.

Quite often there's little flick that happens.

So yeah, new trainers.

Yeah, I mean, this actually reminds me of my golf swing because my golf swing was the wrong.

I mean, I don't know if I mean basically my friends said it was cat handed.

I don't I don't know what the origin of that is.

So I really hope it's not offensive to anyone.

But I told it the wrong way around and but it worked and we could play golf.

But actually in terms of in a, in a sport where sort of efficiency of swing is central, it wasn't conducive to any sort of.

Oh, Kieran, I've watched, I've watched on YouTube loads of Tiger Woods videos, watching him coaching others to adjust their grip.

And I always find it fascinating.

I use sport so much because it's just such a natural comparison really.

You know, the, the brain and body, we're having to sort of coordinate and, and to make these to have this control over the tools we want to use, whatever the purpose is.

But if you're in sports and a coach, especially somebody you look up to and gives you little tips or if you're on strictly and you've just done the performance and the judges say, oh, but your knees, you know, your toes need to be, then we, we take it and we'll sort of lap it up and we want that.

But if you're handwriting and somebody suggests you make an improvement, often is a very different response.

There's just that real feeling of judgement and of not being of, you know, vulnerability.

As I explained, I felt and I was told my pen hold was wrong.

So using sports can be a really great way to help children understand what we're doing and to welcome those little top tips that we can give them.

So I mean this, this feels like the start of a conversation rather than the end of it.

You know, I think there's definitely more to.

Oh yeah.

And what I would love, I mean, I'd love to come back here.

And, and what I'd love to do is like just focus on one little thing and maybe your listeners could, you know, pose some things they'd like to find out more about.

Because yeah, it's, it's a, as I say, it's a journey and, and it's just a fascinating 1.

And I've learnt so much about how my brain works through the process and again, that's really useful to share with children.

Yeah, sounds good.

I mean, I mean, that would be really interesting to see where that ended up because obviously Sarah recommended to this episode in the 1st place.

And then if someone to comment, you know, wherever they listen to the podcast and say, this is what I, you know, because I think one thing we do quite well in the podcast is go really niche and look at really small elements of practice, you know?

Yeah.

So, so that's definitely, that's definitely something, you know, that's that in character to to do that.

And so, yeah.

So let's let's let's look out for those and we'll maybe look into 2026 and we'll see what the where the conversation goes to.

But it's been an absolute pleasure.

Thank you very much to Sarah for recommending this episode.

Thank you very much for joining me, Nikki.

I really appreciate it.

Thank you, I really enjoyed it.

It's lovely to meet you, Kieran.

And everyone at home, until next time, thanks for listening.