2024 Handwriting Competition - Bertie Year 5.jpeg

Bertie is in Year 5 (age 9-10).

In this area, this school year is the first one that one spends at ‘Middle School’ (ages 9-13).

Middle Schools are, in my opinion, an eminently sensible idea. I don’t think it’s a good idea to try to teach 11-year-olds in the same schools as 16 year old boys and girls.
But many of the school districts in this country do house kids in one school from ages 4-11, and then another school from ages 11-18. So maybe I’m wrong.

I wanted to show Bertie’s handwriting because it is quite different to the model that he has been taught. Although he does write the model’s flattened-‘f’, he writes his glyphs with very tall ascenders.
I am happy to see that ‘deviation’ of this kind is no longer met with a rap across the knuckles with a ruler (or worse).