Fountain Pens In Uk Schools?

[PaulS]

if our current abilities with a pen are any valid reflection on our formative years, then heaven's know what people should make of me. I'm chastised, often, for not writing............... "you have how many pens!!!! - and you don't write - what sort of f.p. person are you" they say.

 

At age 8 (1954 I think) we were given dip pens - I really can't remember what I used before then - presumably a pencil. We sat at heavy oak and cast iron desks - which were linked in pairs - with an ink well at the top right corner, and our pen was a wooden dowel c. 5" (130 mm) long, and the steel nib was a push fit to one end. We practiced by copying capital and small letters (I don't remember anyone using the expression 'upper and lower case'). Capital letters had to be of a height that reached the ruled line above - and the tall consonants such as h, l, b etc. had to be two thirds that height - vowels and the smaller letters were supposed to be one third of the height of a capital.

This dip pen use lasted only for about couple of years, and we then were able to use f.ps.

 

As a matter of habit - when I do write, it's still almost entirely in joined up cursive style, but the ruin set in a long time ago. Biro/ball pens allow quicker writing - so a once very legible and neat hand becomes sloppy - contraction of words sets in, and in a world of commerce where directors suddenly descend and dictate thoughts rapidly which have to be put on paper, mostly makes for illegible rubbish - except to the writer.

Perhaps this is partly why I don't write with a f.p. But there are other reasons. At commercial college I learned to touch type, and it's so much quicker than long hand - the pc now corrects spelling - and nothing is smudged on the paper, and there isn't a cartridge to expire, unpredictably.

We live too in a world so often without patience, where speed is necessary, and there are so many things to be done in a day that leisurely writing would appear to ask to much of my valuable time. But as another retired old geyser, then of course in theory I do have the time, and life is only what we make it - just that old habits are difficult to break.

Like most of us I'd imagine, I love the aesthetics and beauty of copperplate long hand - but in the C19 there was a different outlook on the use of time.

F.ps. have come a long way since I used cheapies back in the 1950s - my background was poor working class (I say that as most folk are working class) - no Parker's or C.S. for me - just Queensway or Platignum. ............... but gosh, am I clever now

 

I think the use of f.ps. in schools is a good direction to be going in - hopefully their handwriting will not be dragged down by the use, a little later on, of biros and roller balls, but then who knows - maybe no one will be handwriting in fifty years hence - we'll all be talking into our watches, and using keyboards - and historians will say "sorry, what was a fountain pen??"

[tamiya]

"Free First Hit!" Get 'em young, get 'em hooked for life

 

Handwriting is good, makes one slow down & PAUSE for proper thought.

 

Otherwise unless you consciously stop to plan before taptaptapping away on a keyboard, the flow is too fast for proper thought & consideration on a topic. Ends up like verbal diarrhoea & reads like garbage.

 

Current big issue around here is Newspress going hungry - why aren't people reading newspapers anymore? (or more to the point, why has press Ad revenues crashed 40%?) got an easy answer got those clueless bots in charge - do the big shots even read what their journos churn out? Most articles are so woefully scripted (if not downright plagiarised & retweeted) with glaring spellos to boot, lately I can't even recommend Reading The Paper to my kids to try improve their skills.

 

Fast is not good for everything, often a bit of slowing down makes output manyfold better.

[MercianScribe]

I think writing implement policy in the UK is determined school by school.

 

Back in the 80s when I went to school, at mine we had to use FPs. It was always the cheap ones of course, so most people ended up with Sheaffer No Nonsense or Parker Vector, and a few would go for cheap Osmiroid (like me!).

[marcelo]

Well, dont know about UK schools but here use of fountain pens is mandatory until one finishes high school. Ballpoint pens are allowed only in colleges and universities.

Here where?

 

It's because I don't recognize your flag.

Edited July 13, 2017 by marcelo

[mitto]

Here where?

It's because I don't recognize your flag.

Read post #5 above.

[Arkanabar]

Here where?

 

It's because I don't recognize your flag.

 

Right-click image of flag. Select "Copy Image Location". Paste location anywhere you like, that you can read it.

[dapprman]

When I was at infant school it was pencil. At junior school, it was not until the 3rd year of 4th year that you could use a ball point, and UK seem to remember some measure had to be met to be allowed. There were blue plastic and looked like dip pens will bell ends. I have vague memories I did play with a fountain pen at home in my later days there.

 

I was fortunate to go to an English Public School, and while there I always used a fountain pen, however I'm certain it was not mandatory, and while everyone seemed to use fountain pens, and boys will be boys, I don;t remember any peer pressure as I remember being caught playing 'air battles' with a Parker 25 and a cheap Reynauld by a teacher. I seem to remember using the latter for a fair bit without any pressure or (bleep) being taken.

[ParkerDuofold]

Here where?

 

It's because I don't recognize your flag.

Hi Marcelo, et al,

 

If you click on the users ID, it takes you to their profile page, (you'll have to click on "full screen" if you're using a smartphone); the flags are identified in the member's profile page.

 

Be well and enjoy life.

 

- Anthony

[sandy101]

It depends upon the school. In our area, some school kids seem to be using Lamys with blue or black ink. Thirty years ago we have to use Fps until we were 16. After that we could use what we liked as long as they could read our handwriting.

 

It depends upon the school.

[chaik76]

No pens at all in school here. We used pencils all the way through with pens used for final drafts of English and History papers in middle and high school (now typed on a computer). The same with my own children, who range from elementary to high school.

Edited August 15, 2017 by chaik76

[Pendarion]

Sorry for the long reply! But this is interesting.

 

I went to a village primary school followed by a dog rough comprehensive school, in the 1970s and went to uni in 1980.

 

Later, became a teacher and have seen all my kids through school (Child No.5 is about to enter Y11). My kids went to a dog rough sports college high school - so poor it is about to convert to an academy.

 

I think the landscape is changing, as academies and little private schools spring up with pretensions, and they will be more likely to encourage FP usage. (Not saying that FPs are pretentious - I love them and they are not. But Head teachers tend to get obsessed with weird stuff and decide that instigating them will somehow make parents perceive their school to be a 'good' one).

 

I taught when the National Curriculum had been introduced and still covered every subject in primary - including having to teach Handwriting which frankly, horrified me as I'd been to the kind of schools where handwriting was thought to have been consigned, as a school subject, to the history books so I had never learned cursive and there I was suddenly being told to teach it. We were teaching kids upto Y5 or 6 writing with pencils, then they had to do this horrendously boring Handwriting curriculum - suddenly switching to biros. Not FPs. TBH I taught in sink schools in areas where even £5 asked for a school trip was out of the question. The LEA didn't provide even pencils for the kids, let alone pens. And more than once I found myself at the start of a year, on close to minimum wage, having to buy 35 pencils for my kids to be able even to start work. So expecting them to suddenly spring for even the cheapest FP would be a pipe dream. But of course the government didn't give a monkey's about that so suddenly there we were having to deliver Handwriting to kids who only had a pencil because I bought them from my wages. I couldn't have afforded 35 FPs! Biros would have been pushing it.

 

My own experience was different. Small village school - very mixed demographic, so everything from kids with fabulously wealthy parents to those on council estates. In what is now called Y6, (6th grade) the school bought a job lot of, IRRC, Osmiroids and we paid a subsidised price for them. So we switched direct from pencil writing to FP writing.

 

The old girls' school was an 1870s' Board school building which still had Victorian desks with ink wells! Sadly we never got to use them as the year before we graduated to FPs, a new school was built.

 

No handwriting taught. I never learned cursive and to this day, print.

 

I loved ink pens, as we called them.

 

My own kids have never used FPs apart from the one who studies Graphic Design (He has a Rotring Art Pen). They would probably have commented to me if anyone at their school cracked open a pencil case and a FP came out of it!

 

I think as the school will be an Academy next month there may be some directive issued from on high.

 

I have worked in many, many schools in the 1990s and early 2000s as a supply teacher, and never saw a FP in the wild.

 

But I suspect they may be coming back, along with the 1950s' style exams and the obsession with uniform and all things 1950s.

 

 

At high school I used a FP as did a girl who sat next to me, who taught me to write italics (in a rudimentary kind of way). We had Platignums with italic nibs, and cheap as those pens were, two lasted me many years and I got the nibs perfect for me, over time! But in the 1970s, me and the girl next to me were unusual - other people had FPs but maybe only a couple in each class.

 

Not long after my mum died, when I would have been in what is now Y7, my mum's friend bought me a FP one christmas and it was stolen at school, after just one day. (I even knew who had it as they wrote with it openly right in front of me - but there was nothing we could do!) So you didn't take 'nice' pens to school and even a cheap FP was often seen as 'expensive' - compared to a throwaway Bic.

Edited August 18, 2017 by Pendarion

[Superficial]

I went to school in England (1990-2003) and we learnt to write with pencils. At age 7 or so, once your writing was deemed good enough, you were presented with a fountain pen. They made a big deal out of it - every Friday they would give out a few pens to children whose writing had reached the required standard. I remember the heartbreak of being passed over week after week - it was quite cruel really! I can picture the pens - they were red and plastic (and no doubt very inexpensive) - but I can't remember the brand. We were expected to complete all our work in fountain pen, I don't remember teachers being particularly militant, it was just the done thing.

 

Later in my school years, I remember Parker Vectors seemed to be standard issue (from WH Smith, naturally - where else would one buy stationary?). Pretty much everyone had them, the only variance was the colour. In secondary school when the teacher wasn't looking, we'd use the pens as a weapon to flick ink at each other. It was ok though since blue Quink ink could be removed from shirts with those magic eraser pens.

 

After I left school, I don't think I touched a fountain pen for 10 years.

[psimpson130]

Growing up in the states (60s-70s) we were not required to use FPs. Started using a basic Schaefer in junior high (7th grade) and never looked back. Always had several spare cartridges on hand. Still had a ballpoint as a spare - usually a Parker jotter or a Bic. All through college it was also the same combination, however, the level of the FP would change.

 

When I was flying for the Air Force as a navigator, the FP went out and I stuck primarily with the Scripto pen/pencil sets. Always used a mechanical pencil. The only wood pencil I had on my desk was one of the double-ended red/blue ones. When I wasn't flying, I used a FP. After retiring from the AF, over 20 years ago, I went almost exclusively to FPs and haven't looked back. When working tech support the company provided the ball points because they had a tendency to walk. Any letters/important documents I sign now are always in FP and I have used it as part of a signature verification.

 

What makes this really fun is I write with my left hand from below the line. I have been told that I am what is called a "mirror-imaged right hander" even though I use the left My handwriting tends to be vertical and I can write real small.

 

Paul

[PaulS]

quote ....................... "At high school I used a FP as did a girl who sat next to me" .............. wish I'd had a girl sitting next to me.

I think in my day they were to afraid that out attention might have been diverted had we 'mixed'.

[OCArt]

Ha, I had forgotten about those double ended two-color pencils! Thanks for the memories, Paul.

{much snipped out} The only wood pencil I had on my desk was one of the double-ended red/blue ones. {snipped again}

 

Paul

[virgilio]

Manuscript sells their Dodec in lots of 20 and I think also 50 to UK schools, so somebody must be using them.

[fortniteexists2021]

I went to U.K. schools. Most people use Bic Cristal or zebra pens basic ballpoint . It’s ultimately rare to spot someone using a fountain pen (except from me)

[mizgeorge]

 

6 hours ago, fortniteexists2021 said:

I went to U.K. schools. Most people use Bic Cristal or zebra pens basic ballpoint . It’s ultimately rare to spot someone using a fountain pen (except from me)

Really? My daughter (admittedly a sixth former now) has been using a fountain pen almost exclusively since year 7, and regularly before that. She is most certainly not alone amongst her year group.