Sunday Post claims 77% of Scots children are losing ability to use pencil based on less than 0.2% of 25 000 Scottish Primary teachers

Professor John Robertson OBA

In the Scottish Sunday Post, today, the above and:

It’s a UK poll of 569 primary school teachers so around 50 in Scotland of whom 77% or 38 thought the above. Less that 0.2% of more than 25 000 across Scotland. It’s not even slightly credible.

20 thoughts on “Sunday Post claims 77% of Scots children are losing ability to use pencil based on less than 0.2% of 25 000 Scottish Primary teachers”

  2. When I started school in 1945 I learned to write with a slate pencil, then a lead pencil before moving on to a pen with a nib that had to be dipped into ink that had been mixed up from powder. I developed my writing skills in hand delivered letters exchanged with grandparents, aunts, uncles and others in the local area.

    My own children learned to write with a pencil before moving on to ball point pens and missed out on the use of well placed ink blots to disguise doubtful spelling, blue stained fingers and the never to be forgotten taste of fresh ink. They were encouraged to develope their writing skills in occasional letters to, usually short term, pen pals around the world but used telephone land lines as their preferred means of communication.

    Their children learned to write in pencil then ball point pens before moving on to keyboards and developing their writing skills by communicating with family, friends and others almost on a daily basis. Their communication are by means of mobile phones and WiFi with digital chats, emails and even video calls.

    My great grandchildren will have learned to write with a pencil but probably move on to use fully integrated communications software with audio and video channels and speech recognition software to produce any necessary documation.

    We should be relieved that only 2% of Scotland’s teachers think that this is a retrograde process.

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  3. Finger trouble, the decimal point has vanished from the 0.2%.

    Probably I should have sent a hand written letter to Professor Robertson that could have been edited before publication.

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  4. Indeed it is a ridiculous front page – The 5 day old Times article at least https://archive.ph/PZ9JF didn’t attempt to regionalise it.

    What amused me most was remembering the adjective ‘correctly’ – Drummed into us in P1 early on as 65 years ago, tongues out to the side to show concentration, we ‘correctly’ held the freshly sharpened pencils, variously resharpened as each fragment shot across the classroom whilst practising hanrwritingd before moving onto ink in dedicated pots for the desks and nibs on dowels…

    My handwriting remains shite to this day, probably because I stopped sticking my tongue out to one side, but as for my art capabilities, 3 coats of emulsion a day is my record…

    Why the UK is obsessed with measuring capabilities in children rather than better understanding what makes them tick as individuals, and allowing their talent and intellect to blossom will forever be a puzzle…

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    1. Aye not like the old days anymore, when kids were obedient and quiet little pencil users, trained to be factory and cannon fodder. Art is a waste of time, and money, paints and stuff costs and artists have to pay for that themselves then virtually give their artworks
      away. I saw an article the other day, so funny, I had to laugh hysterically. ”$13.6 million sets new record for LIVING WOMAN ARTIST at auction”. OMG, living!
      As my dear friend art collector used to say, ‘the best move for an artist is to die’! Usually anyway.

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      1. ” As my dear friend art collector used to say, ‘the best move for an artist is to die’! Usually anyway ” remains largely true.

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        1. Yes indeed.
          Though some careerists types get on very well, if they know the right people, re jobs in art schools and other arts institutions etc. I gave up making artworks, the competition (the art scene) can be very toxic to say the least, the pandemic made it all worse. It’s expensive being an artist, unpaid time spent, tools, materials, and entering open exhibitions to which your work can be turned down especially if you know people on the panel. Nope, I don’t miss that at all

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  5. “Sunday Post claims”

    Don’t they just….and they are doing it deliberately too…….

    Unfortunately what they mostly, as a newspaper (INO) , “claim” is not so much news per se , but more really a succession of Scotland is Sh*te articles peppered also with a far too many #SNPBAD articles as well.

    I wonder if it’s Oor Willie and the Broons that is carrying them as a paper.

    I say that because I have to hope that no one actually buys their (lack of real) news in their (toilet) paper as a chosen news media option, that for them, as readers, sees the SP as a reliable and trustworthy source of information.

    Their so called ‘news’ articles, like Oor Willie and the Broons, is subject to repeats in their stories , as in on certain aspects of politics in Scotland connected to the SNP as the Scottish government i.e. #SNPBAD on a weekly loop ( a popular topic with most of the media in Scotland and elsewhere too).

    Who owns The Sunday Post ?

    DC Thomson , who also produce other comics as well as The Sunday Post, like The Beano and The Dandy , where coincidentally one of the characters from The Beano, Lord Snooty (a Tory Lord) also writes for The Sunday Post, and it shows too in his writing how infantile his many articles and headlines are. (only kidding , but come on it could be possible, have you read The Sunday Post lately – as a punishment that is).

    You know I am so sick of the media it’s just beyond a joke .

    #NoRespectForUKMedia

    Vote SNP in 2026 via a majority , if nothing else to prove to The Sunday Post that no matter all of their “Claims” that they have sourced from a few disgruntled others, we in Scotland prefer to rely on more credible and honest sources for our news. As opposed to a media that constantly talks Scotland down and also constantly talks down the party that I am a member of, support and also vote for.

    (Apologies for my sarcastic and jokey tone above but I am fair getting burnt oot with all of this sh*t on a loop, surely something eventually has to give with those people in Scotland who are still at the ‘unconvinced’ stage upon Scottish independence. I mean the UK as a State has provided enough evidence to them to prove that Scotland is very much worse off within it as a State.

    #NotBetterTogether

    #BetterApart

    Liz S

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  7. Anyways all kids need to know is how to make money, how to manage it, how to aquire property, how to keep that money and property, (by not giving it away to anyone else however selfishly) and they’ll thrive. The ones who don’t learn those life skills need to know how to grow vegetables, and other crops, make do and mend lol, how to survive in the wild in case of the apocalypse, how to survive when things get tough, like their greedy landlord makes them homeless on a whim, and lastly how to escape conscription and being forced to ‘fight’ by the rich oligarchs.

    The pathetic ‘media’ are pandering to the older voters who don’t use mobile phones, or computers and who blame the young for all the world’s ills. Thankfully that demographic are ever fewer and anyway the older folks spend far too much time not using pencils these days!
    Sheesh!

    So, study accountancy, maybe law, economics anything but arts or sciences, that’s my (cynical) advice. Ditch the pencils, trade on the stock market soon as you can, set up a (big) buisness somehow, get money whichever way you can, keep it and you’ll do alright.

    Of course failing that, get into politics and snatch a job as an MP or something, that always seem quite a lucrative passtime.

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  9. Certainly it is becoming an absolute skill, and the new motor skills are mainly screen and keyboard related. Anybody who has seen a young pers

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  10. Computers help kids to learn. Computers help neurodiverse people to write, spell and communicate.

    Pity about the Media

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  11. Historian Tom Nairn once famously said: “Scotland will never be free until the last minister is strangled by the last copy of the Sunday Post.”

    He was right.

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