ABSTRACT
The simplification of the models used for young children soon became an important issue. There was no national handwriting model. The Final Report of the School Board for London 1870–1904 revealed: ‘The board have never imposed any uniform system of writing upon their schools’. The curriculum in Great Britain had developed partly by official regulation, partly as a result of advice from the inspectorate, within a system that traditionally gave some freedom to the heads of schools. Local education authorities sometimes ruled on some aspects of certain subjects, but usually after prior consultation with their teachers. One of the consequences has been the proliferation of different handwriting models. Freedom of choice still exists, to a certain extent, in the 1990s within the National Curriculum. It sets goals for handwriting but prescribes neither method nor model.
