Handwriting's the winner at Ashmore

Published: 21 August 2011
By: Karl Brien

Winners of the inaugural Handwriting Competition at Guardian Angels' with judges handwriting expert Roger Britton (right) and principal Terry Gimpel (left)

A COMPETITION to bring back the art of good handwriting has attracted more than 600 entries at Guardian Angels' Catholic Primary School, Ashmore.

The inaugural Guardian Angels' Handwriting Competition stemmed from a need to keep handwriting formation, style and fluency in equal importance as the commitment to the significant ICLT focus at the school.

Guardian Angels' principal Terry Gimpel enlisted the help of calligrapher and handwriting expert Roger Britton to conduct an in-service for staff on the finer arts of handwriting.

Mr Britton was then invited to every classroom where he showed the students the finer points of good handwriting.

Mr Gimpel said children learned the fundamentals in the early years, developing into their own creative style in the latter years of primary and then secondary school.

Inspired by the in-service, the school purchased sets of calligraphy pens to be used across the year levels for special writing purposes.

This then developed into a need to showcase the beautiful writing being produced and so the handwriting competition was born.

More than 600 students as well as some keen staff members entered the competition.

School grandparent and talented calligrapher Rok O'Keefe preformed the initial judging; where he had the difficult job of sifting through all the entries to choose the finalists.

Mr Gimpel and Mr Britton handled the final judging, which according to both, was a difficult task as the standard of handwriting was so good.

Encouragement prizes to inspire beautiful handwriting were given at assembly.

As there was such a great response to the competition and an even better result, the school decided to make the competition an annual event where well-formed, proficient and personalised penmanship is celebrated.