The Great New Zealand
Handwriting Challenge
TRANSFORMING LEARNING, LETTER BY LETTER
Let’s make New Zealand the handwriting capital of the world.
Join teachers across Aotearoa in a fun, uplifting challenge to boost student handwriting through just ten minutes a day of focused handwriting instruction. Build confidence, improve literacy, and celebrate progress along the way.
Why Handwriting Matters
Did you know that teaching students to write letters fluently improves the quality of their writing?
When kids can form letters automatically, their brains are freed up to express interesting ideas and use more sophisticated language.
Handwriting doesn’t just support writing, it builds the brain pathways needed for reading, helping students recognise patterns and remember words.
Most importantly, handwriting builds confidence and motivation. When it becomes easy, students feel better about their writing, and are more eager to do it.
And the best part? It’s easy to teach and students love it. All it takes is ten minutes a day.
Our Goal
To make New Zealand famous for having the best handwriting teaching programmes in the world.
Why Handwriting?
Fluent handwriting frees up brain space for more creative thinking and better writing
Practising letter shapes strengthens reading and memory pathways
Confident handwriting = confident, motivated learners
It only takes ten minutes a day, and students love it
How We’ll Get There
We’re building a community of handwriting champions to:
Share knowledge about the why, what, and how of teaching handwriting
Promote access to professional learning and teaching resources
Encourage participation in our nationwide micro-challenge
About the Micro-Challenge
A chance to have fun, lift writing confidence, and create a buzz around handwriting in your classroom.
The Micro-Challenge is a 20-week student handwriting competition that celebrates progress, not perfection.
Teachers will select one or more students and collect a handwriting sample at the start of their handwriting teaching. After 20 weeks of daily 10-minute handwriting lessons, teachers submit a second sample from the same student showing how far they’ve come.
The most-improved examples will win a $100 koha, which the student can use to host a class celebration—because progress deserves to be celebrated!
Any handwriting sample created in 2025 can be used as your “before” sample
Teachers upload photos of both samples at the end of Term 3 holidays
Students don’t compete against each other—they simply show how they have improved
Handwriting Teaching Support Videos
We’ve created a series of short videos to support you in the classroom.
They cover the why, what, and how of teaching handwriting, making it easy to understand the purpose behind it, what to focus on, and how to teach it effectively.
Use them to build your own confidence or share with colleagues. Each video is practical, encouraging, and designed to help you make the most of just ten minutes a day.
Why?
What?
How?
Behind the Challenge
Our Founders
The Handwriting Challenge was initiated by Dr Helen Walls and Dr Christine Braid, two educators deeply committed to helping children succeed.
For them, this is a labour of love and all of their time and energy is given voluntarily, with no income received.
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Dr Helen Walls is a professional learning facilitator and educational researcher, with twenty years’ experience working in schools. She is committed to raising achievement in writing by sharing evidence-based, practical methods that will engage every student. Helen is Managing Director of The Writing Teacher - a consultancy which provides writing workshops and resources for teachers, all accessible online. She also works in schools as a professional learning facilitator. For her PhD thesis, Helen conducted two empirical studies into the teaching of writing. The first was a trial of the Fast Feedback Formative Evaluation System. The second was a survey of teachers’ beliefs and practices, and an investigation of the impacts of these on student achievement. She has published with The Australian Journal of Learning Difficulties and The Education Hub.
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Christine is an educator with both practical and research experience. She was a classroom teacher for 12 years and has been involved in teacher education with Massey University for over 20 years. Christine leads the Tātai Angitu Literacy team and works across Aotearoa New Zealand to support teachers in implementing practice that improves outcomes for learners. Along with teaching qualifications, Christine has completed a Diploma of Children’s Literature, a MEd focused on using picture books for discussion, and a PhD focused on the explicit approach for teaching reading. She is pleased to have worked with Dr Helen Walls for the book Teaching writing, spelling, and grammar.
Join our Facebook group to share information and resources, to stay informed about upcoming events, and to stay connected with the TGNZHC community.
Our Supporters
The challenge is made possible thanks to the support of those who share the vision.
The Tui Trust has generously funded our website and marketing, allowing us to grow the challenge and reach more teachers across Aotearoa.
STAEDTLER NZ Ltd is a proud key sponsor of The Great New Zealand Handwriting Challenge. Committed to supporting child development through handwriting, STAEDTLER values the opportunity to stand alongside educators in promoting the importance of handwriting from an early age.
STAEDTLER has been actively involved in New Zealand’s education sector since 1956 and is dedicated to making a measurable difference in students’ learning. By providing high-quality writing tools and classroom resources, they help support children’s development and success throughout their school years.
Together, we are working to make handwriting a celebrated and supported part of every student’s learning journey.