MADDY Barnes gives a new meaning to the term "hands on" teaching after proving that a regular massage can improve a child's handwriting.

The 27-year-old has spent the past six months carrying out a unique experiment with pupils at All Souls' RC Primary School in Weaste, Salford, where she has taught for the past four years.

Following a 16-week trial, Miss Barnes has concluded that weekly massages improve boys' handwriting skills and pupils' confidence in the classroom. The children have been massaging one another on their backs and hands after she taught them the basic techniques.

Now many of the school's 130 pupils have written to Tony Blair urging the government to include regular massage in the National Curriculum.

Miss Barnes, from Altrincham, won backing from the Department for Education and Skills, who helped fund her research through a Best Practice Research Scholarship. She hopes teachers throughout the country will use her findings when she finishes it in December.

She got the idea for the experiment after teaching massage to her own class of six and seven-year-olds over three years. After the all clear from her head teacher Julie Bainbridge, she split 16 year-four pupils into two groups of eight during weekly literacy lessons.

Excited

For the first eight weeks, one group would massage one another; then the roles were reversed for the next eight weeks. The pupils were unaware they were being tested, but filled in regular questionnaires.

"I was so excited when some of them reported that their handwriting was better," she said. "My main conclusion so far is that massage can improve boys' writing, but I have not finished yet."

Although she saw an improvement in the confidence of girls following a massage, the sessions did not affect their handwriting as much as their male counterparts.

"Males press harder on a piece of paper, so they give up writing quicker because their hands are tense," she said. "Once they have been massaged, they are writing more quantity and quality."

One bright pupil who benefited most was 10-year-old Matthew Moran, who said: "I used to just print words, but now I do joined up writing. It used to be all over the page and now I stick to the lines."

blaise.tapp@men-news.co.uk

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