Year 7,8, do they need to use sewing machines?

Ours usually finish their stuff tbh.

Rabbit - I sew and knit at home but not for a living. That's not exactly vocational.

Basic needle skills are as important as cooking skills. Obviously, you won't become ill if you can't sew a bit, but you can save a lot of money by knowing how to mend or adjust garments or furnishings or at least having the basic skills that you can build on if you find yourself needing to make a school shirt last another couple of months so you don't have to replace it out of your food budget.

No textiles? All the schools we visited have to do some sewing even boys.

It's 2014 not 1974 it is so depressing that sewing is still seen as a girls' subject

Oranges, thats nice to hear, but do they actually have time to finish things and get the sarisfaction of a job well done.

The 'Messing about' in DT subjects takes many forms, not simply obvious bad behaviour, but a lot of not listening, not getting on with the job and endless requiring things explaining over again.

Children know schools, society and many of their parents don't properly respect craft subjects so they don't either.

I try my best with DD2, but she hates craft of all forms, except cooking and believe s she's usless at it.

She isn't, but the tiny amount of time devoted to DT and needlework and the total impossibility of ever finishing anything really doesn't help.

I would have thought that was the norm Oranges, for any decent teacher which you clearly are. There will always always be some that are prone to mess about but they can be handled surely? I personally know DS's textile teacher (she comes to my quilt group as it happens and I did an evening class with her a few years back, before DS went to the school) and I can't imagine she takes any crap either. In no way is the subject a doss for anybody.

I would never have messed with my sewing and HE teachers back in the day. They were too scary!!

My classes are all unsetted. They do not mess about! Most of them work really hard!

Mucking about in craft subjects is a slightly different problem, than in academic subjects.

In most things setting by academic ability, means at least the top two sets do somework, some of the time.

Unset, textiles is treated as a doss by all, but a few DC, who really like making things. They are hard groups to disapline and all abilities are tempted to take the piss.

This is magnified by the fact the pupils know, school doesn't value the subjects either as they aren't time tabled enough time to finish anything.

This is very sad because practical subjects are valuable not only for some career paths, but for fun and relaxation through school and adult life.

DD1 has no intention of going to art school, but is doing A level art to stay sane, after finding GCSE a blessed (if hard work) release at GCSE.

If they were able to enjoy textiles, DT etc further down the school I think many other DCs would do the same and we wouldn't get school is forcing my A* DC to waste a GCSE on art/DT threads.

also gives students who aren't particularly academic something which they may excell in. They were in a different group from some of their form so encouraged new friendship groups.

yes students did mess about but would do so in all lessons

School friend of mine was good at art. She did A level and the Art foundation as it was then (don't know if it still is) and did a degree in textile design and technology. She had to have certain science qualifications as well as art ones to get on the course.

And yes it can be respected subject - DD of a friend is just about to apply to our local art college to fashion and textiles and the awarding body is a RG university which means the entry requirements are quite tough. It certainly isn't an easy option for the bottoms sets.

Aren't kids who mess about a problem in all classes in all subjects? As it happens they are sort of set for textiles in DS's school in that the technology group he was in was determined by the maths group he was in. I assume it was for timetable purposes but the upshot was that the high achievers were all in the same group which meant less of the children who mess around. I won't say none because no class is without the difficult ones. I don't think setting for textiles will solve that.

I think mucking about types are a problem in every set, how it worked in my schools.

I know someone just completed a 2.1 in alternative materials engineering course (RG Uni if that kind of thing matters to you). They're doing things like designing water filters out of tough textiles.

How is textiles a "work pathway"? I did textiles, purely because I enjoyed sewing, creating things that were beautiful and useful, never had any intention of working in the local t shirt factory ( as we girls were told was our destiny). Some kids might combine it with art and end up in the massively successful fashion industry, but many will take their new skills away and use it for (shock horror) fun.
(Btw, I think all the additional subjects -music, art, drama, dt are essential to a rounded education. Watch them vanish over the next few years)

Textiles is only a waste of time, as is DT because school doesnt set it into DCs like DD1 who are interested and want to learn and the DD2's of this world who just muck about.

Textiles is only a waste of time, as is DT because school doesnt set it into DCs like DD1 who are interested and want to learn and the DD2's of this world who just muck about.

Textiles is only a waste of time, as is DT because school doesnt set it into DCs like DD1 who are interested and want to learn and the DD2's of this world who just muck about.

Yes, DD needed a sewing machine at home in year 8. In fact, art homework became known as 'who has the best sewing machine' or 'who lives closest to grandma' (hollow laugh).

Brain surgeons use textiles in their day to day work.

5% of what you learn at school is useful. The problem is that its impossible to predict which 5% you use. I am glad that my son had the opportunity to learn sewing. However I suspect that his teacher is jumping for joy that he is now onto woodwork.

I would be quite happy for my son to jack in school music and do more sewing. Unfortunately my son hated sewing with a passion.

A well rounded education includes practical as well as academic subjects.

Dd's school have just stopped textiles. Sacked all the textile dept. she enjoyed it. But never needed a machine at home.

OP, the DC didnt use a sewing machine at home at all in Y7/8 - the textiles they did was about sewing for a purpose and homework was all paperwork.

DD chose Art - textiles for GCSE in Y9, which is an art course but they do the art through textiles as opposed to drawing/painting/photography IYSWIM! She has used my ancient machine a bit, but it is pretty rubbish for free embroidery despite servicing and this has caused a bit of angst at times

Don't need a home sewing machine unless they want to do GCSE textiles. The lessons amount to like once a fortnight one term only each yr before yr 10. Hardly onerous or detracting from other subjects, & a jolly good skill to have.

My mother tried but failed to teach me and my schools didn't offer sewing, so I didn't learn how to use a machine until I was 43.

I disagree about the value of music & drama as core subjects, god knows both were useless for me personally. Everyone has something they'd just as soon never have tried.

But why is music more important? Or would that just be classical music?

I don't expect anyone to be able to discuss Kevlar, it's very boring. However, I would like to think that my students can understand the ethics of 3rd world labour, or at a more basic level sew on a button, repair a damaged item. Why is music more important than that?

Rabbit

In the same way that musicology isn't exactly taught in schools, RM isn't just hitting things with hammers, food tech isn't just cooking, textiles isn't just making clothes and to make titchy happy Art and design isn't just painting stuff.

Someone mentioned knowing the background to the subjects being taught music like many other undervalued subjects isn't just hitting a drum.

As for the worth of each subject (or whether anyone has a well rounded education) is surely subjected to the individual.

Yes, I am being rude, as indeed you are. What's your degree and occupation then?

Wow, posted about sewing machines very early on but this thread has taken a bit of turn hasn't it?!

As a quilter and having seen what DS (who is dyspraxic btw) has done in the last 3 yrs the textiles course is definitely part of arts education that apparently has been decimated. That is as long as you don't take a very blinkered view of what art actually is, of course. There is a large design part to what he has done and, as a pp said there is the scientific element. I think rather than calling it a vocational subject, it is actually an applied subject - you apply the knowledge from the purely academic parts of the curriculum. It has as much value as doing drama or art for a lot of children. DS actually quite enjoyed it although he would be the first to admit he was a bit crap at it, bless him. That isn't the point though. It is about seeing the interconnectedness of the subjects imo. That science is not just a subject in a little box along with all the other little boxes for art and music and maths (lots of measuring and calculating in DT) - in the real world there are no boxes - knowledge overlaps.

It is also nothing like the textiles that I did as a child which was effectively dress making and only for girls. I probably wouldn't have stopped sewing for 20 years if I had done the same course as DS and I might actually have viewed myself as at least a little bit creative rather than 'rubbish at art' which is what I was like after school. It certainly makes you more rounded, knowing that you aren't just good at the academic or whatever.