Sewing at Secondary School

[StMarieforme]

Does anyone know if this really is not part of the Curriculum at Secondary? Thanks!

pretty sure it's part of DT, my kids have all made random stitched items over the past few years either using a sewing machine or hand stitched

It's still part of the curriculum at my dcs school. It comes under the umbrella of DT, and usually incorporates a term each of something like Textiles/Cooking/Woodwork.

It will be part of the DT curriculum. Mine do textiles at their school.

Our school does some textiles, but I can't imagine it's a compulsory requirement.

It is done as a creative subject, so not as 'sewing' but textiles is part of the art and design scheme of work.

There is a reference to a textiles curriculum which I imagine would include sewing.

Why are you asking, I imagine it may not be a popular choice for schools. Equipment can be fininky and not conducive to having many users.

DD is doing it at gsce at the moment a few places do it at a level as well

but it comes under the design tech area so whilst schools can I don’t think they have to offer it just some of it

Textiles. Which means they mostly do theory about types of fabric etc.

It may be great if you're going off to be a fashion designer, but far more useful for 99% of children would be to teach them basic sewing:
Put a button on
Turn up a hem
Mend a seam
Mend a button hole
Put a pocket in
Patch a hole
Darn
etc.

Surely their parents can teach or support them learning this life skill with YouTube etc?

I know I taught my ten and 16 year old sons using it and I can't sew for my life, neither could my late mother. But I have the theory down 😉

I think given it would fit in better in sustainability practices skills piece ? Rather than having it limited to learners who have textiles in mind as a future which yes will be mor design focused.

I taught myself with a mixture of books and Mum's support. So it can be done, but I think it would be useful for children to use this sort of thing in a subject like textiles, rather than stuff most will never use again.

My dad was a very good carpenter. Not his job, but he made from scratch (eg chunks of wood) a lot of the furniture and fittings at my parents' house. He learnt the basics at school, and discovered in that he enjoyed it and so did more.

I think looking at doing practical real life work that can be used in future would be far better than lots of theory. I'd do as well as the sewing:

Cooking: how to cook to live
Woodwork: Repairing and basic DIY
Budgeting and understanding saving: Part of the maths syllabus

And in year 10 and 11, one lesson a week to do basic practical things:
Check a car over, and do necessary basic maintenance, wire a plug, basic cleaning, garden maintenance, oil a hinge, baby care, basic plumbing, reading a map (yes, I know Satnavs are easier, but as a back up), first aid, putting up flat packed furniture, recognising dodgy statistics, recognising signs of depression in others and where to go to get help etc.

Lots of things that would be useful for people to know and I see an awful lot on my local FB group of people asking for help for this sort of thing.

To be honest with respect I think that's an unfair approach to what parents should teach or enable.

It's part of Art at DC's school (they do a rotation that's specifically Textiles based; DD also chose it as one of her specialisms for GCSE Art).

Mine totally did teach her all of that and she has her own sewing machine - to the point where the night before DS started high school she hemmed his trousers in 10 minutes!

Im 50 and even I didn't do sewing at secondary school. I do have memories of doing a bit in primary school - I suspect more for fine motor skills than for the actual sewing itself.

DS2 did DT GCSE. No sewing involved.

Frankly it's up there with things parents need to teach - sewing, ironing, how to wash clothes, how to cook, how to take care of yourself/hygiene etc. Schools can't do everything.

DT at my kid's secondary school is split into 3: food tech, textiles and DT. DD was always interest in sewing, so took textiles for GCSE, is studying textile art for A-level and is planning to do a sewing-based degree at art college.

I am terrible at sewing, but got her a sewing machine, and she makes her own dresses, does alterations etc.

It's one of the DTs at our school, that they rotate through in Y7-9. Also D&T:textiles is a GCSE option. There's a shortage of DT teachers generally though, and I can imagine textiles might not be the easiest one to find an experienced teacher for. 4/4 of our local schools have no experienced wood tech teacher at the moment.

Textiles is part of the DT curriculum, but it’s not taught everywhere even at KS3.

My DC all did it – made a cushion and other artefacts - learned to use a sewing machine. The offer of it at GCSE is patchy IME – not offered for DS1’s year at all, for example. Otoh I worked in a school that had a tech specialism and every student had to take DT GCSE, so quite a few chose textiles, boys and girls. The work they produced was amazing.

Take-up and thus offer of DT in general has reduced, sadly, along with a lot of other creative subjects, as they are not on the Ebacc list which is a measure schools (not students!) are judged by; also schools in general are reducing the number of GCSEs taken (one highly rated school near me has dc taking eight max) so there is less space for creative subjects.

@MargaretThursday while I am very much in favour of DC learning to sew on a button, some of the things on your list are a bit outdated. Darning? I am a sewer, and I’m old, and even I don’t darn. Wiring a plug? When did you last have to do that?

I do agree tho with a lot of the things on your list, and luckily so do schools. Budgeting and finance (and why payday loans are a bad idea) is or should be covered in PSHE or form time (was in my school), cooking comes under food tech and my kids thanks to DT are much better than I am (no DT at my all-girls’ school, just sewing and cookery) at putting an IKEA desk together.

DT teachers are in short supply. Our DT department is currently being patched up with science teachers. This year I've started teaching textiles alongside biology.
Managing a group of year 9s on 10 seeing machines is hectic.
To the poster who suggested basic car maintenance, forget it.

Sewing ☝️