The Wanganui Girls' College links
The Norsewear/Wanganui Girls' College Link
Student visit to Norsewear
The regular annual visit by Year 11 Fabric Technology students from Wanganui Girls' College began in the first year of NCEA.
Teacher Beth Evans remembers that the idea of linking with a local company came through an initiative by the clothing industry itself. Their goal was to try to make students more aware of employment opportunities within local companies and to overcome some of the negative perceptions that students appeared to have of the industry as a whole.
When Beth made an initial approach to the local Norsewear factory to explore a first visit she found the production manager "very welcoming".
"The visit was very well organised and gave students the experience of a real clothing production facility, which was directly related to work on ongoing production that the girls were doing in their Materials Technology course. They saw the difference between some of the simplified schematics of the production process that we were seeing in books and the actual reality in a factory that was on the go every day.”
Student visit to Norsewear
Students were particularly impressed seeing the skill levels required of the machinists and the quality control procedures that were applied during manufacture.
Over the last five years the link has become firmly established with Beth extending the visit to her Y12 and Y13 classes. While the visit has been directly related to the coursework Beth has appreciated the added value gained by the students from the experience. "It gives then experience of the realities of being out in the workforce, particularly work in the clothing industry.”
"As a teacher, I also get the chance to keep up with what's happening out there in the clothing industry, seeing what they want as potential employers and their attitude to tertiary training. Everyone seems to want to be a designer these days, but it's interesting to see that very highly skilled cutters and machinists have their rightful place in the whole operation."
