Course specification and structure
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UDTEXTLS - BA (Hons) Textiles

Course Specification


Validation status Validated
Highest award Bachelor of Arts Level Honours
Possible interim awards Bachelor of Arts, Diploma of Higher Education, Certificate of Higher Education, Bachelor of Arts
Total credits for course 360
Awarding institution London Metropolitan University
Teaching institutions London Metropolitan University
School School of Art, Architecture and Design
Subject Area Design
Attendance options
Option Minimum duration Maximum duration
Full-time 3 YEARS 8 YEARS
Part-time 6 YEARS 8 YEARS
Course leader  

About the course and its strategy towards teaching and learning and towards blended learning/e-learning

The School of Art, Architecture and Design’s BA (Hons) Textiles course prepares students for a future career in a range of textiles professional roles through a mix of live and speculative project briefs focused on the industry and its professional practices.

The course’s ambition is to educate textile practitioners who share a commitment to improving the quality of people’s lives and experiences through their design and craft, and who understand their responsibility towards sustainable working and development, contributing positively to society, the environment and the economy, both in the present and more importantly for the future. Our graduates will keep their industry informed with the latest practice, principles and collaborative approaches to inclusive design and manufacture for textiles.

Practical skills are developed through work undertaken to address the project briefs with specialist workshops enabling a full understanding of hands-on material design and realisation processes. The technical skills learned while exploring this variety of processes will enable textile design for interiors, fashion, community work and wellbeing, fine art and accessories, spanning hand-worked traditional skills through to the application of digital design and production software. From the outset students will learn digital design skills to support and develop practical hands-on making skills, communicate their design ideas, and design development, fostering a fluency between analogue and digital processes, which the course does not see as oppositional forces
The course promotes individualised, experiential, active and enquiry-based learning offering student choice in curriculum and approaches to study. Independent and critical thinking is encouraged so that students understand the opportunity to identify and redefine problems, offering creative and original design that meets the needs of current and future society. The course specifically asks students to avoid established, conventional ‘business-as-usual’ responses to design challenges, instead encouraging them to become the highly skilled and well-informed change makers needed by society.

The learning and teaching strategies employed in the textiles course are both instructional and developmental: students are taught technical skills grounded in industry practice, and nurtured in how best to apply these in their own developing practice while being encouraged to engage in their own critical and investigative creative development. The course expects attention to manufacturing excellence, alongside bold experimentation in textiles research, thinking, designing and making.
Fundamental to the course’s approach is to engage students with primary research from the very beginning of the course. Students will work from direct observation and discussion with clients and end users, physically test materials, and present their design proposals to ensure that their learning experience mirrors the professional practice of their discipline as much as possible. In this way employability is fostered through learning from direct experience and real-world contact with external partners and live project opportunities, building the essential ability to work effectively with others.
Throughout the course students have opportunities to produce and present collections of textiles and surface techniques, culminating in professional showcasing in the final year. The course is designed to embed key skills as preparation for professional life such as effective research and analysis, innovation, aesthetic risk-taking, reflective enquiry, communication, negotiation, interpersonal and presentation skills. These skills are developed incrementally and as an integrated part of modules through the course. The course benefits from outstanding workshop resources for textile production enabling a wide range of outputs from print through weave, knit and stitch to embroidery and rug-making. We also encourage students to explore and work collaboratively with staff and students from other disciplines in the School, in the interests of cross-disciplinary working and innovation-finding. The course team are all highly experienced practitioners with significant professional sector experience and profiles, covering the range of skills, knowledge and commercial avenues available to our textile students and graduates.

With numerous opportunities to enter local and international competitions, along with the chance to exhibit work through the University, some projects will be delivered with real-world industry partners, giving invaluable work experience for the transition into the world of work. Our previous students have undertaken projects and work placements with (and some have gone on to work for) established companies including Sanderson, Julien McDonald, Edward Crutchley, Mark Fast, Toogood, Mary Katrantzou, Alexander McQueen, ASOS, Timberland, The British Museum, Camira Fabrics, Toynbee Hall and Tissage handmade rugs.
Each year, the course comprises four core 30-credit modules in the areas of design development, design realisation, textile design technologies and production, and contextual studies. Students work through assignments and projects, sometimes in teams reflecting real-world studio practice, steadily building on existing skills, developing their individual ideas into concepts and realised outcomes. This approach ensures that students are carefully guided through the acquisition of key knowledge, industry-specific skills and critical thinking ability as the course progresses. This process of discovery and progressive development through the stages and levels of their studies enables students to understand the demands and opportunities of their discipline and how their talents and interests equip them for a future role in professional textile design. Embedded in the School of Art, Architecture and Design, the course draws on the strengths of teaching staff from across the School and the wide circle of academic and cultural contacts and collaborators attached to the School and University.

Course aims

The course aims to prepare students as designers and makers to be independent practitioners or to work as part of a larger design or production team; for individual business start-up, and for entry to courses at a higher level. Graduates may also work in related fields such as design journalism, retail or marketing, management or teaching.

The course’s aims are aligned with the qualification descriptors in the Quality Assurance Agency’s Framework for Higher Education Qualifications. Consideration has been given to the following: the Subject Benchmark Statement (Art and Design, 2019), the HE Qualification Framework, the University’s Strategic Plan and Student Charter, the University’s Undergraduate Regulations, the views and feedback of students, external examiners and employers/ clients, developments within the subject area, and the changing needs of the cultural/ commercial sectors and professions. Due consideration has also been given to inclusivity in course and assessment design.
The course promotes individual and collective, experiential, active and enquiry-based learning offering student choice in curriculum and approaches to study. Independent and critical thinking is encouraged so that students understand the opportunity to identify and redefine problems, offering creative and original design that meets the needs of current and future society.

The course engages with national and London-based projects and competitions encouraging students to extend these opportunities as extra-curricular activity, including collaborative publication and exhibition wherever possible.

Graduates of the course will be able to use academic and other resources to build a detailed and coherent body of discipline-specific knowledge that together with analytical skills acquired through study will enable them to analyse problems, dealing with uncertain and ambiguous situations, and to propose solutions, sustaining argument convincingly. They will be able to work independently, pursuing self-development, managing themselves and others, able to communicate effectively with specialist and non-specialist audiences, and understand the transferability of their knowledge and skills.

The course seeks to ensure that its graduates are knowledgeable, creative, flexible, culturally, socially and environmentally aware, technically proficient and therefore of value to future employers. The course aims to enable students to think independently, to take risks, and work in an exploratory way to seek innovative solutions to design problems. Students are encouraged to understand learning as an iterative process, with apparent success and failure both being relative and valuable as part of the process, thereby becoming critically self-aware and developing resilience and self-reliance.

The course seeks to provide and foster:

• learning through direct experience, connecting academic and creative studies;
• student choice in subject and style of learning and individualised learning and study support opportunities, that cater for different learning styles;
• a culture of independent and critical thought, encouraging the challenging of received ideas and practice;
• employability attributes through live projects, engaging with external partners, institutions and companies that create a realistic environment of professional expectations for students, preparing students for graduate-level employment;
• awareness of the duty of all to understand the impact of their decisions and actions as fashion designers and to strive to act responsibly;
• a blend of industrial studio and workshop practice, provided in digital and traditional manufacturing workshops, computer labs, design studios and multi-media facilities;
• student participation in collaborative project work with industry to ensure awareness of current industry practice and the use of London’s rich cultural heritage as a resource, allowing for projects to take place off-site as well as on campus;
• the ability to work independently, to manage time and tasks and those of others, to reflect objectively on performance, understanding of the opportunities for talents and interests, and planning effectively for the future, including self-development for career advancement.

Course learning outcomes

On completion of this course, graduates will be able to:

Knowledge and Understanding

1. recognise how their work is situated within the broader histories and practices of material culture and the part that it plays in social and economic frameworks;
2. approach design questions, situations or problems through a systematic application of research, analysis and process, using knowledge derived from observation, experimentation, recording, collaboration and creative thinking to develop material solutions that engage and enhance human experience;
3. apply ethical and sustainable principles and standards that are required for the proper conduct of professional practice;

Cognitive Intellectual Skills

4. apply critical intellectual skills to interrogate design problems; utilising direct observation and primary and secondary research to enable reflective analysis with reasoned and evidenced argument, and persuasive proposals;

5. evidence considered judgements and decisions in situations where uncertainty, ambiguity and conflicting interests render simple solutions inappropriate, considering and balancing the needs of all parties and users;

Transferable Skills

6. independently and collaboratively communicate design proposals to colleagues, industry professionals, clients, invested communities and, where appropriate, the general public, through the effective use of a range appropriate visualisation techniques;
7. exercise independent project management skills, including time and task management, team leadership and collaboration, self-evaluation and critical reflection;
8. demonstrate creative approaches to the use and application of ideas, materials and process, positioning practice within an appropriate contextual framework informed by critical debate, generating relevant design propositions that challenge accepted paradigms and expectations of contemporary textiles;

Subject-Specific Practical Skills

9. make informed design and material choices utilising practical and conceptual knowledge and understanding, manipulating a range of traditional and contemporary processes;
10. analyse, communicate and represent structure, scale, form and material qualities through drawing, modelling, and visualisation;
11. describe and practically implement a considered range of human and sensory factors with consideration of function and interaction upon human wellbeing;
12. develop confident entrepreneurial and self-promotional skills to maximise employment and career opportunities;

Professionalism and Values:

13. demonstrate confidence, resilience, ambition and creativity and act as inclusive, collaborative and socially responsible practitioners and professionals in their discipline;
14. ensure that social, cultural, ethical, and environmental contexts are engaged in the design process alongside economic and business factors.

Principle QAA benchmark statements

QAA Subject Benchmark Statement; Art and Design (2019)

Assessment strategy

The assessment strategy for the course has been designed holistically, to ensure fairness, accessibility and inclusivity as well as manageable timing, workloads and clarity of expectations for students, and to avoid duplication of assessment of learning outcomes. Where appropriate, students are engaged as partners in the design of their assessments.

The assessment regimes for the modules and tasks are designed together with the briefs, prior to the start of the year, considering student, external examiner, professional collaborator and colleague feedback from previous instances. The requirements of briefs and their components, the assessment criteria, grading scheme and descriptors are published and explained to students at the start of the year and are designed to be used as consistently as possible, to avoid unnecessary complication.

In every case, there is required formative assessment and feedback prior to summative assessment at set points. This is recorded so that it can be used by both students and staff to track further progress and engage support where it is required. Feedback follows good pedagogic practice in that it is constructed as ‘feed-forward’, with a focus on specific actions and strategies as to how to improve, not only on what requires improvement.

Students are informed of the procedures for first, second and parity marking, and external examiner scrutiny of the assessment process and marks, to ensure that they understand and have confidence in the probity of the process and security of the final marks. Additionally, the course engages in Subject and School parity exercises to ensure that assessment standards are consistent.

Organised work experience, work based learning, sandwich year or year abroad

Work-based learning is embedded in the course through live projects, industry visits, visiting professional speakers and participation in public events.

The majority of tutors and lecturers contributing to the course are practitioners who share their knowledge and experience with students throughout their course of study. The flexible practice-led model of delivery for the course means that evolving opportunities for work-related learning through collaboration with external companies, agencies, institutions, competitions and professionals are taken up as they arise.

Students’ understanding of professional standards and expectations builds as they progress from level to level. During their final year, students work towards completion of interview-ready professional portfolios of project work, exhibited at the annual summer show and associated events.

Course specific regulations

Part-time Course Structure

Year 1 – DN4021 & DN4022

Year 2 – CP4011 & DN4020

Year 3 – DN5023 & DN5024

Year 4 – CP5011 & DN5025

Year 5 – DN6039 & DN6040

Year 6 – CP6011 & DN6044

Modules required for interim awards

All modules on the course are core and compulsory, interim awards are therefore defined by the course structure. The part time route is prescribed within Course Specific Regulation section.

Arrangements for promoting reflective learning and personal development

The course’s principle of guiding learning through a practice-led curriculum promotes ongoing reflection and personal development. This is supported by regular formative feedback on work in progress that enables students to understand their progress and find opportunities for multiple and individualised routes to successful outcomes. Most modules are year-long, with interim points of review, which ensures that students, together with their tutors, can devise study strategies appropriate to individual learning styles, while ensuring monitoring of engagement and progress. At these interim formative assessment and feedback points, students reflect on their progress to date with their peers and course staff (with the benefit of feedback from professional partners), seek help where they identify the opportunity for improvement in learning strategies and outcomes, and make recommendations to themselves for future development. The feedback and student reflections are recorded and form an action plan for the next period of study.

This system is highly individualised, but also benefits from peer engagement in studio critiques. The School’s programme of employability events and embedded work-related learning within the curriculum supports students’ personal development planning. Through these initiatives, students are increasingly able, as they progress from year to year, to understand the professional environment of their disciplines, the various opportunities available to them, and how to shape their learning according to their ambitions. This ensures that personal development for career planning is effectively contextualised and suitable for the contemporary workplace.

Career, employability and opportunities for continuing professional development

Careers advice is integral to the course and supported by tailored input from the University’s Careers Office who support the review of student CVs. Portfolio surgeries are carried out in which students are given specific advice about their presentational focus in relation to their career aspirations. Students have contact with industry professionals throughout their final year and students are encouraged and supported to seek internships and work experience. Competition, exhibition and publicity opportunities exist throughout the course and students are encouraged to develop their public professional profile.

Students leave with a high-quality interview-ready portfolio of work and a range of practical, professional and academic skills, providing an excellent basis for both employment and further study. Most of our graduates go on to practice in textile design or are employed by design studios or progress to postgraduate study. The course also provides graduates with transferable knowledge and skills that enable individuals to seek work in a wide variety of areas connected to the subject as well as related professions.

The teaching supports preparation for future careers in a wide range of professional occupations within textiles: as a designer and/or maker, educator, artist, technologist within industry or on a self-employed basis, community worker, curator, design journalist, or for postgraduate studies.

Students can also benefit from support and guidance from the Careers and Employability services and the University’s business incubator unit, ‘Accelerator’.

Career opportunities

Our graduates have gone on to work at companies including Timberland, Harrods, the Fashion Model Directory and River Island.

London Met textile design student Majeda Clarke was shortlisted for a Bemz Design Award and went on to create her latest collection with UNESCO.

Other roles include self-employed designer-maker, industrial designer, buyer, technologist and stylist, or you could consider progressing to a master's in your field.

Entry requirements

In addition to the University's standard entry requirements, you should have:

  • a minimum grade of BBC in three A levels in relevant art and design subjects (or a minimum of 112 UCAS points from an equivalent Level 3 qualification, eg BTEC National, OCR Diploma or Advanced Diploma)
  • English Language GCSE at grade C/grade 4 or above (or equivalent)
  • a portfolio that contains a range of drawings, practical making, sketchbooks and work that provides a window into your creative interests and engagement
  • a portfolio interview

If you don't have traditional qualifications or can't meet the entry requirements for this undergraduate degree, you may still be able to gain entry by completing our Textiles (including foundation year) BA (Hons) or the Art and Design (including foundation year) BA (Hons).

If you don't meet the entry requirements but have a strong portfolio and work experience, you may be considered for the traditional BA course.

We encourage applications from international/EU students with equivalent qualifications. We also accept mature students with diverse backgrounds and experiences.

Official use and codes

Approved to run from 2019/20 Specification version 1 Specification status Validated
Original validation date 11 Sep 2019 Last validation date 11 Sep 2019  
Sources of funding FUNDED ENTIRELY BY STUDENT TUITION FEES
JACS codes
Route code TEXTLS

Course Structure

Stage 1 Level 04 September start Offered

Code Module title Info Type Credits Location Period Day Time
CP4011 Critical & Contextual Studies 1 (3D) Core 30 CITY AUT+SPR TUE AM
DN4005 Workshop Practice Core 30        
DN4006 3D Design Principles Core 30        
DN4007 3D Visual Research and Communication Core 30        

Stage 2 Level 05 September start Offered

Code Module title Info Type Credits Location Period Day Time
CP5011 Critical & Contextual Studies 2 (3D) Core 30 CITY AUT+SPR THU AM
DN5006 Design Resolution Core 30        
DN5011 3D Design Core 30        
DN5021 Materials, Technology and Markets Core 30        

Stage 3 Level 06 September start Offered

Code Module title Info Type Credits Location Period Day Time
CP6011 Critical & Contextual Studies 3: Dissertation (3D) Core 30 CITY AUT+SPR WED PM
          CITY AUT+SPR WED AM
DN6039 3D Design and Development 3 Core 30 CITY AUT+SPR TUE AM
          CITY AUT+SPR FRI PM
          CITY AUT+SPR FRI AM
          CITY AUT+SPR TUE PM
DN6040 Major Project Resolution: Textiles Core 30 CITY AUT+SPR TUE AM
          CITY AUT+SPR FRI PM
          CITY AUT+SPR FRI AM
          CITY AUT+SPR TUE PM
DN6044 Professional Practice 2 Core 30 CITY AUT+SPR FRI PM
          CITY AUT+SPR WED PM