Hawick High School's poppy project knits together work and war

Around 300 first and second-year pupils have spent the past few weeks designing and creating remembrance artworks to be displayed around the town in the coming weeks.

While learning how the textile industry works, and how to sew, cut and project manage, the group has coordinated the creation of hundreds of painted and hand sewn poppies accompanied with words of remembrance.

This project, a collaboration between Developing our Young Workforce Borders, has been supported by the Hawick branch of Legion Scotland.

Teacher Sue Moncur said: “I have been fortunate in my career to have worked with some of the best names in the textile fashion business and I wanted to bring that experience to this course, developing projects that have a strong industry focus, but maintain the creativity.

“I am very impressed with the respect and enthusiasm from the pupils for this Poppy project and their willingness to learn new skills.”

Hawick High School Headteacher Vicky Porteous added: “It’s fantastic to see our students working together on a project like this. They have been tasked with a real-life brief and they have all worked extremely hard as a group to produce some wonderful work for such an important cause.”