Our
Schools visit the National Gallery
On
Thursday 21st April four coaches with about
170 children and many adults from both All Saints and St
Stephen’s Schools left Maidstone for London. We were
dropped off in Northumberland Avenue and had to negotiate
two extremely busy and noisy road crossings to get to Trafalgar
Square and so make our way to the National Gallery. After
a picnic lunch, each year group was taken under the wing
of a member of the Gallery’s education department.
I
was with the year 2 group (7 & 8 year olds). We
entered the galleries, sat down and talked about
behaviour in a gallery: looking, no running, no shouting,
consideration for other people. Then we went through the
galleries to three paintings: Tobias and the Angel (by a
follower of Verrocchio 15th century), the
Children of Daniel Graham (by William Hogarth 18th
century) and Landscape with Psyche (Claude Lorraine 17th
century). At each painting the children were helped to
look hard at the pictures, see what was there, they were
told the story of the painting, helped to relate the
feelings the characters might have had in the story to
the way they were portrayed in the pictures. For an hour,
they were held spell bound and totally involved. I must
say I was very impressed with the serious and good way
the children talked with their leader about the painting
and the leader was so good in her manner, her relating to
the children, using an appropriate vocabulary and with a
deep knowledge of the paintings.
After
a look at the fountains and Nelson’s column we
crossed the road and caught the coach’s home. I do
think that outings like this are so very good for the
children. Many had never been to London before - they
were well briefed on what to look out for: St Paul’s
Cathedral, Big Ben, Nelson - none of the group I was with
had ever been to an art gallery before. This was such a
good introduction to paintings, galleries as well has
helping them look, understand and enjoy three very good
stories.
I
hope we will, in a later issue of the magazine, be able
to print some of the children’s accounts of their
experience.
Christopher
Morgan-Jones
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