Pupils Soak Up Art At Tate Britain, The National Gallery & National Portrait Gallery

Wayne Spilsbury, Head of Art outlines the value of the art trip to Tate Britain, the National Gallery and National Portrait Gallery.

If you go to visit a major gallery in school term time these days you will find many school groups working with the collections. In February you will see even more, since the GCSE and A Level papers have just gone live. 25% of the marks in the examination unit are devoted to exploring and analysing the work of artists and developing ideas and responses to these. As a moderator I am keenly aware of the value of first hand research with genuine and direct responses to works of art as opposed to downloaded images and text from the likes of Wikipedia, which weaker candidates rely upon all too often.

With a total of 34 starting points to choose from across the papers some time had been spent in lessons giving direction to the pupils on how they could interpret them in response to works of art with some additional information on the day. With this is mind galleries for our trip were selected which had a great breadth of work.

In the morning we visited the National Gallery and the National Portrait Gallery. In the afternoon we had longer to explore the diversity offered by Tate Britain. Mr Keogh spoke to the 5^th Form about the symbolism and context of Millais’ Ophelia with them having read Hamlet in the 3^rd Form. I continued the literary links by referencing some other Pre-Raphaelite works linking them to the GCSE themes. In addition, we went to Francis Bacon’s Three Studies for Figures at the Base of a Crucifixion. We discussed the biblical themes and the painting’s content and structure, the pupils were made aware of the influence on Bacon of early images from Auschwitz at the end of the war. This was very pertinent for those going on the History Trip to Budapest & Krakow.

The visit offered a great opportunity for a strong start to the examination unit and gave many a chance to pause for thought about the theme they had chosen and how they might develop it. The day ran like clockwork aided by the pupils always being in the right place at the right time. My thanks to all the staff involved.

Wayne Spilsbury - Head of Art