Videoconferencing Sessions - Details for Teachers

Introduction and Booking
Our videoconferences are always discussions between your pupils and our gallery educators, not straight presentations. Please note that all these sessions can only be booked through Global Leap, not directly by the National Portrait Gallery. See www.global-leap.com for the timetable of what we are currently offering. You will need to state on your booking form which topic you require of those on offer for any particular day. This page gives you more detail about all our sessions (these will never all be available on the same day as they require different teaching staff). Please also read our instructions for having a successful videoconference with us.

Brief descriptions of each session

Key Stage 1

Growing up in the past: Some, or all, of the group should bring A4 photocopies of themselves when younger to show us. Using 3 or 4 portraits of King Charles II when young, this session follows him from babyhood, through early childhood with his brother and sisters and his pets, to the brink of the Civil War where, as a twelve year old he is shown in armour ready for his first battle.

Famous People: Storytelling session, combining looking at one or more portraits with a story about the life of a famous person. Choose one person from: Guy Fawkes and the Gunpowder Plot; Samuel Pepys and the Fire of London; Charles II's escape by hiding in the oak tree; Florence Nightingale and nursing at Scutari; Beatrix Potter and Peter Rabbit.

Key Stage 2 History

Tudors: The session usually covers 3 paintings and concentrates on monarchs, including Henry VIII and Elizabeth I. It can be tailored to emphasise the early Tudors or the Elizabethans - please specify this when booking.

Victorians: The session usually covers 3 or 4 paintings looking at Victoria, Prince Albert and one or two other famous people, for example Florence Nightingale or some of the Victorian writers.

Key Stage 2 Art

Getting the message: Using 3 or 4 eighteenth-century portraits by Reynolds, Gainsborough and their contemporaries, this session looks at how portraits convey messages through pose, expression, clothes, accessories, background and composition. Pupils should then try these out themselves in their own practical artwork.

Styles of modern painting: This session shows pupils a selection of 3 or 4 different styles used in twentieth- and twenty-first-century portraits and available to them in their own artwork. It encourages pupils to express likes and dislikes about the portraits discussed, giving reasons for their preferences.

Key Stage 3 History & Citizenship

Tudors: The focus is on using 3 or 4 portraits as historical evidence. The session can be tailored towards early Tudor or Elizabethan portraiture or on the changing image of Queen Elizabeth I. Please specify when booking.

Stuarts: Using 3 or 4 portraits, this session focuses on the Civil War, looking at both sides, and the decades preceding it. The emphasis is on questioning the reliability of these images as historical sources.

Victorians: This session looks at how 2 or 3 key images were constructed to give powerful propaganda messages both about Britain itself and its relationship with the wider world.

Votes for Women: The session looks first at the Reform Parliament of 1834, leading to a practical activity. This requires pupils to analyse portraits of key figures, male and female, in the suffrage and anti-suffrage movements, deciding from their pose, expression, self presentation etc into which category they seem likely to fall. The teacher then hands the pupils a short quote by that sitter to determine whether their supposition was correct or not. Pupils need to be divided into 3 groups; each group needs a copy of 3 of the portraits to discuss (Gp 1 - Wollstonecraft, J S Mill, Gladstone; Gp2 - George Eliot, Harriet Taylor Mill, Mrs Humphry Ward; Gp 3 - Queen Victoria, Millicent Fawcett, Emmeline Pankhurst). They do not need to have done any work on this beforehand or be told who their portraits are of, though they might recognise some of them. The purpose of the activity is for them to read the visual clues in the paintings and make deductions about the sitters' beliefs. In turn, each group makes its observations on one portrait, after which the teacher hands them the relevant quote to read out (all images and quotes will be sent to you on CDRom). We suggest that in the classroom during the session the pupils place their portraits under headings 'For' and 'Against' to create a chart similar to the one on we will make on screen. We conclude with a discussion of the reliability of portraits as indicators of beliefs. There is a related follow-up activity at http://www.npg.org.uk/live/edelearning.asp - pupils could also undertake biographical research into the sitters. Please would pupils not use the web activity or link the portraits with the quotes until after the videoconference.

Key Stage 3 History & Science

Medicine through Time: For this session you will need to choose two topics from four major subjects in the history of medicine. All sessions analyse portraits of key individuals. The four possible topics are:
(a) Bleeding and blood circulation in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries (including William Harvey)
(b) Inoculation and vaccination in the eighteenth century (including Mary Wortley Montagu and Edward Jenner)
(c) Women in nineteenthcentury medicine (including Florence Nightingale and Mary Seacole)
(d) Medical advances and World War II (including Alexander Fleming). The emphasis is on using images (some of which are pictures of patients) as sources of historical evidence.
This session relates to the SHP GCSE unit on 'Medicine through Time' and also to the QCA KS3 Science Schemes of Work, Unit 8C, 'Microbes and Disease'.

Key Stage 3 Citizenship

Human Rights: In this session, we look at two key topics from the Universal Declaration of Human Rights: Slavery
(Article 4) and then a choice of either Work and Trade Unions (Article 23) or Marriage and Divorce (Article16). Please state your choice when booking.
This session relates to Unit 01 of the Citizenship Schemes of Work at Key Stage 4, 'Human Rights'. It draws on Key Stage 3 historical topics.

Britain - a diverse society? After looking at students' own Image of Britain (created at school in preparation for the visit), we will discuss three or four images frequently on show in the Contemporary Galleries.
This session relates to Unit 04 of the Citizenship Schemes of Work at KS3, Section 4.

Images of Power: From Divine Right to Democracy: This session traces the process of establishing parliamentary democracy in Britain by looking at images from three different periods - the reign of Charles I and the Interregnum, the House of Commons in 1834 and a selection of recent and present-day politicians.
This session links to the Citizenship Scheme of Work at KS3 Unit 06, Section 5, 'How does parliament work? What other forms of parliament are there'. It draws on Key Stage 3 historical topics.

Key Stage 3 Art

The modern portrait: Pupils will look closely at a small selection of twentieth- and twenty-first-century portraits painted in different styles, ranging from varying degrees of realism to more abstract works. The pupils will be encouraged to express personal preferences about the different styles used in the images.

Self-portraiture: Self-portraiture is of particular interest as a vehicle for artists to display their skills, reveal more about themselves and experiment with new ideas. Pupils are encouraged to think about their own experiences of creating self-portraits, as well as looking at a selection of images in different media from various periods.

Images of Power: The preparation for this session involves some research, including using ICT. The session traces the process of establishing parliamentary democracy Great Britain by asking pupils to interrogate images of power. These will start with monarchy, comparing coronation portraits of Elizabeth I and Elizabeth II. Next we will compare images of Charles I with those of his enemies, before looking at 2 big paintings of the House of Commons, one in 1790 and one in 1833. Next we ask your pupils to feed back what they have found out (see Preparation below) about numbers of women, ethnic minority and disabled MPs today and look at some 'firsts', asking pupils to guess when these might have been (please don't prime them!) - first woman MP, first ethnic minority MP, first blind MP etc. We finish this part of the session with the portrait of Mo Mowlam. Last we ask about the pupils' MP and consider briefly how parliamentary democracy in this country might develop in the future.

Images of Power is available from the Summer Term.
Preparation information for Images of Power

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All images and text are subject to copyright protection. 22 November 2008