Oxfordshire Hospital School:
Using the Take One Picture approach in other settings

Oxfordshire Hospital School works across six different NHS hospitals. According to Department for Education and Skills statistics, approximately 100,000 children and young people are absent from mainstream education at any one time due to acute and chronic illness. Anne Stevenson, art coordinator, and the education team at Oxfordshire Hospital School started using the Take One Picture approach with patients in the autumn of 2005.

This is how Anne believes the children and young people involved have benefited from the approach:

'The Take One Picture scheme, characterised by a collaborative teaching and learning approach, helped shape an exciting and relevant curriculum in an environment where young people often feel a sense of isolation. For example, 10 pupils who were patients at the John Radcliffe Hospital worked on a collage together after being introduced to the painting 'The Marquise de Seignelay and Two of her Sons'. The young people varied in age from 8 to 14 years and were patients on the surgical, medical and oncology wards. They were in hospital for different reasons, varying from routine operations to treatment for life-threatening illness.

Working on a joint piece of art was something new for all of the young people. None of them had been to the National Gallery, although most had heard of it. They were working with fellow patients that they had not met before and the project provided a normalising experience within a stressful and invasive environment. It also enabled them to form friendships and have some fun.

Some painted the background while others carefully drew the figures and collaged them. Having looked closely at the painting on the Gallery website the children were painstaking in their attention to detail - to the pose, attitude and expression of the three characters. The making of Cupid's wings became a real labour of love for a 10-year-old who managed to leave her bed for a short time to become involved, while another pupil meticulously made the arrows while waiting for treatment.'

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