Year 5 explore Art and History at the Ashmolean Museum

We began our day exploring landscape paintings, where the children completed a quiz and sketched their favourite pieces. A highlight was looking at J.M.W. Turner's 'High Street, Oxford' to see what city life looked like in 1810.

After lunch, we continued our adventure with a lively scavenger hunt in the Ancient Egypt galleries. We were then treated to a wonderful tour led by Kate, one of the museum’s curators, who showed us how artists bring paintings to life. While studying Uccello’s 'The Hunt in the Forest', the children discussed the colours, atmosphere, smells and sounds of the scene, and even had the chance to try on some props. Kate also introduced us to concepts such as vanishing points and horizon lines in landscape art. Mr Dwinell was particularly delighted by the discussion on mathematical perspective!

We then travelled through time, exploring a variety of landscape sketches. Each child selected a favourite artwork and created a postcard featuring their own sketch. Several children confidently presented their postcards to the group and spoke about their chosen painting.

To finish our visit, we made a whistle‑stop tour of the contemporary art gallery, looking at works by artists such as Picasso, Francis Bacon and Henri Matisse. Kate explained the ideas behind abstract art, and the children had great fun experimenting with shapes to create their own abstract landscapes. She praised their confidence and reminded them that in art, there is no right or wrong.

Mrs Forbes.