Take One Picture 2020

Stratford Cityscapes

Parkhill Junior School, London, 10–11 year-olds

The children looked at their local area and noticed a big difference between the new buildings and older ones. They created paintings to show different views of Stratford.

The Urban Dockland

Darrick Wood Infant and Nursery School, Kent, 4–5 year olds

Have you ever wondered what a version of 'Men of the Docks' based in London would look like? This Reception class created their own.

Building New York

Glendower Preparatory School, London, 7–11 year-olds

The school’s art club built a huge model of New York, complete with the Statue of Liberty and Brooklyn Bridge.

Boat Collages

Wellington Prep School, Somerset, 5–6 year-olds

Concentrating on the colours in the painting, this class carefully ripped the correct tones from magazines to create their collages.

Cardboard Skyscrapers

Wellington Prep School, Somerset, 6–7 year-olds

After sourcing boxes from local shops, students learnt how to create nets for 3D shapes and built these towering skyscrapers.

Workman’s Jacket

St Mary’s School, Hampstead, London, 8–9 year-olds

Children made a workman’s jacket by repairing scraps of fabric and sewing them together. The lining of the jacket is covered in poems about how the men might be feeling.

Dockland Poses

Ramsgate Art Primary School, Kent, 7–8 year-olds

The children acted out the jobs that the men would have been doing at the docks. They held their poses and ‘drew’ around each other using torches.

Horse Brasses

Caroline Chisholm School, Northampton, 10–11 year-olds

Work horses like those in the painting used to wear brasses as symbols of protection, so students from Caroline Chisholm School designed and made their own.

Soundwave Cityscapes

Ramsgate Art Primary School, Kent, 9–10 year-olds

The children focused on what the docks would have sounded like and made their own soundscapes. They then noticed that the waveforms looked like cityscapes.

Portholes

Rectory Farm Primary School, Northampton, 8–9 year-olds

These portholes show sights people may have seen from the ship when travelling to New York for the first time.

Horse Bunting

Tudor C of E Primary School, Suffolk, 5–7 year-olds

Focusing on the horses and different materials that would have been used around the docks, the children made bunting including sections of hessian sacks.

Working Animals

Downshall Primary School, Essex, 8–9 year-olds

Teachers arranged for visits from the Royal National Institute of Blind People and the local police to show how working animals still help us today.

A Welcoming Tea Party

Preston Park Primary School, London, 7–8 year-olds

How do you welcome someone who has arrived from abroad? Children from Preston Park Primary School decided to make a tea party complete with table, chairs, tableware and cake.

A Careful Cargo

Ide Primary School, Exeter, 4–10 year-olds

This carefully packaged cargo was created by children from Exeter after they discovered that glass bottles were made locally for produce arriving at Exeter Quay.

A Sea of Faces

Stoke Bishop C of E Primary School, Bristol, 7–8 year olds

Each child imagined the backstory of someone arriving in New York and made a cardboard sculpture of them to create a 'Sea of Faces' installation.

Letters Home

Mab’s Cross Community Primary School, Lancashire, 9–10 year-olds

Children imagined they were dockworkers who had moved to New York and wrote letters home telling their friends and families about their experiences.

Changing Hammersmith Frieze

West London Free School Primary, London, 9–10 year-olds

Students decided to find out how their city had changed over the last 100 years and created a frieze to show local buildings.

Wooden Dockland Panels

Stivichall Primary School, Coventry, 4–5 year-olds

Reception classes at Stivichall Primary School explored different materials and each made one panel of this wooden dockland scene.

Portholes and Banners

George Betts Primary Academy, West Midlands, 4–11 year-olds

After investigating weathering and rusting, the children made portholes and included designs embroidered onto circles of fabric.

Men of the Docks’ Whispers

Cleveland Road Primary School, Essex, 9–10 year-olds

Students from Cleveland Road Primary School made an annotated diorama to show what the men might have been saying.

Our 'Men of the Docks'

SS Peter and Paul RC Primary School, Tyne and Wear, 10–11 year-olds

Using photographs taken of their local waterfront, Year 6 made their own version of 'Men of the Docks'.

New York Skyline and Suspended Ships

RGS The Grange, Worcester, 9–10 year-olds

Inspired by Hew Locke’s 'Suspended Armada', these balsa wood ships were hung in front of a printed New York skyline.

What’s in their Pockets?

Sir John Sherbrooke Junior School, Nottingham, 7–11 year-olds

Year groups worked together to create a project showing what might have been in the pockets of Bellows’s dockworkers in 1912 versus school children today.

Sponge and Roller Portraits

Little Hallingbury C of E Primary School, Essex, 5–7 year-olds

The children noticed that the men’s faces are painted with only a few brushstrokes, so they used rollers and sponges to create a similar effect.

Hats of Hope or Hats of Hopelessness?

The Priory C of E Primary School, London, 6–7 year-olds

Do you think the men in the painting are hopeful or hopeless? These hats show the emotions that might be running through their heads.

Ceramic Skyscrapers

Headlands Primary School, Northampton, 8–9 year-olds

Inspired by the buildings in the painting, Year 4 learnt how to create texture in clay and used glazes to create ceramic skyscrapers.

Dockworkers’ Shoes

St Martin de Porres Catholic Primary School, Luton, 7–8 year-olds

The children felt that the men’s shoes might not be good enough to protect their feet from the cold winter weather, so they made new shoes from ModRoc.

Our ‘First Thoughts’ Drawings

SS Peter and Paul RC Primary School, Tyne and Wear, 4–5 year-olds

After looking at the painting for the first time, Reception class recorded their first thoughts in a collaborative class book.

Import and Export, 1912 and 2019

St Martin de Porres Catholic Primary School, Luton, 9–10 year-olds

This ship shows the type of cargo that would have been transported in 1912 versus today. Cargo from 1912 includes sacks of coal and coffee, whereas the modern examples include cars and a helicopter.

Clay Men of the Docks

Grange Park School, Kent, 11–13 year-olds

Paying close attention to their body language, children from Grange Park School created their own men of the docks from clay.

Acrostic Poems and Descriptive Writing

Oakwood School, Surrey, 8–11 year-olds

The children imagined being one of the men in the painting and wrote about their experiences.

Polluted Cityscapes

Gunthorpe Primary School, Peterborough, 6–7 year-olds

The class discussed pollution problems in busy cities and experimented with different ways of representing pollution in their cityscapes.

Portraits and Passports

Redlands Nursery and Primary School, Nottinghamshire, 8–9 year-olds

Year 4 learnt about the experiences of families moving to New York in 1912. They developed their own characters and made each one a passport.

Bellows the Horse

Hill Top CE Primary School and Nursery, Bradford, 6–10 year-olds

Students made a life-size horse by experimenting with fabric and different printing techniques. They called their horse ‘Bellows’.

Empire Windrush

Beecroft Garden Primary School, London, 10–11 year-olds

Year 6 researched examples of people migrating to London. They learnt about the Empire Windrush and made their own version of the ship.

Suitcase Sashes

Kingswood Parks Primary School, Hull, 7–8 year-olds

The children made personalised sashes to help keep track of their suitcases on a long journey.

Billy the Pony

Kingsway Community Primary School, Warwickshire, 6–7 year-olds

After meeting a real pony called Billy, Year 2 made observational drawings and thought about what the horses would have been able to see through their blinkers.

Ellis Island Photographs

Rhodes Avenue Primary School, London, 10–11 year-olds

Students recreated scenes of people arriving at Ellis Island and imagined they were experiencing the same feelings of fear and hope.

'We are the Men on the Docks’ Work Song

St Martin de Porres Catholic Primary School, Luton, 5–6 year-olds

After finding out that workers would sing songs to keep in time, children wrote their own work song with rhyme and a repeated refrain.

Horse Information Booklets

Tudor C of E Primary School, Suffolk, 5–7 year-olds

The children wrote and illustrated information booklets about horses, and added a contents pages to help their readers find information quickly.

Tonal Drawings

Kingsway Junior School, Hertfordshire, 9–10 year-olds

Year 5 investigated light, shade and perspective before making tonal drawings of the painting.

‘Rags to Riches’ Animation

Holy Trinity CE Primary School, London, 8–9 year-olds

Children decided to tell the story of the man in the shadows from the moment he ‘walked off the canvas.’

Family Immigration Interviews

Kenmont Primary School, London, 7–8 year-olds

Many students did not know why their parents or grandparents had moved to the UK, so they decided to ask their families about their experiences.