Children present their colourful portrait of King to town

A PORTRAIT of the King created by children at six Henley area schools has been gifted to the town.

The artwork is made up of colourful drawings by pupils at Valley Road, Badgemore, Sacred Heart, Trinity and Shiplake primaries and Rupert House and St Mary’s prep schools, which together form Charles III’s silhouette.

The background is made up of a patchwork of black and white designs chosen by the children to represent their schools.

The project to mark the King’s coronation in May was devised by Education Henley, an initiative set up in January to encourage collaboration between local schools.

The framed portrait was officially presented to the town council by some year five and six pupils at the town hall.

It was received by Mayor Kellie Hinton and will be allocated a space to be hung.

The Mayor said: “It’s beautiful. How could we not hang it up? It’s our first picture of the King and I think it’s fantastic.

“I can look at it when we’re in our meetings and see something new every time. It’s amazing what you can all do together. It would have been amazing for any school to come and present this artwork but it’s the fact that it’s collaborative, right? It’s a great example of the schools coming together.”

She explained to the children that the council was still displaying the late Queen’s portrait in the council chamber as it had not yet been given the King’s official portrait.

The children were accompanied by headteachers Tim Coulson (Valley Road), Rachel Sanders (Sacred Heart), Tim Hoskins (Badgemore) and Nick Armitage (Rupert House).

Mr Armitage said: “It shows how much artistic talent there is at this age in Henley.”

He said the project showed the benefits of the schools working together in the same way as Education Henley’s Great School Run, which took place for a second year in May and involved 300 children.

“For us, it’s about all the opportunities for doing things together and the opportunities that it creates,” said Mr Armitage.

Each school has been given a copy of the portrait.