Kate plays surrogate mother on school bus ride to National Portrait Gallery
The Princess of Wales joined a trip with All Souls Church of England Primary School.
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Your support makes all the difference.The Princess of Wales became a surrogate mother for the day when she befriended a girl and took a school bus ride with her class for a National Portrait Gallery (NPG) outing.
Kate helped to look after the youngsters playing I Spy when they travelled to the arts attraction, staging the first project associated with Kateās new initiative to boost the nationās social and emotional skills.
The future Queen became buddies with Grace, aged five, during the bus ride from All Souls Church of England Primary School in nearby Fitzrovia, central London, but the youngster did not realise the identity of the special guest.
Kensington Palace provided the executive minibus for the reception class children and Kate helped the youngsters dress, putting on jumpers and her office later posted a social media video showing Kate introducing herself on the bus and asking the children if they had their seatbelts on.
Liz Smith, the NPGās director of learning and engagement, said of Kate: āI think she was one of the group today, an unusual situation she was part of the school party ā one of the mums and the helpers.ā
The children were taken on the āmagicalā Bobeam Tree Trail, based on the new Shaping Us Framework, published by Kateās Royal Foundation Centre for Early Childhood and aimed at increasing awareness and understanding of social and emotional skills.
Kate met museum executives from across the country who will be launching their own projects based on the framework, and told them: āIām really excited to be using portraiture to be able to explore social and emotional skills because I feel itās such an untapped potential.
āBut also to make it accessible to lots of kids, so itās not just in school but something embraced by the community.ā
In the foyer was an artificial tree, the heart of the interactive trail, and the children touched its bark for luck before discovering the paintings, creating self-portraits and posting their images back to the tree through a special cabinet.
Portraits were used to encourage the children to identify emotions, with the four and five-year-olds asked by Anna Husband, the galleryās head of learning, if a face looked happy or sad and at one point an image of Charles Darwin was singled out.
A two-way mirror was set up in one of the galleries where the children could pull happy, sad or grumpy faces and their classmates would look through the other side and identify the emotion.
Kate put on a āhappyā face followed by an āangryā expression, to the delight of the children who had completed the trail, which will run for six weeks at the gallery for family groups and schools.
She also supervised a number of children as they drew self portraits and later on social media described the trail as a ābrilliant example of how organisations can embrace the principles of social and emotional development, and the centreās framework, to engage children and families in their communities.ā
The princess wrote the foreword for a report published to mark the launch of the framework, and described how modern life was leaving many feeling āisolated and vulnerableā during troubled periods, resulting in āpoor mental health, addiction and abuseā that was ādevastatingā for those affected and society.
The solution is to ādevelop and nurtureā social and emotional skills from the moment people are born, which are the ābedrock of any healthy, happy societyā, but this must be a priority for people to āthriveā, it said.
Alix Ascough, executive headteacher at All Souls, described how Kate and Grace sat next to each other on the bus and chatted during the journey.
She said about the five-year-old: āShe knew it was a very special visitor, we told her she was a princess. She just called her Catherine.
āThe children, theyāre four or five years old. Theyāre completely oblivious to everything thatās happening. They were just like, āWeāve got a posh coach with nice lights and air conā, and Catherine was wonderful, really chatty with the children.
āAnd it just felt like a really relaxed journey. She was helping out with the children, helping out with their jumpers. It was just lovely.ā