Learning Programmes with Portraits

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Special Educational Needs

The term 'special educational needs' (SEN) refers to people who have learning difficulties or disabilities that make it harder for them to learn or access education.

People with special education needs may have problems with:

• Reading, writing, number work or understanding information
• Expressing themselves or understanding what others are saying
• Making friends or relating to people
• Behaviour
• Organising themselves
• Some kind of sensory or physical needs which may affect them

Practical activities around portraits are great ways of exploring self-expression and relationships whether adults, young people or children.

A good example:

Expressions and Emotions

Holburne Museum of Art put on a special educational needs workshop for young adults to coincide with the Every Look Speaks. Portraits of David Garrick exhibition in 2003. David Garrick, unusually for eighteenth-century portraiture, is portrayed with a wide range of expressions and poses - whether in role as a Shakespearean character or as himself. The variety of emotional expression made the workshop and exhibition perfect for exploring emotional literacy.

Participants in the workshop visited the exhibition, considered the importance of expression in both art and everyday life and contained creative art activities exploring emotion.

David Garrick as Richard III by John Dixon published 1772. NPG D17075
© National Portrait Gallery, London