Pupils in Year 6 visited the National Gallery as part of their art studies. Here is a selection of their reactions:

'I enjoyed the day because the lady lecturer from the gallery showed us around and explained five paintings in detail and we had to look really closely to see things we may not have noticed.' BG

'The best part of the National Gallery trip was the painting in a book frame called 'The Wilton Diptych'. In the picture the baby Jesus is about to take hold of the English flag. The person handing over the flag was a self-centred, greedy man who wanted everything to be about him and it was very interesting.' FP

'My favourite painting was 'The Execution of Lady Jane Grey' by Delaroche, painted in 1883, because of the realistic way it was painted. The white silk dress that Lady Jane Grey was wearing looked amazingly like real silk and the picture was very detailed.' AM

'I really enjoyed the visit to the National Gallery and my favourite painting was 'St. George and the Dragon' by Uccello because it reminded me of a fairytale.' HE

'The painting I liked best was called 'The Experiment' by Joseph Wright because I liked the way the artist painted it with so much detail. It looked like a photograph and the way he used light made it very dramatic.' HK

I really liked 'The Ambassadors' (the one with the distorted skull) by Holbein because it contained lots of symbolic objects. I didn't realise the shape in the front was a skull until I looked at the painting from the side. It was very interesting.' HR

'The picture that stuck in my mind was the drawing by Leonardo da Vinci called a 'cartoon' which is an under-drawing for a painting. It fascinated me that the picture had been shot at and vandalised but it didn't look damaged because it had been restored.' TM

'When you look at a painting in real life it is more personal to you than seeing a reproduction in a book because you can imagine the artist standing in front of it and painting. This is why I really enjoyed seeing the real paintings.' HMcB