YOUNG artists at John Kyrle High school have teamed up with Ross Lions and the Riding for the Disabled Association Centre at Holme Lacy to create some large-scale paintings of horses for a sensory room.

Lisa Millman at the RDA and Ross Lion, Keith Wilding who runs a Leos club at John Kyrle, asked art teacher Neil Carroll to help. Mr Carroll arranged for ex-student Holly Cook to come into school and carry out her four-week work experience from her fine art degree course at Cardiff University alongside volunteers from his Year 10 GCSE art group to work on the project. The group came up with a whole range of exciting ideas as a result of researching horse anatomy and how horses have been represented throughout the history of art. The paintings are each seven feet high by eight feet across and so were a real challenge to paint for the team.

Mr Carroll said how well Holly had led the students. He added how much the students had enjoyed the experience, gained a great deal from working with Holly and how she had inspired them to produce such wonderful work.

A delighted Lisa Millman said that Mr Carroll, Holly and the John Kyrle students were looking forward to the official unveiling of the paintings at RDA and that she was sure that the paintings would bring lots of pleasure to all users of the sensory room.

Headteacher Nigel Griffiths, presenting the paintings to Lisa, said that he was thrilled with the work on display and that this was yet another successful project linking the school with the local community.

The students involved in the project were Matthew Visser, Ethan Roberts, Thomas Green, Tia Cole, Oliver Wareing and Kathryn Robinson.