Kate joins youngsters on school bus to National Portrait Gallery for art trail

The Princess of Wales took a school bus to the National Portrait Gallery with a group of young children and joined them on an interactive trail exploring their emotions through paintings.

Kate adopted the role of a surrogate mum and held hands with some of the four and five-year-olds as she stepped off the minibus with the reception class pupils, and walked into the popular arts attraction.

She became buddies with one little girl, Grace, aged five, during the bus ride from All Souls Church of England Primary School in Fitzrovia, central London, and the pair teamed up throughout the visit.

The 13 children were taken on the magical Bobeam Tree Trail based on the new Shaping Us Framework, published by Kate’s Royal Foundation Centre for Early Childhood and aimed at increasing awareness and understanding of society’s social and emotional skills.

Kate wrote the foreword for a report published to mark the launch of the framework, and described how modern life was leaving many feeling “isolated and vulnerable” during troubled periods, resulting in “poor mental health, addiction and abuse” that was “devastating” for those affected and society.

The solution was to “develop and nurture” the social and emotional skills we all possess from the moment we are born which are the “bedrock of any healthy, happy society”, but this must be a priority if we are to “thrive”.