All schools in Oxfordshire with children from any year between Reception and Year 9 are invited to participate in Young Art Oxford and help raise much needed funds for Great Ormond Street Hospital. Young Art Oxford is a fantastic opportunity for children to be recognised and feel good about their artistic abilities. Both teachers and parents regularly comment on the tremendous boost to a child’s confidence that is gained as a result of being selected and seeing their exhibited artwork, as well as being made into a lovely printed product.
How does it work?
Parents pay £2 to enter their child's picture into the competition. All entries from each school need to be dropped off to Young Art Oxford by a school representative shortly after the February Half-Term holidays. Entries are placed into 1 of 4 age categories, each of which is judged by one of our team of judges. To ensure accessibility and fairness across the variety of schools who enter the competition, we apply a "ratio" approach to the first stage of selection with 1 in 4 or 5 pictures from each entered school being selected to appear in our exhibition held in May. From this selection, 1st - 3rd Prize winners from each age category are chosen by the judges. We also award a number of Commended and Highly Commended awards. Schools are notified of their successful entries shortly after judging. All children selected for the exhibition recieve a certificate and the Prize Winners get their winning pictures framed and recieve prizes which are awarded by the judges at a Prize Giving Ceremony on the opening day of the Exhibition. The exhibition is held in Central Oxford in the middle of May and pictures need to be picked up by a school representative on a set day in the week following the exhibition. It is also possible to buy merchandise (cards, prints, etc) from us of all exhibited artworks.
What should schools do?
Each school must appoint a representative responsible for making sure that ALL pictures are dropped off and picked up at the correct times, that the entries are labelled correctly and the entry fee and permission forms are collected. Permission forms should be retained by schools. Submissions should be accompanied by a summary form. Ensure that pictures conform to our rules - particularly those regarding size and type of paper. See our Rules page for the terms of entry.
What shouldn't schools do?
Please don't apply any form of pre-selection to your entries. As we apply quotas to the first stage of selecting, the more entries you submit, the greater the number of pictures from your school that will appear in the exhibition.
How to take part Use the form provided on the contact us page if you would like your school to get involved. Please contact us if there is a problem preventing your participation - we may be able to help you out.