The Princess of Wales beamed as she stepped out in London to launch a new exciting project related to her early years work.
Princess Kate visited the National Portrait Gallery (NPG) to launch an interactive trail aimed at helping children under five develop their social and emotional skills.
The Royal Foundation Centre for Early Childhood’s new project is based on the new Shaping Us Framework announced earlier this week which outlines 30 social and emotional skills that are crucial to living a healthy, happy life at all ages.
Kate, who has been patron of the NPG since 2011, joined a group of four and five-year-old schoolchildren from All Souls CE Primary School on a school bus from Fitzrovia to Trafalgar Square to participate in The Bobeam Tree Trail for the first time.
She looked chic in a brown blazer, which she paired with a dark turtleneck top and dark pinstripes wide leg trousers. For jewellery she opted for a pair of gold hoops while he hair was styled in her signature loose wave hairstyle.
Today’s activity allowed the children to explore how faces can express feelings and emotions.
The interactive trail’s concept is based on a magical tree grown inside the NPG and filled with colourful leaves.
The children were told how the tree thrives when surrounded by stories and were asked to help by taking part in activities around the Gallery to discover the stories of people through portraits – listening to audio recordings, using props, exploring facial expressions and thinking about their own lives, feelings and thoughts while creating a self-portrait.
At the end of the trail, the children could choose to “feed” their portrait to the tree to help it grow big and strong.
Princess Kate also met Victoria Siddall, the newly appointed director of the National Portrait Gallery, as well as chief executives and expert practitioners from five other galleries from around the UK.
The princess joined the youngsters and their teachers as they journeyed through the gallery using portraits for various activities to enable them to use and develop different social and emotional skills.
The Bobeam Tree is the first project to be created based on the new Shaping Us Framework from The Royal Foundation Centre for Early Childhood.
The framework draws on the expertise of academics, clinicians, and practitioners in human development from across the globe and was developed to provide a universal and flexible way for people across all sectors to unite around and drive action on the core social and emotional skills that matter most in enabling us to live happy, healthy lives.
The new interactive trail at the National Portrait Gallery will run from Tuesday, February 4, to Sunday, March 16, 2025, and is free to participate in.
All are welcome – from nursery and reception groups to families with young children. There are also related activities on the NPG website that can be done from home.
In 2025, The Box in Plymouth, The Lowry in Manchester, Middlesborough Institute of Modern Art and National Museums Northern Ireland , as well as Museums and Galleries in Sheffield will work with the Royal Foundation Centre for Early Childhood and the National Portrait Gallery to bring the Shaping Us framework to life through their own collections.
It comes as the Princess of Wales marked World Cancer Day on Monday by releasing a new picture of herself taken by Prince Louis.
The princess was snapped outdoors by the young royal on a wintry day and shown with her arms out-stretched in the middle of a woodland area.
The image was posted alongside a personal message from Kate which read: “Don’t forget to nurture all that which lies beyond the disease.”
