Swaddled corpses and smouldering representations of September 11 have helped Caol primary school in Fort William to reach the shortlist for a £20,000 art prize.

The school, which has its own artist in residence, is at the forefront of a new movement to encourage young art students to dabble with a wider range of concepts — looking to Damien Hirst and Tracey Emin as much as Turner and Constable.

One of the school’s pupils, Jodie Frasier, has also been shortlisted for a £1,000 prize for the best individual submission to the collection, which is showing at the Royal College of Art. Her re-creation of the collapse of the twin towers, using 3,000 burnt matchsticks — one for each victim — was conceived after she watched the events unfold. “I was off sick from school the day of September 11 and I got to watch all of it,” said Jodie, 11, who completed the work in January. “It was going to have words on it but I decided not to. I thought that when the buildings fell it looked like matches falling.”

Another picture, posed and created by Lindsey Martin, 11, for the Barbie Prize — the children’s equivalent of the Turner Prize — also invokes the terrorist events by showing her smothered under white sheets and rubber gloves. She describes it as an abstract attempt to convey the feeling of being trapped under dust “as it turns into a shroud”.

Rob Fairley has been the resident artist at the school for nine years, operating out of Room 13 — a studio run by the children as an autonomous entity. It elects its own officials and runs its own budget, paying Mr Fairley a salary from grants and fundraising ventures. The aim is to develop their initiative in tandem with their artistry. As long as their work is up to date, pupils are free to leave their lessons and go to the room to work on projects, debate philosophy or discuss the works of great artists: pupils mention Edvard Munch and Vincent Van Gogh as particular idols.

“I facilitate their work by offering advice or help, but apart from that they are all their own ideas,” Mr Fairley said. “It is radically different from the other entries in the show and has been well received. We assumed when we entered that our work would be so different it would be chucked out.

“I think this could be the start of something — pupils like the chance to be more expressive. Jodie has said to me that she wants to do work that makes people cry.”

Nicholas Addison, a lecturer in art, design and museology at the Institute of Education, said that the subject had been squeezed out of the curriculum in many primary schools because of the emphasis on literacy and numeracy.

However, those schools that continued to place importance on art teaching — particularly those that used professional artists — had discovered flashes of genius and a wide range of tastes in the under-12s.

“Children are more likely to be open to concepts and styles of modern art that adults would be inclined to dismiss,” he said. “It is a way of changing the tastes of the country.”

More than 70 schools entered the competition. The winners will be announced in December.

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