Schools have been one of most heavily impacted institutions by the ongoing coronavirus pandemic, and the Chessington School is no exception.

Rather than have the virus stunt her art students' learning, however, Head of Art Miss Kavanagh leaned into the lockdown and encouraged her students to express themselves and learn new techniques in illustration, painting and other visual art forms.

"Lockdown came as a shock to everyone. At Chessington School we were very lucky in the fact that we had already taken teacher training in Google Classrooms," she told the Comet.

"When the lockdown came, we carried on with our same timetables from before lockdown and provided our students with weekly classes, as they would have had, had we been in school, except online and in the virtual classrooms instead."

This Is Local London: Manga from a Year 9 art class, Chessington SchoolManga from a Year 9 art class, Chessington School

A selection of the genuinely stunning results from a range of secondary school year groups are reproduced here.

"I am incredibly proud of my students who persevered and kept going. It’s been tough on young people," Kavanagh said.

This Is Local London: Work on identity from Year 10 art class, Chessington SchoolWork on identity from Year 10 art class, Chessington School

"A lot of students worked extremely hard during lockdown, and that wasn’t easy, especially with the amount of uncertainty that was in the air, for so long.

This Is Local London: Work on identity from Year 10 art class, Chessington SchoolWork on identity from Year 10 art class, Chessington School

"In art, we found that there are a lot of fantastic online drawing tutorials that the students really enjoyed and their improvement has been amazing, considering we’ve not been in school for months."

Chessington School said they were due to return to physically distanced school classes on site from September.

This Is Local London: Portraiture from Year 8 art class, Chessington SchoolPortraiture from Year 8 art class, Chessington School

This Is Local London: Work on identity from Year 10 art class, Chessington SchoolWork on identity from Year 10 art class, Chessington School

This Is Local London: Work from year 11 art class, Chessington SchoolWork from year 11 art class, Chessington School

This Is Local London: Head of Art Miss Kavanagh (Chessington School)Head of Art Miss Kavanagh (Chessington School)