Oakbank School students linked up with a former Olympic athlete for a transatlantic art lesson.

The year nine students attended the “virtual” workshop with Roald Bradstock via a Skype link to the US.

Roald, a native of Hertfordshire, is now an artist and is known as the Olympic Picasso.

He finished seventh in the javelin in the 1984 Olympic Games in Los Angeles.

At the age of 49 he last year stood third in the British ranking lists behind two men in their 20s.

Roald is one of the Youth Sport Trust’s ambassadors for the Sports College Legacy Programme, which uses the Olympic and Paralympic Games to inspire children to learn across a range of school subjects.

The Oakbank students, who have chosen GCSE art as part of their options for the next academic year, were the first at Oakbank to take a virtual art lesson.

Oakbank art teacher Graeme Hill said: “This was a perfect opportunity for the students to experience the thought and guidance of a professional artist.

“All the pupils produced work of outstanding quality and really enjoyed the work-shop.

“Roald Bradstock was the perfect host via Skype and they built up an amazingly close relationship to say they had never met him before and he was thousands of miles away.

“What I think all students took from the workshop was Roald’s determination to succeed and that failure is part of learning and shouldn’t prevent you from pushing yourself as hard as you can, and how this can link to their artwork.”