The Paul Hamlyn Foundation has reaffirmed its support for the Lakes International Comic Art Festival’s Comic Potential with further funding, a project created in partnership with Northwest-based education partners.
Comic Potential 2 will lead on from a highly successful research programme 2023-2024 looking at comics-based learning potential in the classroom in Primary and Special Educational Needs schools in Barrow-in-Furness and Kendal. This was inspired by a piece of research at Abraham Moss Community School in Manchester 2021 – 2022.
The Paul Hamlyn Foundation previously provided £102,000 in funding via their Art-based Learning Fund for the initial 27-month long Comic Potential project, which aimed to improve reading enjoyment for pupils in the classroom and as a result impact positively on a range of other educational outcomes and personal skills. Now, it has kindly contributed a further £48,000 to the long-running project.
Comics are the least class-bound artform, according to a 2023 YouGov Survey by the University of Manchester into cultural participation. Recent research also indicates comics have an exceptionally high percentage of neurodiverse creators and audiences, in comparison with other cultural activities.
Research conducted through the Comic Potential project over the past four years, conducted through a programme in primary schools in disadvantaged areas has shown that enjoyment of reading rose by 100 per cent after a two-year comics intervention among seven-to-eight-year-olds.
In special educational needs schools, Comic Potential research has shown that teacher’s expectations were exceeded by 100% in writing skills, 80% in motivation to read independently, and 100% in well-being measures after two years.
This new project takes our learning into a new phase where, with expert guidance from an advisory panel, the Comic Potential team will create and test “blueprints” for comics in the classroom, focussed on special educational needs teaching, and begin to embed them in PGCE teacher training courses. Initially this will be with the PGCE programme at the University of Cumbria led by Dr Adrian Copping.
“I am delighted to be part of this project because of its potential to develop both children's and teacher's development,” says Adrian Copping. “The approaches involved will help develop children's creative thinking and support teachers in reclaiming some creative efficacy.”
“Comic creators have long advocated, and utilised the comics medium as an education resource,” notes Festival Director Julie Tait, “but very little recent quantifiable research had been done on its value as a teaching tool in the UK, until we launched the Comic Potential project with our partners in the Northwest, Europe, the Paul Hamlyn Foundation and David Fickling Comics.
“I’m delighted we’re now able to take Comic Potential further, thanks to support from PHF and others, and I look forward to seeing what’s produced during this next stage by pupils, teachers and other stakeholders.”
• The Comic Potential Project on Comics Can Change the World
• Comics and Literacy Project, Comic Potential Reports
• The Paul Hamlyn Foundation is online at phf.org.uk
This year’s Lakes International Comic Art Festival in Bowness-on-Windermere will take place over the weekend of the 26th – 28th September 2025
