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I’ve always read. I’ve always read comics. From my early pre-teens of reading ‘Bunty’ to my early twenties of escaping into the world of Judge Dredd and 2000AD, I always felt the stir of imagination taking me into another world of exciting happenings.

So, when one of my colleagues told me of an exhibition ‘Local Heroes: The Art of the Graphic Novel’ which was being held at the National Library of Scotland, I jumped at the chance to go. It was an exciting visual exhibition that showed the graphic novel from its early beginnings to contemporary Japanese Manga. Also attending an illustrated talk, along with fellow colleagues from the English Department and one of our Deputes, it became clear how the Graphic Novel could provide fantastic cross-curricular opportunities that could enthuse our pupils, not only visually but also in a literary sense. With graphic novels such as Macbeth, Kidnapped and Henry V already out, it seems a shame not to bring them into the educational environment. There are some who feel that these are not ‘real books’, but with each novel coming in three versions – quick text, plain text and original text – how can that not be the case? As teachers we differentiate for different pupil abilities, so how would using these be any different? Because they have lots of visuals? As a parent, I want my children to be excited by reading. If that means using different tools do do that, them why not as long as the outcome is the same.

A couple of weeks later, a couple of us went to listen to Gary Erskine in conversation. Having worked in the industry for over 20 years, Gary enlightened his listeners on his career which currently involves working on the new Dan Dare novels. His enthusiasm was inspiring and his attitude to ‘giving something back’, particularly to education was admirable.

A colleague, equally enthused by the exhibition and the possibilities it has opened up to us as a school, mentioned one day about trying to get hold of some posters. Having always lived by the phrase ‘if you don’t ask, you don’t get’, I contacted the NLS to see what happened to the exhibition once it had finished. I was delighted last week to get a phone call saying we could have all the visual display boards and several graphic novels for the Department and school. I found a man with a van and waiting outside my classroom now sits several large, colourful and informative visual display boards ready to be displayed in the school.

I only hope the pupils are as excited as I am!