A PRIMARY school has teamed up with artists from Oxford's own comic book The Phoenix so children can learn how cartoons are created.

Some 300 pupils from New Marston Primary School were transfixed by the impressive skills from The Phoenix artists yesterday during a mass drawing lesson.

The moment marked the first of many activities planned for the school and officially launched the new partnership with the Beaumont Street-based comic.

Year 5 teacher Karolina Shapland said the partnership came about because the school's journalism club students had been reading The Phoenix.

She said: “ It was suggested that we visited The Phoenix headquarters and so I took four students along and they loved it.

“The comic artists were such good communicators and were really vocal about high-quality stories and writing.

“It was an amazing opportunity for the children.”

Ms Shapland said the pupils were in awe of the comic headquarters, surprised that it wasn’t all pencils and easels but designed on computers.

It was from this first visit the partnership blossomed and has since included each child at the school getting a copy of the Phoenix to take home, plus a book of the comics at the school library.

The artists behind the comic have also promised the school will make an appearance in the action.

Ms Shapland said: “There are lots of comics out there but we find The Phoenix is the most suitable, with no adverts or plastic toys – just really high-quality storytelling.”

The official launch yesterday saw artists take children through how to draw for a comic strip whilst challenging them to try themselves.

Year 6 student Zara Riaz, 11, said: “They had lots of cool things we had to pick from to make a story, and we chose the rabbit and the fox.”

Nine-year-old Kathryn Widgery said: “It was fun to see how they draw and then try ourselves.

Classmate Zayn Rahman, 10, added: “ I read The Phoenix comics a lot and I like the jokes.”

The Phoenix, which is published by Philip Pullman's publishers David Fickling, was founded in 2012 and printed its 300th issue last year.

Pupils at New Marston will now be contributing by reading one comic each week and writing to the artists to give feedback.

Ms Shapland said the scheme fit in well with the school’s major focus this year on vocabulary.

She added: “Reading The Phoenix is something the children already love doing, so why not make it a bit more special?”