As part of National Careers Week, English students in Years 7 – 9 had the opportunity to virtually meet Frank Cottrell Boyce, award winning children’s author. 

Frank talked about how he found his love of words as a year 6 pupil in primary school, when his teacher picked up a piece of his work and read it out to the whole class and he was so overwhelmed by the experience. 

Not only has Frank written ‘funny’ award winning books like Millions, Framed and Cosmic, he has script writing credits for TV programmes like Brookside, Coronation Street and Doctor Who plus film credits for 14 film adaptations including his bestselling and award-winning book, Millions. 

Frank also talked about how he was involved with the Opening Ceremony of the London 2012 Olympics and how the creative team which included director, Danny Boyle, wrote short documents about each segment of the time-line in the same way that he wrote when he was in year 6. 

With it being National Careers Week, Frank also explained about the many varied roles that are part of the creative team, not only of the Olympics but also within film or TV production; from the set makers, carpenters and electricians to the pyrotechnicians – it is a team process. 

Students had the opportunity to ask him questions which included who was his role model, his favourite genre to write, how many books he reads for pleasure or research, and when did he know that he wanted to be a creative writer. They also asked if he has ever had a book or film that had failed. Although the answer was yes, he explained that failure is an important process of getting things right in the end. 

Year 8 student, Maisie, said it was good to hear about the ‘perks’ of being a writer and listen to the number of people he has worked with, the places he has visited and the processes he goes through when researching or ‘recce-ing’ for films.