A 15-year-old pupil at a Northamptonshire school has created a set of writing cards that are helping children all over the world with their creative writing.
Crawford Johnston, a year 10 student at Oundle School, designed the cards when he was at primary school.
A Peterborough printing company helped him to turn the cards into a professional product and he has since had orders from as far afield as Australia, South Africa and Kenya.
“In my last year of primary school I devised a system that helped me focus on how to improve my creative writing skills,” Crawford told SecEd.
“Textbooks often become a bit repetitive and dull and I didn’t want to become bored and switch off. I crunched the main parts of speech and writing techniques into a card system and spent a lot of time ploughing through a dictionary too.
“My aim was to give young people confidence and help them to improve their writing skills – and their exam marks too. The business just seemed to blossom around that.”
Crawford’s Creative Writing Magic Money Cards are aimed at nine to 15-year-olds and cost £16.90 a set. He has received appreciative letters from teachers and schools and the cards have also been praised by authors like Alexander McCall Smith and Meg Rosoff.
“A primary school that ordered sets for every pupil in years 5 and 6 gained a 40 per cent increase in pupil performance in just nine months,” said Crawford, who enjoys science and music but has not decided what he would like to study at university yet.
“Sales are far ahead of where I thought they would be. One mum wrote to me saying that my cards help not only her two children but also her as an adult too.”
For more information, visit www.creativewritingmmc.co.uk
CAPTION: Pick a card: Creative writing cards designed by 15-year-old Crawford Johnston have proved popular across the world