AN Abingdon student with a talent for writing won his class a trip to see the film that inspired his work.

Danny Kellard, a Year Nine pupil at John Mason School, was the runner-up in a national competition to write a short story based on Life of Pi.

The 13-year-old beat 2,500 students and won an iPad and a trip to see the film in a private viewing for his whole class in the National Schools Partnership competition.

Danny said: “I entered the competition because I enjoy descriptive and narrative writing. This was a chance to see if others thought I was any good, and of course to win an iPad.”

Life of Pi is a fantasy adventure novel by Canadian author Yann Martel, that tells the story of an Indian boy, Piscine Molitor “Pi” Patel.

Pi is stranded on a boat in the Pacific Ocean for 227 days with a Bengal tiger.

The UK edition won the Man Booker Prize for fiction in 2002.

The film adaptation will hit cinema screens tomorrow.

Directed by Ang Lee, it stars Suraj Sharma, Irrfan Khan, Gérard Depardieu, Tabu and Adil Hussain.

It is based on an adapted screenplay by David Magee and received three Golden Globe nominations.

Danny said: “I’m reading Life of Pi at the moment and am enjoying it because I’m very interested in animals and it’s full of cool descriptions of exotic wildlife.

“When I heard I was runner-up in the competition I was excited and surprised because I didn’t think I would do that well.”

Teacher and acting director of English and media Alison Mummery said: “I decided to enter my Year Nine class as they had just completed a unit on descriptive writing in which I was very impressed with the way they crafted the material.

“I was really proud of all the entries.

“The competition captured the students’ imagination and many of the entries were well developed and fascinating to read.”

The National Schools Partnership is a group that supports businesses to set up programmes to benefit schools.

Its programmes and resources look to help teachers deliver the curriculum.

The Wootton Road school is hoping that Danny’s win will inspire him to continue writing and he has already been using the new iPad to do so.