AFTER nearly being hit with a football as I walked through the playground on my way in, I was met with a very enthusiastic bunch of 10 Year Two, Three and Four pupils.
I visited the school as part of its citizenship project.
The pupils are looking at various different jobs and will be putting what they learn into practice at the school.
They were visited by local county councillor Sue Bolam and took part in L
ocal Democracy Week where one student was made Prime Minister.
They were all very intrigued to find out about the job of a journalist and had lots of questions ready to ask me.
I was constantly met with hands stretching as high as possible to ask the next question.
I explained about my training and education, and then the questions began.
I was asked how we find out about stories and if we could just make things up, which of course we can't, and why certain stories are put in the paper.
They also wanted to know who decides what the headline is going to be, and why those headlines are chosen.
Another pressing question was "are you a photographer as well as a journalist?".
The highlight of the session was showing the children how journalists use shorthand, and when I passed round my notebook they tried as hard as possible to read what I had written, but many just said it looked like scribbles.
When I wrote the name of the school on the board, in shorthand, there was a chorus of "wow" and "that's weird".
At the beginning of the week the school closed early because of the snow, so the children had got into pairs and wrote stories about the snow for me to judge.
They had also taken pictures with the school camera of the snow outside.
At the end of the lesson, the children all queued up to have their names written in shorthand, and then asked for my autograph, for when I'm famous.
When I asked who wants to be a journalist, a few hands and "me me me" were shouted out, but the most enthusiastic was Ellen Packer, whose story was the best.
But I think there are definitely some budding young reporters in the group.
They will be putting the experience to good use when they create a mock newspaper in their IT sessions.
The Jerusalem Gazette will be out in time for Easter.
