How I introduced primary school children to the world of journalism

Last month, I had the pleasure of speaking at an ‘Aspirations Day’ careers event at Margaret Wix primary school in St Albans as part of my role as an NCTJ ambassador.

The event brought together a wide variety of professionals from different walks of life — including chefs, dog trainers, marketers and more. Each of us had a stand with which to explain our roles.

The biggest difficulty was working out how to present journalism in an accessible and engaging way for primary school children. Many were unlikely to have picked up a newspaper, much less known what being a reporter or editor involves.

I settled on buying a range of that day’s papers and cutting out parts of headlines. The idea was to get the kids to fill in the gaps using the words I had removed — and in the process tell them about how being an editor involves coming up with ways of ‘selling’ a piece. If nothing else, I can be proud I explained to one girl what the word ‘trifle’ meant in an article about Nigella Lawson becoming a Great British Bake Off judge.

Some of the kids wanted to discuss the wider world of journalism more than others — and it certainly helped that I had sweets to offer them as a reward for the headlines game — but it felt like the right way to give them a sense of the industry at this very early stage.

Who knows? Perhaps some will be the great headline writers of the future, in whatever medium that might be.