LLANBISTER Primary School pupils received a special visitor earlier this month when County Times journalist Matt Jones spent time with them talking about his varied and exciting life as a roving reporter.

Matt spent a couple of hours chatting to pupils about the exciting career of journalism. The visit was organised by foundation phase teacher Kay Hughes, with pupils at the school this term learning about authors and illustrators, with Matt's visit part of their experience day offer, where the pupils focus on an area of the new curriculum.

Matt discussed how articles are written and then placed in both the newspaper and online, with life in the media world these days dominated by the move toward digital news, and talked about how social media, the internet and technology have changed journalism dramatically.

Matt talked about how journalists use computer software to place images and text to create the multipage tabloid County Times newspaper each week for thousands of members of the Powys community to read.

He shared stories about life at the County Times, as well as his time spent working for another Powys weekly newspaper, the Brecon & Radnor Express. Pupils also bombarded him with questions about his time working for a sports publication in the Middle East called Sport360, where he had the opportunity to interview famous sporting celebrities like Diego Maradona, Brian O’Driscoll and Max Verstappen and attend renowned events like the Formula One Abu Dhabi Grand Prix and Dubai Rugby Sevens.

Pupils were keen to show Matt some of their own journalistic talents from work they had completed the week before. Pupils were enthused and inspired by Matt’s visit and were able to talk more confidently about what they knew about newspaper reports and the career of journalism.