THE Hereford Times reporters of the future swung into action this week when a leading Government minister came to town, writes RICHARD WILSON.

Haywood High School's 'press gang' picked up their notebooks and digital cameras and followed Estelle Morris on her whistlestop tour of the county.

Eighteen months ago Herefordshire was nominated as an Education Action Zone - giving schools in South Wye and the Golden Valley extra cash to combat the problems of rural life.

The Minister for School Standards wanted to see for herself the positive impact of the EAZ.

And the year 9 press gang students - who meet after school to learn media skills - were given the task of chronicling the day.

So while four of them stayed in Hereford to cover the EAZ annual conference, the others travelled with Mrs Morris.

At Longtown Primary School, headteacher David Price showed off the computer suite paid for with EAZ cash and talked about the website that the pupils are building.

Next stop was Haywood itself, where the minister chatted with pupils about their work experience programme and visited the 'successmaker' classroom.

The tour finished at one of Hereford's largest primary school, St Martins, where the school choir entertained the minister.

Fourteen-year-old Hayley Gow then gave Mrs Morris a grilling, leaving her to remark that she was 'very impressed' with the press gang's efforts.

Newsletter

Back at the Three Counties Hotel, the two groups of budding journalists joined forces to produce a newsletter of the day's events.

Using state-of-the-art equipment they worked to a real deadline and, by the evening, their very own record of the EAZ conference was complete.

But in spite of the pressure the teenagers enjoyed a positive experience. "It was very stressful but great fun," said Hayley.

The press gang were: Matthew Evans, Lisa Jones, Hayley Gow, Terry Marshall Saunders, Berni Collins, Sian Keen and Kenny Dyche.