The Big Future: Speaking to children in Cumbria

“Last week, I launched my biggest survey yet of England’s children: The Big Future . But surveying children was not enough. I knew I wanted to continue to speak to, and crucially hear from, England’s children personally. I began that work in Cumbria, at Hadrian’s Wall. I will end it at Land’s End. Over the coming months, I will travel the length of England, to speak to children wherever they are – from schools and youth groups to hospitals and prisons. It is apt that this journey begins in Carlisle, a place that looms large in England’s myth. Alfred the Great asked for St Cuthbert – patron saint of Northumbria – to intervene against the Danes. Legend has it that a local castle is home of Uther Pendragon, father of King Arthur. Sir Gawain, the great chivalric hero, is connected to the area too; the Green Knight is supposed to have lived in Inglewood Forest. Yet for all its mythic past, the children I spoke to were rooted in the here and now, and always looking forward to the future. Some concerns were immediate – more things to do, reduced cost barriers for existing provision, and in particular public transport were common concerns here. Wider concerns focused on their careers. I heard about how many of them thought they would have to leave to ‘get on’ in life, but all hoped to come back. They were proud of where they lived, they cared about it deeply, wanted it to feel ‘more important’ and wanted to play a part in making it better. Some things I heard were truly shocking. In a round table session with two schools, just one of twenty pupils told me they had hope for the future. They saw a political system that had stopped working, that had failed to keep up with a changing nature, and felt unresponsive to their real needs. I have heard consistently that children feel disconnected from the levers of power in this country, that they do not feel like politicians listen to them or think about them. It has been one of the disheartening themes of my time as Children’s Commissioner. And so I turn back to the mythic past of Cumbria. The Round Table is essential to Arthur’s legend, showing him as a man wise enough to sit with others as equals, to give them a seat at the table. It is time that children have a seat at that table. The reflection that will stay with me most clearly came from a young girl, as I walked with the Scouts across Hadrian’s Wall. Our conversation had turned to AI, a real concern for young people, and she told me she wanted to be an author, to write stories – but what was the point anymore, when an LLM could whip up a story in a matter of moments? No culture lives without myth, without stories. Stories are how we work out who and what we are, how we see the world and how we ought to respond to it. They are how we pass this cultural knowledge to the next generation. Hadrian’s Wall is a physical artefact, a very real thing that reflects essential moments in our nation’s history, yes. But it is the Arthurian legend that serves as our national myth, the chivalric romances that tell us about how our forefathers thought we ought to live. Now it is time for England’s children to tell us their story. How do they see the world they live in? How do they think we ought to respond? The post The Big Future: Speaking to children in Cumbria appeared first on Children's Commissioner for England .

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