Workshopping at Harlech Castle for CADW: Words of today, words of tomorrow

Workshopping at Harlech Castle for CADW: Words of today, words of tomorrow Together with Year 6 pupils from Harlech and Porthaethwy, we mapped out memories around the familiar backdrops of their worlds. Pupils were able to write a series of poems in the spaces of their streets, their playing fields, the schoolyards. https://www.literaturewales.org/lw-news/maps-of-today-maps-of-tomorrow/ Maps of Today, Maps of Tomorrow is a major partnership between Cadw, Literature Wales and Children’s Laureate Wales, Nicola Davies. Together, we are delivering a new Wales-wide creative learning project that is set to inspire children to see their surroundings through fresh eyes. The project places heritage, creativity and children’s lived experience at the heart of learning, encouraging pupils to explore the past, present and future of the places they call home.

Mapping heritage, identity and imagination

Created by Nicola Davies, the project invites pupils to rethink what a map can be. Children will be supported to investigate the historic landscapes around them, discovering how castles, ancient sites, streets, fields and coastlines shape both community identity and personal memory. Drawing inspiration from sources as varied as prehistoric cave paintings, medieval maps and Polynesian star-path navigation, children will also explore mapping as a way of telling stories about place, identity and belonging, not simply as a technical or navigational exercise. The project is closely linked to Nicola Davies’ new book, The Map of Me (2026), which tells the story of a child navigating a new city using a personalised map made by her mother. The narrative models the kind of creative mapping pupils will undertake: maps that include meaningful landmarks such as favourite trees, safe routes, meeting places and family homes, rather than conventional cartographic features alone.

From children’s ideas to living digital maps

A key creative strand of the project will see illustrator and artist Fran Evans working directly with the children’s ideas to create bespoke online maps for each participating school. Drawing on pupils’ drawings, writing, conversations and performances, Fran will translate their collective responses into richly layered digital maps that reflect each school’s unique sense of place. These online maps will act both as creative outcomes and as shared digital spaces, allowing children to see their ideas valued, interpreted and brought together visually. The process introduces pupils to digital storytelling while reinforcing the message that maps can evolve, hold emotion, and represent many voices at once.