Results & Impact
Each week hundreds of thousands of young people vote on our latest lesson. Here's what they say, and how their voices are changing the world.
09th - 16th January 2026
Over recent weeks, global events have dominated the news, with flurries of concerning stories making headlines from Venezuela to Switzerland to the Middle East. Not ones to shy away from tackling these topics, we asked our voters to reflect on their interest in international news and whether global events feel relevant to their everyday lives. The results offer a timely snapshot of how pupils are engaging with the world beyond their immediate communities.
Results from a VoteTopic we released in September found that 1 in 4 Secondary students didn’t keep up with the headlines over summer 2025, however just over half (56%) said that global politics feels relevant to them in January 2026. This could show a shifting interest as the year progresses, but it could also highlight their growing reliance on social media apps such as TikTok for their headlines, as many who voted ‘No’ in September clarified that it was more traditional news outlets that they didn’t keep up with, rather than the news itself.
Secondary, 16+ & College voters were asked: “Is global politics relevant to you?”, while Primary 7-11 voters discussed: “Are you interested in world news?” and Primary 5-7 voters considered, “Are you interested in news from other countries?”
66,613 young people voted on this topic.
total votes
voters aged 5-11
voters aged 11-16+
You can see how our voting is impacting the world on our impact page:
Our Impact
02nd January - 09th January
As 2026 is the National Year of Reading, we wanted to ask young people for their thoughts on the activity, and whether it’s something they’d like to prioritise more over the coming year. The campaign is asking everyone to “Go all in”, with the Government also pledging £1,400 to all Secondary schools in England for libraries to buy more books for students. Despite this push, recent research conducted by the National Literacy Trust found that only 1 in 5 young people read something daily in their free time. It also found that around 1 in 10 young people don’t have a book at home. Given these findings, we were interested to hear young people’s thoughts on this Government-backed campaign and whether they would like to develop the habit of reading more regularly.
see results
12th December - 02nd January
With the news that toy sales have increased for the first time since the pandemic, we were interested to hear that companies have been appealing to both young people and adults to increase their sales. It turns out, adults who like doing or buying things that are intended for children, known as “kidults” , are partly responsible for the growing interest. We asked our voters to consider whether there should be an age limit to playing with toys, or if there’s always a place for them in a person’s life.
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05th - 12th December 2025
Cambridge Dictionary chose “parasocial” as their word of the year for 2025, to reflect the rising trend of one-sided or technology-based relationships. It can be defined as, “a connection that someone feels between themselves and a famous person they do not know, a character in a book, film, TV series, etc.” Taylor Swift’s engagement, Lily Allen’s new album and, more recently, relationships developed with AI have been cited as examples of parasocial activity. The term isn’t new, having been coined in 1956; people have felt strong one-sided connections with celebrities for a long time. However, with the rise of social media, AI technology and behind-the-curtain glimpses into celebrities’ lives, it has become a much more prevalent phenomenon in recent years. We wanted to see how young people felt about these relationships, and whether we can foresee them as the new normal.
see results