BooksForTopics Shortlisted in the Teach Primary Awards 2026
We are really pleased to share some exciting news: the BooksForTopics website has been officially shortlisted in the English category for the Teach Primary Awards 2026.
Making the national shortlist for Best Primary English Resource is a wonderful moment for our team, our review panel and the community of teachers and librarians who use our site every day. It caps off a stellar 2026 for BooksForTopics, as we celebrate ten years of supporting primary schools as a 2026 official pledge partner of the National Year of Reading and following our recent Community Category Trophy at the FSB & HSBC UK Small Business Growth Awards and being Commended in the Educational Resource Award (Primary) category at the Education Business Awards!
About the Teach Primary Awards
The Teach Primary Awards are widely recognised across the primary sector because they focus specifically on quality-judged, classroom-tested resources. Reaching over 250,000 educators through Teach Primary magazine, the awards highlight tools that genuinely support teaching, lighten teacher workload and make a measurable difference in real schools.
What makes this recognition so meaningful is the judging process. The English category – in which BooksForTopics has been shortlisted this year – is evaluated by an independent panel of primary sector leaders and literacy experts, including specialist judges from the UK Literacy Association (UKLA). The judges assess resources on educational impact, accessibility and real-world usefulness across EYFS, Key Stage 1 and Key Stage 2. We are over the moon that BooksForTopics has been recognised as a national leading Primary English resource in this way.
Validating Ten Years of Teacher-Led Curation
Since launching BooksForTopics in 2016, our aim has been simple – to take the guesswork out of finding high quality, expert-vetted children’s books and save teachers hours of planning time.
Over the past decade, we’ve built an independent filter between the publishing world and the classroom. We don’t rely on publisher press releases or automated algorithms; instead, our Review Panel of practising classroom teachers, school librarians and literacy leads test books in real school settings and provide feedback for our expert curation team.
Being shortlisted by an independent panel serves as a quality stamp of approval for our curation process. It also signifies how BooksForTopics has grown from a small, classroom-started side project to a national platform helping millions of visitors. Our commitment to high-quality and curriculum-aligned book recommendations remains as strong as ever as we continue to grow as a go-to book listing resource for schools up and down the country.
To our community of teachers, librarians and schools: whether you rely on our Year Group Booklists for classroom libraries, use our Curriculum Topic Lists to plan next term’s history or science units or follow our Books of the Month, this shortlist recognition is shared with our whole teaching community. Thank you for trusting us with your reading provision!
The final category winners will be announced in November 2026. In the meantime, you can see the full lineup of contenders on the official Teachwire Teach Awards 2026 Shortlist Page.
Planning Your Literacy Provision for Next Term?
Explore the teacher-approved booklists recognised by this year’s panel:
> Browse our Topic Booklists
> Go to our National Year of Reading Booklist
> View our Printable Year Group Booklists
> See our Books of the Month