ETIH Innovation Awards Winners: EdenFiftyOne wins Best Solution for UK Institutions
EdenFiftyOne was recognized for a teacher-led literacy platform that breaks reading, writing, speaking, and listening into 51 universal skills.
EdenFiftyOne has won Best Solution for UK Institutions at the inaugural ETIH Innovation Awards 2026, with judges recognizing a literacy platform designed to help schools, colleges, academy trusts, SEND providers, and larger education groups identify and address students’ skill gaps.
Founder and CEO Tom Reynolds was also Highly Commended for EdTech Thought Leader of the Year, reflecting the thinking behind a platform that breaks literacy into 51 universal skills across reading, writing, speaking, and listening.
The award follows earlier ETIH coverage of EdenFiftyOne’s development, including Reynolds’ work to turn a classroom literacy tracker into a wider platform for schools, colleges, and specialist settings.
EdenFiftyOne uses a traffic-light system to give students and teachers a clearer picture of formative literacy skills, moving the conversation away from a single grade and toward specific areas of strength and development. The platform includes EFO Pilot Mode for independent student progression and Teacher Pilot Mode for integration into existing schemes of work.
For Reynolds, an institution-ready platform needs to fit the working reality of schools, not sit outside it: “For a platform to be genuinely ‘institution-ready’, it must transcend being a tech-laden ‘shiny tool’ or an isolated classroom resource into something naturally aligned and embedded within the demands of day-to-day teaching, learning, leadership and assessment.”
That teacher-led foundation was central to the judges’ decision. Catherine Buckler, ETIH Innovation Awards judge, said EdenFiftyOne was “clearly grounded in the significant improvement of literacy skills for learners who might otherwise find it difficult to access this kind of learning.” She also highlighted the way the technology supports learning “in a truly innovative way” compared with platforms focused on individual subjects.
A literacy system built from the classroom up
EdenFiftyOne began as a classroom tool before becoming a platform. Reynolds originally conceived it as a color-coded, cell-by-cell skills tracker in Microsoft Excel while working with disaffected inner-city GCSE students. The aim was to show learners that they were “more than a grade” by making their formative strengths and gaps visible.
That origin still shapes the product. EdenFiftyOne’s core model is based on 51 universal literacy skills, with students able to see where they are secure, where they are developing, and where they need targeted support.
Reynolds argues that institutional readiness starts with understanding how schools actually work.
“At the base of this architecture are the teachers; they are the engine room of every school, college or academy setting,” he says. “As a former classroom teacher and Head of English, I designed EdenFiftyOne for teachers, and then refined it for everyone around them - learners, leaders and parents.”
That structure also allows data to move between different levels of an institution. A student can see their next steps, while teachers, leaders, and multi-academy trust teams can view progress across classes, cohorts, and centers.
“Because the data is nested, those in leadership roles gain immediate visibility, consistency and systemic equity across thousands of pupils, while the learner receives localized agency over their immediate next steps,” Reynolds continues.
The platform’s traffic-light model was also noted by Al Kingsley MBE, Group CEO at NetSupport and Chair of two multi-academy trusts and an alternative provision academy: “What stood out for me with EdenFiftyOne is the clarity of the thinking behind it. Tom has taken something as broad and slippery as literacy and broken it down into 51 universal skills across reading, writing, speaking and listening.
“That alone is a smart move, but the traffic-light system is what really lands it. Students stop seeing themselves as just a grade; they can see their strengths and the gaps they need to close. Teachers get the same view at class, cohort and centre level. It is practical, equitable and properly teacher-led.”
Emma Thompson, Director of Content and Editor at ETIH, says: “What made EdenFiftyOne compelling was the simplicity of the framework behind it. Literacy can quickly become a huge, intimidating area for students and schools, but the 51-skill model gives everyone a clearer route through it. It takes a subject that is often reduced to grades and makes progress more specific, visible, and usable.”
Moving beyond grade labels
A major theme in EdenFiftyOne’s entry was that literacy has often been treated as broad, subjective, and difficult to diagnose. Reynolds argues that grade-based conversations can identify where a student has ended up, but not how they should move forward.
“Grades are for destinations; they have no ability to guide the teacher, leader or learner along the progress journey,” Reynolds says.
The platform’s skill-by-skill model is designed to change that. Instead of describing a student as a grade, EdenFiftyOne shows specific areas such as inference, sentence structure, punctuation, and other reading, writing, speaking, and listening skills.
“A student who genuinely believes they ‘can't do English’ suddenly realizes they can actually perform many of the core skills perfectly well,” Reynolds adds. “They aren't a failure; they just have highly specific, visible gaps in areas like inference, sentence structure, or punctuation.”
The entry included evidence of impact across different education settings, including schools, academies, colleges, SEND providers, and specialist education centers. It cited examples of students improving by two grades in ten weeks and institutions achieving above national average English results within weeks.
Neil Almond, ETIH Innovation Awards judge, also noted the platform’s “mastery method” and “expert-in-the-loop model” as part of the product’s strength.
For Reynolds, the common thread across varied settings is that literacy foundations remain essential: “The most profound lesson we have learned is that whilst educational environments vary (in setting, curriculum design and assessment policy), the underlying necessity for firm literacy skills foundations does not.”
That has been visible across mainstream secondary schools, further education colleges, and specialist SEND provision. Reynolds argues that the same “lightbulb moment” appears when students can see literacy as a pathway rather than a label: “When you democratize the framework of literacy this cleanly, the exact same 'lightbulb moment' occurs across vastly different demographics, proving that equity is achieved when the path to success is made clear, visible and accessible.”
Teacher capacity and what comes next
EdenFiftyOne’s entry also addressed workload and teacher capacity through its two pilot routes. EFO Pilot Mode is built for settings where capacity is stretched, or where teachers are busy or absent, allowing students to progress independently through foundational literacy. Teacher Pilot Mode is designed for active use within existing schemes of work.
Reynolds frames the dual model around the pressure schools already face: “The absolute reality of modern schooling is that if you walk into a staffroom with ‘one more thing’ for teachers to do, you will - and completely should - be met with a wall of scepticism and resistance.”
That is why EdenFiftyOne was designed to work alongside existing curriculum structures, rather than forcing departments to rebuild lessons around the platform. In Teacher Pilot Mode, departments can isolate specific formative skills inside current lessons.
In Teacher Pilot Mode, departments can isolate specific formative skills inside current lessons. Reynolds gives the example of a Macbeth lesson where teachers can keep the original learning objective while making inference the explicit EdenFiftyOne skills focus: “For example, a department literature lesson on Macbeth with the learning objective 'Explore how Shakespeare presents Banquo in this scene' can explicitly layer R11. Inference as the specific EdenFiftyOne skills focus. Teachers can instruct students to isolate and focus on their exploration of ideas ahead of everything else.”
That means EdenFiftyOne can be used within existing teaching plans rather than requiring departments to rebuild lessons around the platform: “It allows teachers to retain existing schemes of work; to see learner, class, and year group progress at a glance, and to bring precision literacy intervention to live lesson delivery without creating an extra administrative burden.”
Scott Thompson, Director at Paxton Media, whose brands include ETIH and RTIH, says: “EdenFiftyOne felt like a UK institution winner because it was built around the everyday pressures of schools and colleges. The platform connects literacy diagnosis, classroom use, independent learning, and leadership data without asking teachers to start again. That practicality gave the entry real weight.”
For Reynolds, the dual recognition gives EdenFiftyOne momentum at a point when the company is moving from early adoption into wider institutional growth: “To win Best Solution for UK Institutions and be Highly Commended for Thought Leader of the Year in a global field of over 140 entries is an incredible milestone. It serves as the ultimate validation that the education sector is moving away from superficial EdTech hype and returning to substance, pedagogy, and genuine classroom utility. At this stage of our growth, this recognition provides a massive green light; it proves that our mission to treat literacy as critical infrastructure is exactly what forward-thinking school and trust leaders are actively looking for.”
The recognition comes as EdenFiftyOne continues to scale its “Build Together” community, where users can suggest and upvote amendments, features, and functions.
Reynolds says the company is focused on growing impact while continuing to build with teachers and leaders: Our immediate priority now is scaling that impact while remaining passionately collaborative. We are actively expanding our Build Together community, ensuring that our technical roadmap continues to be driven directly by the live, daily feedback of the teachers using the platform. We are building with the profession, not just for it.”
To find out more about EdenFiftyOne, more information is available via the company’s website.
