The British Academy Children's Awards were an annual award show hosted by the British Academy of Film and Television Arts (BAFTA). They were awarded annually from 1996, before then they were a part of the main British Academy Television Awards. Categories included those for television productions, feature films and video games.
The final ceremony, the 25th British Academy Children's Awards, was held on 27 November 2022, at Old Billingsgate in London, and was hosted by television presenter Lindsey Russell. The ceremony marked the return of the awards after a three-year absence due to the COVID-19 pandemic. In September 2023, BAFTA discontinued the children's awards, citing a decline in entries and engagement, with new categories for children's content introduced in the film, games and television award ceremonies in 2025.
The awards were first presented in 1996, and the awards was presented annually, with the exception 2020 and 2021, where the awards were cancelled due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Prior to 1996, productions targeted to children or young audiences were included in the British Academy Television Awards, from 1983 to 1996, two children-oriented categories, Children's Programme â Factual and Children's Programme â Fiction or Entertainment were presented. The last winners for those categories before the children's awards ceremony was created were CBBC's programme Short Change for the former and television movie Coping with Christmas for the latter.
The first edition featured seven competitive categories (Animation, Drama, Entertainment, Factual, Pre-School, Schools - Documentary, Schools - Drama), along with two special awards, one for film producer John Coates and the other for Lewis Rudd, who was head to the children's programming for ITV. The number of categories varied through the editions with the creation of several categories such as International and Feature Film, both in 1999, Pre-School Animation and Presenter, both in 2000, and Game in 2007, among others. Until 2016, the awards also presented categories voted by the public through online voting, these included categories for feature film, television, video game and website.
In the final ceremony in 2022, the following fourteen competitive categories were presented:
Discontinued in 2000, for separate categories for live-action and animation.
Discontinued in 2006 for Learning: Primary.
Discontinued in 2006 for Learning: Secondary.
Discontinued in 2014 for separate Interactive categories: Original and Adapted.
Discontinued in 2009, for separate voting categories for feature film, television, video game and website.
Discontinued in 2006 for one sole Writer category.
Discontinued in 2006 for one sole Writer category.