Subject Learning: Online Resources
This is an ongoing list of providers of online, subject learning materials ranging from downloadable worksheets to fully interactive activities for pupils. Whilst not every downloadable resource here can be described as a "method or resource that helps your pupils learn and use any knowledge or skill more quickly, thoroughly, easily, enjoyably, deeply and/or permanently", we believe, at the very least, they will give teachers the time to adapt and combine them to enhance learning in their particular classes. Some of the resources are aimed at teachers (lesson plans, resources, CPD etc), others at pupils of different ages to work with directly (interactive activities, worksheets etc).
EdufundUK do not specifically endorse any of the resources listed below. We have not reviewed/trialled them in any depth. Unless otherwise stated, the comments/functions are copied/adapted from the resource’s website. We have listed them here so schools can have a starting place to evaluate relevant resources for themselves.
COVID-19 UPDATE: We will place those companies offering permanently free resources/access at the top of the list, COVID-19 time-limited offers next and finally, pay-only resources last.
Always Free Full/Partial Access
- Before we get into the really great resources available online, I’ll flag up this online safety website from NCA-CEOP, a UK organisation which protects children both online and offline.
- It has age-targeted areas for both pupils and parents/carers with videos, case studies, notes and lots of links to helplines and further advice.
- With children and young people spending so much more time online during the lockdown, its well worth teachers, parents and pupils to go through the relevant sections.
£1,500 - £2,000 Grant to Set Up and Train on Google or MS Office Learning Platforms
G-Suite for Education and Office 365 for Education are already free-to-use platforms, but eligible schools/trusts can register to receive funded support from an accredited partner to help get set up and trained on their chosen platform. You'll be assigned a partner once you register for support. One of the major partners is Herts for Learning which many schools are working with already for many aspects of their IT provision and training.
Set-up funding for individual schools varies across phase: eligible primaries will receive £1,500 and eligible secondaries £2,000. Funding for academies in trusts is capped at £1,000 per school.
In short, if you access this scheme and get set up on one of the platforms, you'll be able to:
- Assign and assess work, providing feedback remotely
- Communicate with staff, students and parents in real time, using written word, voice and video
- Facilitate collaboration between groups of pupils and teachers
Information and application forms can be found through The Key:
- details of the scheme
- information and comparisons of G-Suite for Education and Office 365 for Education
- apply for support to set up and be trained on either platform.
Oak National Academy
Subject(s): Reception – Y10: English, maths, science, languages (inc. Latin) and humanities and some art.
Who For: Teachers and pupils
Cost: FREE
- A complete day-by-day lesson schedule and resources (3 hours for primary, 4 hours for secondary) and/or access individual subject/topic lessons. Lessons are sequenced.
- Lessons often consist of an opening quiz, a video delivery, a worksheet/tasks and an end of topic quiz.
- New lessons and schedules added each week by 40 state schoolteachers from different areas in response to the lockdown.
- This brand new platform is still in development so, at the moment (20/4/20) there is no automatic way for pupil work to be sent to their teachers. Pupils can screenshot their worksheet answers etc.
BBC Bitesize
Subject(s): All Core and most foundation
Who For: KS1-4 Pupils
Cost: Always FREE
- COVID-19: Bitesize have now added daily lessons for homeschooling in Maths and English for Y1-Y10, as well as regular lessons in Science, History, Geography and more. They have partnered with TES and Twinkl to integrate some of their resources into these lessons and they feature a mix of videos, animations, practice activities, quizzes and games.
- Small, digestible lessons tailored to support the National Curriculum
- Videos, notes, interactive activities and tests.
Khan Academy
Subject(s): KS 1-5+: maths, science, computing, economics, history and imagineering at Disney!
Who For: Teachers and pupils
Cost: Always FREE
- Students can use our exercises, quizzes, and instructional videos to learn and master skills. They will get immediate feedback and encouragement and have personalised learning allowing them to practice at their own pace.
- Teachers can set up classes and allocate work/projects
- COVID-19 extras: Daily schedules for those aged 4-18, while specific parent accounts are available to track your child's progress. Includes their resources and links to other activities (e.g. yoga). Daily (weekdays) 12 pm PT/3 EST live streams on Facebook and YouTube for students, parents, and teachers navigating school closures.
National Tutors Programme
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Tutoring received through NTP Tuition Partners is subsidised by 75%. Schools are free to use to use additional catch-up funding, announced by the Department for Education in 2020, to pay for the remaining costs. Each Tuition Partners’ page on the NTP website shows the subsidised cost of tuition.
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NTP Tuition Partners have initially been funded to provide subsidised high-quality tutoring for up to 250,000 pupils. The focus of the NTP is on supporting disadvantaged pupils, including those eligible for Pupil Premium funding. However, participating schools will be able to decide which of their pupils will most benefit from additional support, and which type of support is more suitable.
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Nikki Albone (Revenue Generation Coordinator) at Presdales School has kindly shared some really useful research she has done into providers for KS3 and 4 tutor organisations inc. their costs and the subjects offered: Summary of Providers
Duolingo
Who For: Pupils (and teachers learning a new language)
Subject(s): Over a dozen languages inc. English, French, Spanish and German
Cost: Always FREE (A no-ads and extra-functionality upgrade is available)
- Available as a website or a free-to-use app.
- Special lessons that can help walk kids through written and spoken languages (inc. English).
- Personalised learning, rewards and regular quizzes to help reinforce learning.
Tiny Cards
Who For: Pupils and Teachers
Subject(s): Any
Cost: Always FREE
- A fun flashcard app that helps you memorize anything for free, forever.
- Make your own flashcards (pupils or teachers).
- Hundreds of freely available sets made by users on all subjects.
Kahoot
Who For: Teachers and pupils
Subject(s): All key stages and subjects
Cost: Always FREE and the premium version is now FREE during the COVID-19 pandemic
- Teachers (or pupils) make their own multiple-choice quizzes with text, images or even video clips.
- Players then sign in (no personal data required) and compete to answer quickly and correctly.
- Thousands of ready-made quizzes available from other users which can be easily edited to make your own quiz.
- With Kahoot! Premium, teachers can use advanced reports to facilitate formative assessment and adjust instruction based on student performance – even when they cannot attend school. Kahoot! Premium also lets teachers put together a bank of school-wide educational games and collaborate with other teachers in their school.
Quizlet
Who For: Teachers and Students
Subject(s): All Key Stages, any subject
Cost: Always FREE and now has free access to the Teacher version through June 2020
- Use, combine and edit hundreds of pre-existing quizzes on any subject or start your own from scratch.
- Based on flashcards, you can use a whole-class quiz mode or individual study/testing modes such as spell, match terms, write and flashcard learning.
- You can use text, images and built-in text-to-audio.
- Quizlet Teacher includes Class Progress, a formative assessment tool that can help track students' progress and give you insight into areas of strength and those that need more focus. You'll also get access to advanced content creation tools, such as diagrams and audio, which enable you to create custom study materials for your class.
Barefoot Computing
Who For: Teachers and Pupils
Subject(s): KS 1+2: Computational Thinking (applicable to many other subjects)
Cost: Always FREE
- Develops the skills of logic, abstraction, patterns, algorithms, evaluation and decomposition.
- Provides worksheets and interactive games/activities and activities for use with programming tools e.g. Scratch etc.
- Efficiently breaks down and links the National Curriculum statements with relevant resources. A good search filter that finds resources for cross-curricular links, age groups, concepts etc.
- Free workshop for the school - to be introduced to the Barefoot website and guided through the range of lesson plans and resources. An interactive session in which participants will give some of Barefoot’s “unplugged” activities a try and also be introduced to key computer science concepts and approaches.
Dendrite
Subject(s): KS1-5: STEAM
Who For: Teachers + Pupils
Cost: Always FREE The platform technology is always free to schools. The training is free during the COVID-19 crisis. Many resources are free – videos, learning packs etc.
- The Dendrite platform enables teachers to create a private classroom in the cloud for each of their classes - both students and their parents may be invited into this classroom community.
- Create Collections of personal content by uploading all files such as Docs, Presentations, PDF’s Spreadsheets, Images and Videos, Web Links, such as Homepages, Youtube, Vimeo and many more.
- There are also thousands of videos from Channel Partners such as primary mathematics entire video curriculum (Karismath), primary and secondary science curriculum learning packs, mathematics video curriculum – (3rdflix). Also there is information and input from many STEAM organisations about careers.
- The Learning Partnership is re-deploying all our resources to build home based challenge activities to enable teachers and parents to set their children challenges that will enthuse and occupy their minds as they learn over the coming months. The challenges will be gamified (points allocated, leader boards etc)
- Training is also free, but donations are gratefully received. By the end of the hour session every teacher will have created their classroom in the clouds architecture and be ready to invite parents and students to each classroom environment.
TES
Who For: Teachers
Subject(s): All key stages, all subjects.
Cost: Majority Always FREE, some resources are chargeable.
- Over 900,000 resources created by teachers for teachers including schemes of work, lesson plans, worksheets, PowerPoints etc.
- Searchable by subject, age-group etc. and all (I think) editable for your own needs.
FutureLearn
Who For: Teachers and Sixth Formers
Subject(s): Wide range of subjects e.g. study skills, science, literature, STEM and creative arts/media
Cost: Always FREE for course duration +14 days. Upgrades/certification available
- Hundreds of courses provided by universities all over the world.
- Courses run for a range of weeks, usually 2-6
- Videos/notes/photos/tests etc. all provided. Also includes forums for student interactions, Q+As etc.
TED-Ed
Who For: Teachers and Pupils
Subject(s): All KS: Maths, Science, Arts, Technology, Learning, Literature, Business, Psychology.
Cost: Always FREE
- Browse hundreds of TED-Ed Animations and TED Talks - designed to spark the curiosity of your learners. You'll also find thousands of other video-based lessons organized by the subjects you teach.
- Add interactive questions, discussion topics and more to your favourite TED-Ed Animations, TED talks or any video on YouTube. You can share the lessons with your students online and track the results
- Inspire students to share their ideas with the world. In our Student Talks program, your students will learn how to discover, explore and present their big ideas as TED-style talks.
- To support the millions of students, parents and teachers affected by the COVID-19 pandemic, TED-Ed is working with expert educators and TED speakers throughout the world to create and share high-quality, interactive, video-based lessons on a daily basis, for free (TED-Ed@Home)
Grammarism
Subject(s): English Grammar
Who For: KS1 - 5
Cost: Always FREE
A great site with over 11,000 interactive on-line quizzes on all aspects of English grammar. There is even an element of differentiation with the earlier exercises being more basic. You can also print out the exercises in pdf form and they all have answer sheets too. In the future, the site hopes to be able to offer customisable tests.
Open University Free Courses
Subject(s): A wide variety of subjects including STEM, PE, Education, languages, humanities, finance etc.
Who For: Teachers and Sixth Form
Cost: Always FREE
The courses are either introductory, intermediate or advanced and are given time-to-complete estimates in hours (ranging from 4 to 20). The courses comprise of a mixture of notes, videos, quizzes etc. Here are just a few examples in EdufundUK’s focus areas:
STEM
Assessment in Secondary Mathematics
Mathematics for Science and Technology
Introduction to Computational Thinking
PE
Working with young people in sport and exercise
Paid-For Resources
(May have some free access during COVID/Lockdown periods - check their websites)
Century Learning
Subject(s): Primary – KS 2 English, maths, science 11+ tests. Secondary – KS3+4 English (language, selected literature texts, functional), Maths (inc. bridge to A level), Science.
Who For: KS2-4 Pupils
Cost: FREE (during lockdown for a wide variety of selected topics in English, maths and science)
- Micro lessons containing videos, notes and automatically marked tests.
- Personalised content and questions: Initial diagnostic tests and on-going student answers are recorded and analysed so the AI can recommend the next lesson to fill in gaps, misconceptions and/or to challenge each pupil (or teachers can set lessons/tests etc).
- Full access is £9.99 pm for up to five children for parents or schools’ packages.
Purple Mash
Subject(s): EYFS, KS1-2: English, Maths, Science, Coding/Computing, Art and Topics
Who For: Teachers + Pupils
Cost: Free Access during COVID-19
- A learning platform where teachers can assign activities in any subject to individuals, groups or whole classes.
- Pre-set writing frames with clipart and prompts, paint projects, books/notes, quizzes and interactive activities for the above subjects.
- Tools (e.g. to create graphs, quizzes and produce simple animations) and games
- Teachers can create their own multimedia activities.
- Reading program with unique books released for different age groups (inc. reluctant readers) with accompanying guided reading activities (e.g. SPAG worksheets, comprehension and creative/review activities – online and print-out)
- A special area for EYFS with engaging activities and teaching aids (e.g. phonics)
Rising Stars
Subject(s): KS1-2 Maths, English, Science
Who For: Teachers and pupils
Cost: FREE 3-month access to online versions of Cracking Comprehension, SATs Success and Reading Planet and Question Bank
SATs Success:
- Teach children how to tackle SATs-Style questions with short, fun four-step animations.
- Save time with ready-made interactive quizzes, class allocation tool and reporting dashboard.
- Build confidence, knowledge and skills with instant feedback/marking
Cracking Comprehension:
- Front of class whiteboard interactive modelling software.
- Step-by-step teacher’s notes for each unit, useful strategies and full answers in the print teacher’s guide.
- Measure progress with assessment tasks containing photocopiable texts and accompanying questions, digital independent pupil practice, quizzes and progress tracking.
Reading Planet:
- Age related digital fiction and non-fiction created for the current curriculum and topic-linked.
- Develop essential comprehension and vocabulary skills using the in-book quizzes and teaching materials
- Stories, characters and themes that reflect their world, celebrate diversity and champion individuality and well-being.
Question Bank:
- 8,000 new curriculum questions available for Years 1 to 6 - including reading, GPS, maths and science questions.
- Build quizzes and tests from scratch or edit real national test papers (2016-18) and ready-made tests created by SATs experts with easy-to-use drag and drop facility.
- Filter questions by year group, difficulty level, skill or key word to meet the exact needs of your pupils
- Auto-generated marking guides, which includes mark schemes, NAHT KPIs and links to the National Curriculum
Twinkl
Subject(s): EYFS-KS2: Core + Foundation. KS3-4: Maths, English, Science. Includes a large range mapped to each curriculum in the UK.
Who For: Teachers’ resources and planning
Cost: FREE One Month Ultimate Membership. Go to www.twinkl.co.uk/offer and enter the code UKTWINKLHELPS
- activity sheets, information packs and interactive presentations to online educational games and videos.
- Twinkl PlanIt has been written to address the aims of the 2014 curriculum. It includes detailed lesson plans, lesson presentations, creative and differentiated lesson activities and resources, home learning tasks, challenge cards, fact cards, eye catching display packs, key vocabulary grids and formative assessment materials.
- They have set up a home learning hub - Each day you'll find a new set of daily activities to get involved with. Qualified Twinkl teachers will provide book readings, live lessons, positive news updates and more. We'll be bringing you activities from our partners too, to help fill your days and offer some much-needed variety.
Education City
Who For: Teachers and pupils
Subject(s): KS1+2: English, Maths, Science
Cost: Free Trial (21 days) and some free resources.
- Planning, teaching, learning and assessing resources and tools.
- Videos, animated notes, interactive presentation tools, quizzes, worksheets and tests.
- Teachers can set up classes and groups and assign learning materials and activities/tests to each for class- or homework. Automatically marked and recorded for each pupil – they can track and improve on their progress in an automatically generated revision journal.
- Hundreds of resources mapped to the curriculum and topics. Ready-made lesson plans.
Teachit
Subject(s): EYFS, KS1-2: Core and Foundation. KS3-5: English, Maths, Science, Languages, History, Geography. Links are simply teachit followed by the area you want e.g. https://www.teachitprimary.co.uk/ (or follow this link and then drop the arrow on the "other subjects" box.)
Who For: Teachers
Cost: FREE access to all resources while schools are closed (to most pupils). (Usually £49.94 pa individual or school subscriptions from £275)
- Editable Word and PowerPoint documents and whiteboard activities.
- Topic based activities covering multiple subjects
BrainPOP
Subject(s): KS1-13 (US based): English, maths, science, tech, humanities
Who For: Pupils and Teachers
Cost: FREE during COVID-19 for schools, teachers and families. Usually a school ($1895 p.a.) or teacher ($230) based subscription
- BrainPOP is an animated website to keep kids interested and entertained with movies and games while learning. There are also webinars parents can watch to learn more about how to use BrainPOP for remote learning.
- Each topic has a range of activities including videos, mind-mapping, worksheets, quizzes, vocabulary, make-a-movie etc.
Celebrity Videos
Lots of celebrities are offering activities, videos etc online during the COVID-19 pandemic. Here’s just a selection to fill your day:
9am: PE with Joe Wicks
The Body Coach Joe Wicks is getting the nation's children moving every morning with his easy-to-follow at-home workouts – he does shout outs too!
10am: Music with Myleene Klass
The multi-talented Myleene is ready to teach your children all about music on her YouTube page at 10am on Mondays and Fridays and she's even doing lullabies for little ones at 6.30pm on Wednesdays.
11am: English with David Walliams
Children adore David Walliams' funny books and now they can hear the author read extracts from his stories every day at 11am.
1.30pm: Dance with Darcey Bussell
Former prima ballerina and Strictly judge Darcey has the kids' daily dance workout sorted with her DDMIX schools team routine at 1.30pm. Head to the DDMIX Facebook page for fun energetic routines.
3pm: Maths with Carol Vorderman
Former Countdown mathematician Carol has her own educational website teaching children maths called The Maths Factor, and the site has given users free access during the coronavirus school closure period (normally £2 a week). Sign up for the tutorials. Visit themathsfactor.com/
From Friday 27 March, The History Guy Dan Snow is doing his first History Hit Live with Timeline on YouTube in a daily homeschooling series. Perfect for those inquisitive young minds. Visit youtube.com
4pm: Ben Fogle's Adventure Class
Join Ben Fogle each day at 4pm for an Instagram Live on a range of fascinated topics about the planet. His latest lesson was all about the ocean, focusing on the Atlantic Row and covering the great sailors and the Vendee Globe.