Free Educational Websites for Children

The short answer

The free educational web is in great shape in 2026, arguably better than it has ever been. Whether you are filling the long summer holidays, a February half-term, or a rainy Saturday in Chorlton, there is a genuinely free, curriculum-aligned website for almost every subject and age, from Early Years (EYFS) through KS1, KS2, KS3 and on to GCSE.

If you want a quick free starter kit for most UK families, it looks like this: Oxford Owl and BBC Bitesize for reading, Topmarks and Oak National Academy for maths, Scratch and Code Club for coding, National Geographic Kids and NASA Space Place for science and curiosity, CBeebies and Khan Academy Kids for little ones, and BBC Super Movers to burn off energy on a wet day. The single biggest addition in recent years is Oak National Academy, a free, Department for Education funded platform that covers the entire UK curriculum.

Does a little holiday learning really help?

Before the list, a quick word on the why. Educators talk about summer learning loss, or the "holiday slide", the tendency for children's progress, particularly in maths and reading, to stall or slip back over long breaks. The Education Endowment Foundation, the UK's leading education research charity, has examined this evidence and has warned that long closures tend to widen the attainment gap, hitting disadvantaged pupils hardest.

It is worth being balanced, because the research is genuinely debated. Some studies suggest learning is slowed rather than truly lost, and the EEF itself notes that light-touch steps such as summer reading lists do not have a big impact on attainment on their own. So the takeaway is not to panic, nor to turn the holidays into a second term. A little light, regular engagement, twenty minutes of reading, a few maths games, a curiosity-driven afternoon learning about volcanoes, helps keep skills ticking over so children head back to school ready to go.

The best free learning sites, by subject

Here are the resources we would actually recommend to a parent, grouped by what you need. We have flagged the few that are not fully free, because being upfront about that saves frustration later.

Reading and early literacy

• Oxford Owl for Home offers a free eBook library for 3 to 11 year-olds, featuring the Biff, Chip and Kipper characters used in many UK schools. It is free, but you need to register a free parent account. The much larger school library is a separate paid subscription.
• BBC Bitesize is the heavyweight of free UK learning and revision, and it remains entirely free. It covers the full sweep of the curriculum across every key stage, with equivalents for Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. It is the first place we send any UK parent.
• CBeebies is still free and lovely for the EYFS crowd, packed with games, crafts and recipes featuring familiar friends like Hey Duggee and the Numberblocks. There is also a free CBeebies preschool app built around the EYFS framework with no in-app purchases.

Maths

• Topmarks is free, UK-made and curriculum-aligned. The standout is Hit the Button for rapid-fire times tables, number bonds, doubling and halving (ages 6 to 11), with no registration needed to play in the browser.
• Coolmath Games is still free and a firm favourite for logic puzzles and maths games, with Coolmath4Kids aimed at younger children. It is a US site, so treat it as number confidence and problem-solving rather than precise UK-curriculum alignment.
• Times Tables Rock Stars is worth a clarification, because parents often assume it is free. It needs a subscription. If your child's school subscribes, your child can log in free at home with their school account; otherwise there is a low-cost family subscription. It is particularly useful for Year 4 pupils preparing for the Multiplication Tables Check.

Coding

• Scratch is the free, block-based coding language from MIT that powers most UK primary computing. Children make games, animations and stories, and there is a ScratchJr app for ages 5 to 7.
• Code Club is the UK-founded network of free coding clubs, now part of the Raspberry Pi Foundation, with free step-by-step projects you can do at home and a finder to locate a free club near you in Greater Manchester.
• Code.org offers free coding courses and the famous Hour of Code tutorials, a gentle, structured way into programming for all ages.

Science and curiosity

• National Geographic Kids (the UK site) is free, with animal fact-files, science, geography, games and quizzes. It is brilliant for curiosity-led learning across KS1 and KS2. The print magazine is a paid extra, but the website content is free.
• NASA Space Place is great for upper-KS2 children, with free space and Earth-science games, hands-on activities and short videos. For younger children, NASA Kids' Club is the gentler option (note the old web address has changed).
• Khan Academy offers free maths, science and more, and the separate free Khan Academy Kids app is excellent for ages 2 to 8. It is US-centric, so the maths labels will not always match UK terminology, but the quality is high.

Languages and the full curriculum

• Oak National Academy is the standout free addition. It is an executive non-departmental public body sponsored by the Department for Education, offering free, curriculum-aligned lessons, videos, quizzes and worksheets across the whole curriculum from EYFS to KS4 and GCSE, with no paywalls, tiers or logins, on any device. If you take one new recommendation from this guide, make it this.
• Duolingo offers free language learning with a robust, ads-supported free tier, great for keeping up French, Spanish or German over the holidays and motivating from KS2 upward.
• BBC Good Food has a free kids' and family recipe section for some hands-on holiday cooking. It is run by Immediate Media rather than the BBC itself, so think of it as the brand rather than part of the BBC.
• BBC Super Movers is still free and active, with curriculum-linked active-learning songs for KS1 and KS2 maths and literacy, made with the Premier League. Perfect for combining movement with times-tables practice.

Sites that have closed or moved on

If you bookmarked a few favourites during lockdown, a couple are worth crossing off so you are not left hunting for them:

• Education City has closed. Its owner retired the platform entirely on 1 August 2025, deleting all data and ending all contracts, and there is no replacement from the same provider. Oak National Academy is the natural free alternative.
• Shaun's Game Academy is defunct. It was a coding campaign built around a competition that closed back in 2014. For the same skills, use Scratch and Code Club instead.
• DK Find Out! has been reorganised into DK's wider learning pages and is no longer the reliable free destination it once was. National Geographic Kids and BBC Bitesize are the more dependable free alternatives.
• BBC's standalone children's history area has moved into BBC Bitesize and BBC Teach, which is where to find curriculum-aligned history now.

Keeping children safe online

As a computer repair business, online safety is close to our heart, and no list of children's websites is complete without it. These are the authoritative, free UK resources we trust:

• UK Safer Internet Centre, a partnership of three charities, promotes the safe and responsible use of technology for young people and runs Safer Internet Day, with free tips and advice for families.
• Internet Matters is our go-to for practical, free, step-by-step guides to setting up parental controls on different platforms, including time and age limits and content blocks, with age-specific advice from early years to teens.
• NSPCC online safety offers clear, free advice and support to help your whole family stay safe online.
• Childnet is a long-running children's online-safety charity with separate, age-appropriate advice for children, parents and teachers.
• Thinkuknow, run by the National Crime Agency's CEOP Education team, provides free online-safety resources for children aged 4 to 18, their families and professionals. If you are ever worried about grooming or online abuse, you can report it through the CEOP Safety Centre.

You do not need expensive software for parental controls either. Microsoft Family Safety, free with a Microsoft account, provides content filtering, screen-time limits and location sharing across Windows, Xbox and mobile. One thing to know: its web content filtering only works in the Microsoft Edge browser, so it is best paired with your broadband provider's free network-level filters, which BT, Sky, Virgin Media and TalkTalk all offer. If you would like a hand setting any of this up on the family PC, that is exactly the kind of thing we help Manchester families with.

Which free sites should you start with?

You do not need all of these at once. Pick one or two that match what your child needs right now, and add more as their interests grow.

What your child needs	Best free pick	Good to know
Reading (ages 3 to 11)	Oxford Owl for Home	Free, quick parent registration
Times tables and number bonds	Topmarks Hit the Button	Free, no login to play
Full curriculum, EYFS to GCSE	Oak National Academy	Free, Department for Education funded
Coding	Scratch and Code Club	Free
Science and curiosity	National Geographic Kids	Free website
Little ones (EYFS)	CBeebies and Khan Academy Kids	Free
Languages	Duolingo	Free tier with ads

For local families, it is worth remembering that Manchester's libraries offer free access to computers and the internet and often run free holiday activities, which pairs nicely with the resources above if you do not have a device at home. Keep it light, follow your child's interests, and aim for little and often. And if your family laptop is creaking under the strain of all this learning, you can get a free, no-obligation quote from our friendly Manchester repair team.