Educators across the United Kingdom frequently invest personal funds into classroom supplies and educational materials. Fortunately, numerous organisations, publishers, and brands offer complimentary resources, samples, and kits designed to support teaching without impacting school budgets or personal finances. These programmes range from physical items such as stationery and safety equipment to digital subscriptions and interactive learning tools. Accessing these offers typically requires verification of educator status, often through school email addresses or official identification.
Educational Publishers and Digital Platforms
Several major educational publishers and digital platforms provide free access to their resources for teachers and students. These resources often include lesson plans, worksheets, digital textbooks, and interactive activities.
Scholastic and New York Times Scholastic Classroom Magazines offer samples of their publications, providing current events and educational content tailored for various age groups. Additionally, a free year’s subscription to the New York Times is available for classroom use, offering access to writing prompts, quizzes, vocabulary practice, and lesson plans. Educators can sign up for this subscription to integrate high-quality journalism into their curriculum.
Twinkl Twinkl is a widely recognised teacher resource website offering instant access to lesson plans, schemes of work, assessments, interactive activities, resource packs, PowerPoints, and teaching ideas. While generally a subscription service, Twinkl occasionally hosts a "Twinkl USA Free Day" (and similar promotional events) where the entire site becomes free for 24 hours. This event covers teaching materials for early childhood, K12, and Special Education. Educators should monitor the site for announcements regarding these specific free access days.
Teachers Pay Teachers (TPT) Teachers Pay Teachers is a marketplace where educators share and sell original lesson plans and classroom materials. While many resources are paid, the platform also hosts over five hundred thousand downloadable resources available completely free of charge. Teachers can browse by topic to find supplemental worksheets, games, and puzzles without any cost.
CK-12 CK-12 provides customisable, free digital textbooks (Flexbooks) for grades K-12. Educators can enhance these textbooks by adding videos, activities, and other interactive elements to create tailored learning materials for their students.
STEM and Coding Resources
For science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) education, specific organisations offer free kits, software, and educational materials.
Maplesoft Maplesoft, a provider of mathematical and engineering software, offers free posters suitable for classroom display. These posters cover topics relevant to mathematics and engineering, serving as visual aids for students.
PhysicsQuest The PhysicsQuest programme offers a free physics kit designed for classroom experiments and lessons. This is a popular programme, and educators are required to sign up for a waitlist to receive a kit. The kit provides materials for hands-on physics activities.
MathMammoth.com MathMammoth.com offers free downloadable math worksheets and practice tests. These resources cover various mathematical topics and are available for immediate download to support classroom instruction or homework assignments.
Hour of Code Hour of Code provides free one-hour tutorials designed to introduce students to the basics of computer coding. These tutorials are accessible online and aim to demystify coding for students of various age groups.
MockoFUN MockoFUN is an online graphic design tool that typically operates on a paid model. However, through their "MockoFUN Free For Schools & Teachers" programme, teachers and educators across all levels—from kindergarten to university—can access all premium features of the tool absolutely free.
Health, Safety, and Nutrition Programmes
Several corporate social responsibility programmes provide free kits and materials focused on health, safety, and nutrition for students.
Colgate Classroom Kit Colgate offers a Classroom Kit that includes classroom materials, toothpaste samples, and toothbrushes for 25 students. To request this kit, educators must sign up using a valid school email address.
American Electric Power (AEP) Safety Kits For educators working with children in grades K-4 within communities served by AEP’s operating companies, free safety booklets and kits are available. The kits feature "Louie the Lightning Bug" as a mascot and are designed to teach electrical safety in a fun and engaging way.
PracticalMoneySkills PracticalMoneySkills provides free financial literacy materials suitable for classroom use. These resources include classroom modules, games, DVDs, and brochures covering topics related to personal finance and money management. The materials are available for download.
Super Peace Monkeys / Super Kind You This resource offers a free kit focused on "Confidence, Kindness, and Mental Health SuperPowers" for students. Educators can request this kit to support social and emotional learning in the classroom.
Stationery and Classroom Supplies
Basic classroom supplies are often in high demand. Specific programmes exist to provide these items free of charge.
Rentacalc Pencils Educators currently teaching in the United States can request a free package of #2 HB Dixon Ticonderoga pencils for their class. This offer is specifically for teachers based in the US.
Free Set of Wooden Rulers A free set of 6" wood rulers is available for educators who wish to request them for their students. This offer is explicitly listed as free for educators.
VariQuest VariQuest offers a free Sample Kit for educators. This kit allows teachers to learn how to use VariQuest products to personalise learning, differentiate instruction, reward academic progress, and communicate information through engaging classroom displays.
Arts, Humanities, and Miscellaneous Resources
Beyond STEM and health, there are resources available for arts, humanities, and general classroom enrichment.
Audubon Audubon provides free materials for teachers and students interested in birds and birdwatching. These resources support biology and environmental education.
Findings Magazine Teachers can obtain free digital and physical versions of Findings Magazine for their classrooms. The magazine covers scientific topics in a kid-friendly format to aid understanding and learning.
Stossel in the Classroom Stossel offers two educational DVDs for free. There is no requirement for credit card information; educators simply need to sign up for an account and provide feedback on the DVDs after use.
National Shooting Sports This source lists free DVDs for grades 4-12, specifically "Free Wildlife for Tomorrow, The Un-endangered Species and What They Say About Hunting." These are educational DVDs covering wildlife and hunting topics.
Human Rights Information Kit A free Human Rights Information Kit is available for educators or human rights advocates. This kit provides educational materials on human rights topics.
Biology Poster A free Biology Poster is available for teachers to use as a visual aid in science lessons.
Seven Miles to Farmington Poster Educators can request a free poster of "Seven Miles To Farmington" by George Henry Durrie from the Florence Griswold Museum.
Autographed Book Wilbooks publishing company gives away an autographed book for any pre-k through 4th-grade child in a classroom. Educators can request this through a provided form.
Vooks Vooks is an app that brings children's books to life with animated illustrations, read-along text, and narrated lines. For a limited time, teachers and homeschool educators can get one year free of Vooks.
Experiential and Field Trip Opportunities
Some programmes offer free passes or tickets for educational outings.
New England Aquarium Teachers located in New England can obtain free passes to the New England Aquarium.
Six Flags Tickets Through the "Read to Succeed" programme, students in grades K through 6 who complete six hours of recreational reading earn a free ticket to Six Flags.
Legoland Passes Florida-based teachers can obtain free Legoland passes by showing their ID and teaching certificate. These passes are valid for one year.
General Educational Tools and Curricula
Online Learning Curriculum (Corriki) Corriki offers thousands of free activities for the classroom covering virtually any topic. This allows teachers to find hands-on examples to aid student learning.
Office 365 Educators with a valid Office 365 account can sign up for additional free resources or services associated with the platform.
Conclusion
The landscape of free resources for educators is diverse, encompassing digital tools, physical supplies, educational kits, and experiential opportunities. While many offers are available to educators globally, some are geographically restricted (e.g., US teachers for Rentacalc pencils, Florida teachers for Legoland passes, New England residents for aquarium passes). Educators are advised to review eligibility requirements, which often include verification of teaching status or the use of a school email address. Regularly checking specific brand websites and educational resource aggregators can help teachers discover new opportunities to support their classrooms at no cost.