Schools are shut till at least the end of half term thanks to an increase in coronavirus cases.
This has left many parents potentially struggling to juggle work and home-schooling commitments.
Hiring an online tutor is an option but this can be expensive. According to The Tutor Website, the hourly rate for a tutor can range between £15 and £45.
Not all parents are equipped with everything they need to feel inspired to homeschool. But there are free and low cost resources online that can help
Fortunately, there are a number of established and new players such as banks, online learning platforms and small businesses that are offering educational resources for free or at a low cost.
If you’re struggling with teaching more than one child, lack the inspiration or resources to cope with different curriculums, here are a list of providers that can help children from primary right up to secondary schools – the links of each header take you through to the relevant website.
Cost: Free
International charity ActionAid is offering parents and children free access to six ‘world-expanding’ activities’ via email.
You don’t need any special materials as the activities include items you’re likely to have at home.
Children start off in the rainforests of South America and will find out about other countries and the way in which other people live.
Charity Action Aid offer free learning packs that help children learn more about the world around them
Cost: Free
Amazon have this week launched a range of educational resources freely available across science, maths, English and physical education.
Amazon Maths4All offers hundreds of free maths games, apps and challenges on Alexa, worksheets for Kindle and Fire Tablets and caters to a range of ages across primary and secondary school.
Alexa can challenge your kids with a test – get started by saying ‘Alexa, ask the maths coach to start a test’ or ‘Alexa, ask the maths coach for a hard addition test’.
Kids can also enhance their coding skills through the ‘hour of code dance party’, an online dance themed coding tutorial and ‘Amazon future engineer’ which offer free virtual coding programmes to enable children to build computer science skills at home.
A number of celebrities offer lessons through Amazon. Students can access maths lessons from countdown presenter Rachel Riley, biology lessons from TV presenter Dr Ranj Singh and practice their freestyle football free with British freestyle footballer and TikTok superstar, Lia Lewis.
Children can access short brain busting biology lessons from NHS doctor and television presenter Dr Ranj Singh
Cost: Free
Barclays’ Lifeskills hub offers lesson plans, learning modules and interactive content for educators and parents.
Children can learn money skills and get help in preparing to move to secondary school.
Kirstie Mackey, head of LifeSkills created by Barclays, says: ‘We have hours of resources and tools on our LifeSkills website to help both teachers and parents to support young people to develop and boost core skills, from problem solving to resilience, and grow in confidence.’
Barclays has hours of resources and tools available for parents and kids on their LifeSkills website
Cost: £7.50 per class
Founded by Carol Murdoch who is also a primary school teacher, Carol’s Tutoring is a tutoring company that offers small courses.
She says: ‘They are aimed at children in primary to early secondary and cover a range of subjects and are only £7.50 per class.
A child engages in a Carol’s Tutoring class with a mask. Carol says: ‘She was in a tutor session and chose to wear it for fun.’
‘These have been kept very low cost to enable as many people to access them as possible. Our team of teachers are also offering educational mentoring and parent support calls.’
She also shares outdoor activities for free on website loveoutdoorlearning.com and its related Facebook page.
We hope that by making this game free we are taking some of the pressure off of parents during lockdown, while also supporting a child’s education in a constructive and engaging way
Mark Horneff, founder of Kuato Studios
Cost: Free or up to £165 a year
Founded by Will Paterson, Edplace has thousands of interactive activities aligned to school curriculums.
It has a free version, with no hidden costs which offers up to five activities a month for one student.
The free version offers English, maths, science and 11+, and activities for key stage 1 to GCSE.
There’s also test prep materials for 11+, SATs and GCSE.
Cost: Free (for a limited time)
Edtech gaming company Kuato Studios has made its Marvel Hero Tales educational game and its in-game content free on iOS till 10 February, 2021.
The game can help with vocabulary, reading and storytelling skills while children use characters such as Spider-Man and the Scarlet Witch.
Founder Mark Horneff says: ‘Growing up with dyslexia, I always found reading incredibly difficult and so it was something I just wasn’t interested in until I discovered my passion for reading through comics.
‘I want to bring that same experience to other children in a way that is both fun and educational.
‘We hope that by making this game free we are taking some of the pressure off of parents during lockdown, while also supporting a child’s education in a constructive and engaging way.’
Founder Mark Horneff struggled with dyslexia so he created a game that would help educate children
Cost: Free
HSBC UK is offering free online resources to support families with home-schooling. Its new financial education hub, helps educate children about money and give them the skills they need to build their financial confidence.
Parents can access a series of educational videos, online resources aimed and young people aged three to 25 that are aligned to the school curriculum and created with input from practicing teachers, children and Young Money, the national charity that drives financial education in schools.
Parents can go to hsbc.co.uk/financial-education/ to access free resources from HSBC
Cost: Free
MyTutor is an online tutoring service which is currently offering free resources via MyTutor Videos and MyTutor Answers.
It has hundreds of recorded group tutorials and explainer videos.
It’s website also contains over 1,000 answers to GCSE, A Level iB questions which have all been written by expert tutors.
A spokesperson adds: ‘MyTutor have also now restarted their free online group tuition for a variety of key GCSE subjects, and slots can be booked via their website, mytutor.co.uk.’
MyTutor has over 1,000 free answers to GCSE, A Level iB questions which have been written by expert tutors
Cost: £10 a month subscription
The Little Mud Club provides parents with young children with seasonal outdoor, Covid compliant adventures they can do together.
These are offered through packs that are approved by educators to encourage families to spend more time outdoors.
The packs are sent by post in eco-friendly potato starch compostable bags.
Each pack comes with 10 adventures, a short story, something to grow and eco-friendly stickers. Founder James Dixon says: ‘We offset the carbon of the delivery.
‘The idea for Little Mud Club came during the first lockdown, when many parents were struggling to come up with ways to entertain and educate their children.
‘Outdoor exercise is still permitted and the Little Mud Club is a great way to be active outside with your children.’
If you need inspiration and educational materials for the great outdoors, The Little Mud Club sends eco-friendly packs to help families explore the great outdoors
Cost: Free
Former BBC sports presenter, Tim Hague, is the founder of online learning platform ‘Tiger and Tim’, which helps parents cope with home-learning.
Parents can access tools and tips through tigerandtim.com or subscribe to the Tiger and Tim YouTube channel.
Tim says: ‘Tiger and myself develop youngsters not only through our extensive videos but through our social media work, our blogs and our educational materials. Reading, comprehension ability, wider knowledge, emotional intelligence and family values are just some of the areas we focus on.
‘We also illustrate the importance of persistence, a strong work ethic, empathy, respect, kindness, good morals, creativity and loving animals.
‘A key motivation for both Tiger and Tim is that education is best, when it doesn’t really feel like education.’
Former BBC sports presenter, Tim Hague, is the founder of online learning platform ‘Tiger and Tim’ which is offering free educational videos for children
Cost: Free to £5 a month (billed annually)
Exams may have been cancelled, but that doesn’t mean you can’t prepare your children and brush up their skills.
SaveMyExams has loads of example questions, past papers, model answers and revision guides to help teens and test their knowledge.
It has a free version which includes past papers and revision notes. There’s no sign up required. If you want more, it has an annual membership at £5 a month which is billed annually.
Extra resources for this version include topic questions, model answers and videos.
Cost: Free
S-Cool is an online platform that caters to a variety of key stages. They also have resources for 27 GCSE and A Level subjects which range from revision tips, example questions and topic summaries.
Cost: Free (during school closures)
A commonly recommended resource from teachers, Twinkle has again sent out emails to parents reminding them that they offer resources for free throughout school closures.
A key motivation for both Tiger and Tim is that education is best, when it doesn’t really feel like education
Tim Hague, founder of online learning platform ‘Tiger and Tim’
During this lockdown, they are offering free access to Twinkle Go!, which has a range of interactive and audiovisual resources suitable for all ages and covering all subjects.
Twinkle Go! has games, videos, audiobooks and activities, which can be completed on any device.
Twinkle has also has a collection of free digital partnership resources, which include Go Jetters, Numberblocks, BBC Teach Live Lessons, David Attenborough and Puffin books.
To access Twinkle Go!, create a free log-in using an email address and password. No payment information will be taken and there’s no obligation to use Twinkl after lockdown.
Cost: Free
If your child is fascinated by hurricanes, tornadoes and any other weather phenomena, Weather365 launched this week. It teaches students about meteorology.
BBC presenters Sara Thornton and John Hammond who run a small business called Weathertrending are behind the educational platform.
Sara says: ‘We know that others will touch on weather/meteorology but we’re going to do it in-depth.
‘It’s free because we want to give back. ‘I’m a resting two-time school governor with a son in his GCSE year and I know what some kids are going through at home – no resources, no one to ask detailed questions of.’
Snow joke: BBC presenters John Hammond and Sara Thornton are teaching children about the weather for free
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