10 Free Educational Software Picks for Primary Schools

Primary schools buy educational software badly, and it is usually not the school’s fault. The decision is made by someone with no budget, no procurement training and thirty other jobs, on the basis of a demo, and the thing that actually determines whether it gets used is never in the demo.

The good news is that the free tier in this category is unusually strong. Code.org publishes a complete free K to 12 computing curriculum. Scratch is free for everyone. Khan Academy Kids is free forever. A primary school can cover computing, early literacy and maths practice without a purchase order.

Ten options below, all free or with a genuine free tier, all checked on the provider’s own site. Where a provider publishes no price for its paid tier, that is stated rather than guessed.

Quick comparison

What Goes Wrong When a School Adopts Software

• Logins eat the lesson. Thirty children typing usernames burns ten minutes of a forty minute slot, every single time. Tools that work without a login are worth a great deal more in a primary classroom than their feature list suggests.
• One device per three children. Most primary schools do not have one to one devices, so software designed around individual adaptive paths fits badly. Something two children can do together is often the better choice.
• The champion leaves. Adoption usually rests on one enthusiastic teacher, and when they move schools it stops. Anything that needs configuring by an expert will quietly die within a year.
• The wifi in the far classroom. Every primary school has one room where the connection drops, and it is always the one with the tablets in it.
• Free tiers that are not free for schools. Several products are free for a family and priced per site for a school, which is a reasonable business model and an unpleasant surprise mid-year.

1. Learning App for Kids

Learning App for Kids fits the login problem better than anything else here, because no account is needed to open a lesson. A child taps a level and starts, which in a primary classroom is the difference between a working lesson and ten minutes of password support.

It carries 236 lessons across nine subjects, from Playgroup to Grade 5, each organised into numbered units with three difficulty levels. It works fully offline once installed, which solves the far classroom, and it is bilingual in English and Urdu with content aligned to the Pakistan Single National Curriculum.

Advantages: free with no per-seat cost and no procurement; no pupil logins required; genuinely offline; a visible unit sequence teachers can plan against from the course catalogue; no advertising anywhere.

2. Code.org

Code.org is the strongest free thing in this list for a school specifically, because it was built for schools. The curriculum is complete, sequenced and free, and the teacher tools are the product rather than an afterthought.

Advantages: a full computing curriculum at no cost; per-pupil progress visible to the teacher; class setup designed for a teacher rather than a parent; strong unplugged activities for when devices are short.

Disadvantages: pupil accounts are needed for progress tracking, which brings the login problem back unless you use the picture-password option for younger classes.

3. Scratch

Scratch is free for everyone and is what most primary computing curricula are effectively built around by upper key stage two.

Advantages: free with no ceiling; works in a browser and offline; enormous library of shared projects to adapt; accounts are optional if you do not need to save.

Disadvantages: the online community is public, so a school needs to decide whether pupils use accounts at all. Without accounts, work cannot be saved between lessons, which matters for a project.

4. Khan Academy Kids

Khan Academy Kids is free permanently from a non-profit and covers the reception and year one range well.

Advantages: free with no advertising; high production quality; works offline once downloaded; strong read-along library for early literacy.

Disadvantages: it stops at about age eight, so it covers only the youngest classes, and it needs accounts.

5. Starfall

Starfall has been in primary classrooms for a very long time and its phonics sequence is one of the most carefully built available. It states that it is 100 percent ad free and child safe.

Advantages: the free tier works with no login, which suits a shared classroom device; the sound order is genuinely well constructed; decodable books use only the sounds taught so far.

Disadvantages: school plans are priced separately from the $35.00 home membership, and the deeper content sits behind them. The interface is dated.

6. Blockly Games

Blockly Games is open source, which its own documentation notes means it is free and customisable. It runs in a browser with no install and no account.

Advantages: free, open source, no logins at all; short self-contained puzzles that fit a single lesson; it ends by showing the equivalent text code, which sets up the next stage.

Disadvantages: no progress tracking whatsoever, so a teacher sees nothing unless they walk around. It is a set of puzzles, not a scheme of work.

7. Oxford Owl

Oxford Owl provides free resources and levelled eBooks for three to eleven year olds, which is the whole primary range in one place.

Advantages: free levelled eBooks are genuinely rare; the levelling maps onto familiar reading bands; useful material for the parent side of a reading scheme.

Disadvantages: a library rather than a programme, with no tracking and nothing that tells a teacher what a child did.

8. Storyline Online

Storyline Online is a free eBook library for three to eleven year olds with books read aloud by actors, and activity guides alongside.

Advantages: free, no login, works on a projector for a whole class, and it is one of very few good options for listening comprehension.

Disadvantages: a small library compared with a paid service, and it teaches nothing directly.

9. Prodigy Math

Prodigy Math makes its maths and English curriculum content free and gives teachers class-level reporting, which is a rare combination.

Advantages: the curriculum is genuinely free; covers Grades 1 to 8 so it spans primary and beyond; children choose to play it, which raises practice volume without staff effort.

Disadvantages: memberships from $58.95 a year buy game rewards, and children whose families pay get visible advantages over those who do not. That is a real equity question in a classroom and worth thinking about before rolling it out.

10. Math Playground

Math Playground covers maths puzzles, logic and problem solving for Grades K to 6, free and with no account.

Advantages: free, no login, strong problem-solving content that is hard to find elsewhere, works on any browser.

Disadvantages: it displays advertising, which many schools will rule out immediately and which is worth checking against your own policy before it reaches a classroom.

Rolling One Out Without a Budget or an IT Team

Pick one, not four. A primary school that adopts one tool properly beats one that adopts four partially, every time, and the failure mode of four is that none of them becomes anyone’s habit.

Choose on logins before features. In a primary classroom with shared devices, a tool that needs no account will get used four times as often as one that does, whatever the feature comparison says. If you need progress data, accept that the login cost is the price of it and budget lesson time accordingly.

Test it in the worst room in the school, at the worst time of day, on the oldest device. Software that works in the head teacher’s office on a new tablet tells you nothing. If it works in the far classroom on a Friday afternoon, it will work anywhere.

Then write down who owns it. A named person, not a role, with a second person who also knows how it is set up. This is the step that prevents the tool dying when one teacher moves on, and it takes ten minutes.

Families doing the same job at home face a different version of it, and we set out the three tool stack that works for homeschoolers. For a free option that needs no accounts at all and works offline, the age view is the quickest way to match a class to a level. The full picture of what every option here costs, including the ones that publish no price, is in the comparison table.

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)

What is the best free educational software for primary schools?

For computing, Code.org and Scratch, which are what most schools already teach with. For early literacy, Khan Academy Kids and Starfall’s free tier. For a no-login option spanning nine subjects, the lessons here are free with no accounts and work offline. The right answer depends on whether you need progress tracking.

Is free software good enough for a school, or is paid better?

In computing the free tools are the industry standard, so paid is not better. In maths and literacy, paid platforms are consistently stronger at per-pupil reporting and intervention data. If you need evidence for a subject leader, that is the one thing worth paying for.

How do we handle software when pupils share devices?

Prefer tools that work without a login, and use paired work deliberately rather than treating it as a compromise. Two children at one screen talk to each other about the work, which is often better than two children silent at two screens.

What about pupil data and privacy?

Check what each tool requires before a pupil can begin. Several here need nothing at all, which removes the question entirely. Where accounts are needed, your data protection obligations depend on where you are, so check the provider’s terms against your own policy before rollout rather than after.

Does any of this work without reliable internet?

Some of it. Scratch has an offline editor, Khan Academy Kids works after downloading, and the lessons here work entirely offline once installed. Code.org, Math Playground and the eBook libraries need a connection. In a school with patchy wifi that single question should drive the shortlist.