The free sites we’d actually recommend.
A short, honest list. No affiliates, no priority placement, no "premium tier required" small print pretending to be free.
Government & public-service
BBC Bitesize
KS1–A-Level. The first stop for short, board-tagged topic explainers and quizzes. Free, no account needed.
Open →Oak National Academy
Government-backed lesson library covering KS1 to KS4. Full lesson plans, worksheets, video. Free and ad-free.
Open →Khan Academy
Strong for maths and science up to early A-Level. Practice problems with instant feedback. Free.
Open →Subject-specific (free tier)
Seneca Learning
Spaced-repetition revision aligned to UK exam boards. Free tier covers GCSE and A-Level core content.
Open →Save My Exams
Topic notes, flashcards, exam-style questions by board. Free preview, paid for full access.
Open →Physics & Maths Tutor
Past papers, mark schemes, topic notes for Maths, Physics, Chemistry, Biology. Excellent worked-solutions archive. Free.
Open →Cognito Education
Free GCSE Science (and now Maths/CompSci) video courses with practice questions. Created by ex-teachers.
Open →CGP free downloads
Sample chapters and practice questions from the CGP revision guides. Useful starter material.
Open →Maths-specific
Corbettmaths
Free GCSE Maths question packs ("5-a-day"), tutorials and revision cards. Brilliant for daily 20-minute practice.
Open →MathsGenie
Past papers organised by topic and difficulty. Worked video solutions for every question.
Open →NRICH (University of Cambridge)
Cambridge’s problem-solving project. Excellent for stretch beyond the syllabus and for Oxbridge maths prep.
Open →Reading & comprehension
Project Gutenberg
70,000+ free out-of-copyright books — almost every set GCSE / A-Level English Lit text in full.
Open →British Library learning
Curated context, manuscripts and academic articles for set texts. Strong for A-Level English coursework.
Open →Massolit
University-academic video lectures aligned to A-Level English Lit and History specs. Free if your school subscribes.
Open →Which tool, when?
Side-by-side comparison so you don’t end up subscribed to four overlapping platforms. Cost is for the GCSE tier as of 2026.
| Tool | Format | Free tier | Best for |
|---|---|---|---|
| BBC Bitesize | Articles, video, quiz | Fully free, no account | First pass on a new topic — clear, board-tagged, plain English. |
| Oak National | Full lesson plans + video | Fully free, ad-free | Catching up on missed school content. Closest thing to a recorded teacher. |
| Seneca | Spaced-repetition platform | Free for core content | Fast topic recap and self-testing. Phone-friendly. |
| Save My Exams | Notes + topic questions | Limited free preview | Exam-style questions by board. Strong for sciences and maths. |
| Physics & Maths Tutor | Past papers + worked solutions | Fully free | Maths and science past-paper drills. The worked-solutions archive is the killer feature. |
| Khan Academy | Video + adaptive practice | Fully free | Maths up to early A-Level, plus computer science. Excellent practice-feedback loop. |
| Corbettmaths | Practice question packs | Fully free | Daily 20-minute GCSE Maths practice ("5-a-day"). Habit-building. |
| MathsGenie | Past paper + topic videos | Fully free | Topic-by-topic GCSE/A-Level Maths revision. Worked video for every question. |
| Cognito | Video courses + quizzes | Fully free | GCSE Science (Combined and Triple). Visual learners. |
| NRICH (Cambridge) | Problem-solving | Fully free | Stretch beyond the syllabus. Oxbridge maths interview prep. |
A simple weekly stack
- Monday — read a Bitesize topic page (15 min).
- Tuesday — Seneca or Khan practice on the same topic (20 min).
- Thursday — exam-style questions on Save My Exams or PMT (30 min).
- Saturday — one past paper question section, marked against the scheme (45 min).
- Sunday — re-do anything you lost marks on, with the mark scheme open (15 min).
Total: ~2 hours a week, per subject. Beats a £15/mo subscription you stop opening after week three.
A note on "free"
A lot of revision sites use "free" as a hook, then gate the actually useful material behind a £15/mo subscription. We’ve flagged the genuinely free ones above. Where a paid tier exists, the free version is still substantial enough to be worth using on its own.
None of the above replaces a tutor — they replace the bottom 30% of what a tutor would otherwise have to teach you. That’s exactly what good free resources should do.
Hit a wall?
When self-study stops working, a tutor is the cheapest fix. Free 30-min trial.