Is Oak National Academy free?
Checked 16 September 2026
Yes. Oak National Academy is completely free. It is funded by the Department for Education, there is no paid tier, and you do not need an account to use it. Every lesson, slide deck, worksheet and quiz can be downloaded by anyone.
That answer is short, so here is the part people actually want next: what Oak gives you, what it deliberately leaves to you, and what that means if you are home educating rather than teaching a class of thirty.
What Oak National Academy gives you, free
Oak publishes a full national curriculum sequence for England, from Early Years through to Key Stage 4. A typical primary lesson comes with a slide deck, a video, a starter quiz, a worksheet and an exit quiz, plus the teacher's own notes on how to run it.
- Every national curriculum subject, Reception to Year 11.
- Teacher-written lessons. Oak commissions them from subject specialists and curriculum partners, not from an algorithm.
- Downloadable resources. Slides, worksheets and answers, as files you keep.
- No account, no trial, no paywall. You can open a lesson and use it in the next ten minutes.
What Oak does not do
Oak is a library, not a plan. That distinction is the whole reason home educators find the first month hard, and it is worth being plain about.
- It does not decide what your child does tomorrow. There are thousands of lessons and no sequence chosen for your child.
- It does not track anything. Nothing records which lesson your child finished, what they got right, or what they should revisit.
- It does not adapt. A lesson that was too hard stays exactly as hard the next time.
- It does not produce evidence. If a local authority makes an informal enquiry, Oak holds no record of your child's work.
- It is built for a classroom, not a kitchen table. One Oak lesson is a slide deck of about thirty slides, written for a teacher to talk over in front of a class. The teaching in it is excellent. The format assumes the room.
None of that is a criticism. Oak set out to give every teacher in England a high quality curriculum for nothing, and it did. Planning one child's year was never the job it took on.
How home educators actually use Oak
Most families who use Oak well do the same four things. If you are starting from scratch, this is the shortest path that works.
- Pick the year group, per subject. Your child does not have to sit in one year across the board. See what school year your child is in.
- Choose two subjects to start, not ten. Maths and English daily, everything else weekly, is a realistic first month.
- Use the slides, skip the video. One to one, you can explain in a sentence what a video takes six minutes to say.
- Write down what got done. A notebook is enough at first. It becomes the record you are glad of later.
Where StudyDen fits
StudyDen is built on Oak's lessons. We say so on every one, because it is true and because Oak deserves the credit. What we charge for is everything Oak deliberately left out.
| Oak National Academy | StudyDen | |
|---|---|---|
| Cost | Free, always | £29.99 a month for the whole family |
| The lessons | Teacher-written, national curriculum, for a class | Rewritten from Oak's for one child, Oak credited on every one |
| One lesson is | A deck of about 30 slides to teach from | About 10 slides to work through, roughly half an hour |
| Deciding what is next | You choose from thousands | The next lesson in each subject is chosen for you |
| Record of what was done | None | Written automatically as your child works |
| Marking | Self-marked quizzes | Marked by meaning, with a second explanation when it is wrong |
| Evidence for the council | None | Reports, a ledger and a printable year |
| Reading it aloud | You read it | Optional AI teacher reads and explains it |
Both are honest answers. Which one you need depends on how much planning you want to do.
Oak's lessons are free, and a family with the time can teach straight from them. Plenty do. What that takes is the adaptation nobody mentions: picking what comes next, and turning a deck built for thirty children into half an hour with one. We did that 4,221 times, kept Oak's name on every one of them, and wrote 612 more where Oak has nothing. If that is the part beating you, that is the part we sell.
Start your 7-day free trial
StudyDen plans a full UK primary curriculum for Years 1 to 6, using Oak National Academy's teacher-written lessons. 7 days free, then £29.99 a month for the whole family.
Start your 7-day free trialCommon questions
- Is Oak National Academy free?
- Yes. Oak National Academy is funded by the Department for Education and is free for everyone. There is no paid tier, no trial and no account needed.
- Do you need an account to use Oak National Academy?
- No. You can browse and download any lesson, slide deck or worksheet without signing up.
- Can home educators use Oak National Academy?
- Yes. Oak is open to anyone responsible for a child's learning, including home educating parents, and it covers every national curriculum subject from Reception to Year 11.
- Is Oak National Academy good for GCSEs?
- Oak publishes Key Stage 4 lessons aligned to GCSE content. It is a teaching resource rather than an exam entry route, so you still arrange exams through a centre yourself.
- What is the difference between Oak National Academy and StudyDen?
- Oak writes and gives away lessons built for teachers to use with a class. StudyDen rewrites that material for one child working at home, under Oak's open licence and with Oak credited on every lesson, then adds the planning, the pacing, the marking and the record, for a monthly subscription.