Oak National Academy

What Oak National Academy is

Oak National Academy is a free curriculum and teaching resource service for schools in England, funded by the Department for Education. Its Who We Are page describes the job as "helping schools deliver a world-class curriculum for every pupil", through free, adaptable curriculum plans and lesson resources that cover every national curriculum subject from key stage 1 to key stage 4, with early years (EYFS) material as well. Teachers are the main users, but there is a separate pupil side where children can learn online.

The same page tells the story in two parts. In 2020, during lockdown, Oak brought together a group of expert partners to support schools with thousands of lessons designed for remote learning. Since then it has grown into complete curriculum support for the classroom: "Every national curriculum subject, every unit, every lesson, in one place." It now adds AI tools that help teachers create, adapt and enhance lessons.

Oak sets out four principles. Its materials are "flexible tools to adapt, not scripts to follow". They are created by subject and curriculum experts, aligned to the national curriculum and tested by real teachers. They are free, with "no paywalls, package tiers, or hidden costs." And Oak is independent and optional: its board is publicly appointed, its partners are selected through an open process, and schools choose whether and how to use it. The organization is Oak National Academy Limited, with a registered address in Manchester.

What the curriculum covers

The site's subject menus list art and design, citizenship, computing, cooking and nutrition, design and technology, English, French, geography, German, history, math, music, physical education, religious education, RSHE (PSHE), science and Spanish, plus digital literacy, financial education and, at primary, rule of law. Early years material is organized around areas such as expressive arts and design, literacy, math, personal, social and emotional development, and understanding the world.

At key stage 4 the subjects split into the GCSE courses schools actually teach. Biology, chemistry, physics and combined science each come in AQA, Edexcel and OCR versions at foundation and higher tier. English is available for AQA, Edexcel and Eduqas; music for AQA, Edexcel, Eduqas and OCR; computer science for AQA and OCR; geography for AQA and Edexcel B; religious education for AQA, Edexcel B and Eduqas; and French, German, Spanish and history for AQA and Edexcel. Math is chosen by tier, foundation or higher. Citizenship, computing, physical education and religious education each have a core strand alongside the GCSE course.

According to the Oak's Impact page, teachers can draw on more than 100,000 resources supporting the delivery of 13,500 lessons. In its own introduction video, Oak says it is the first to create curricula for key stages 1 to 4 across all national curriculum subjects.

What a teacher gets

Each subject has a curriculum plan showing the units that make up the curriculum and the lessons that make up each unit, described on the lesson planning guide as "all carefully thought through to build pupils' knowledge." Each lesson then comes with ready-made resources: slide decks, worksheets and quizzes. The guide explains the structure. A lesson begins with a starter quiz to activate prior knowledge, moves through explanation, checks for understanding and practice in repeated learning cycles, and ends with an exit quiz. A "check" icon in the slide decks marks a suggested point to test understanding, and each lesson carries a teacher tip and a common misconception to watch for, along with example learning outcomes.

Alongside the resources sits a video of an experienced teacher delivering the lesson with them. Oak describes this video library as "a really powerful resource for ECTs, non-specialists, and to use in cover, or even to analyse in professional development sessions." Signed-in teachers can save units and lessons to My library, which the site calls "all your content in one handy place."

The lesson planning guide itself is a substantial free resource for trainee, early-career and experienced teachers, covering lesson objectives, structure, explanation and modeling, practice, checking for understanding, scaffolding and reflection. Oak also runs webinars and a blog; recent posts cover updated RSHE resources ahead of new statutory guidance from September 2026 and free rule-of-law lessons developed with ACT and the Attorney General's Office.

Aila and the AI tools

Aila is Oak's AI lesson assistant. The lesson planning page says it was built by a team of educators and AI developers, designed with teachers in mind, to help them save time planning lessons and creating resources. Teachers can use it to create lesson plans, slide decks, quizzes, tasks and worksheets "for any lesson, in any subject, in any key stage", and the site says the process is driven by the teacher and adaptable to the class. Oak links to guidance on using Aila to localize lessons and to support pupils with SEND, and an "AI experiments" area sits in the main menu. The Oak's Impact page says its AI tools have helped over 60,000 teachers free up time "without compromising quality, safety or trust."

Reach and reported impact

The Oak's Impact page says Oak is now used in 72% of schools, citing its latest independent evaluation. Between January and July 2025, almost 200,000 teachers used Oak, with over 54,000 using it every week, a 53% rise on the previous year. The page reports that 85% of users say Oak has a positive impact on their workload, and that two thirds (67%) report an overall workload reduction, saving an average of four hours a week. It adds that 92% of Oak users see themselves staying in teaching over the next two years, against 77% of non-users, which the page says indicates higher retention could be linked to using Oak.

Other figures on the same page: teachers downloaded resources 1,630,000 times in 7 months; pupils used 4,200,000 lessons for homework, revision or remote learning; and schools in high-disadvantage areas use Oak 36% more than schools in affluent areas. Oak states its purpose as improving pupil outcomes and closing the disadvantage gap.

Trusts describe how they use it. Ormiston Academies Trust, with 45 schools, worked with Oak on its religious education curriculum. Lift Schools, a trust of 57 schools, is implementing Oak's modern foreign languages curriculum. Blue Kite Academy Trust is introducing Oak's math curriculum across almost all of its 25 schools, and the Twyford CofE Academies Trust credits the languages resources with progress in receptive skills. A head of secondary science quoted on the home page says the new science curriculum for KS3 and KS4 is "absolutely fabulous", and a Year 5 teacher writes: "As a newly qualified teacher I found having a structured path of lessons to teach a unit really helped with the coverage of the genre."

The revised national curriculum

Oak says it is working with school and education partners to update its curriculum plans and resources in line with the revised national curriculum and updated GCSEs, and will publish guidance on implementing the changes. As with everything else, the Who We Are page says the updates will be "optional, adaptable and just one version of how you might implement the changes." The guidance menu includes a "curriculum change explained" section, and a webinar series called Curriculum Conversations brings in trust leaders to discuss implementation.

Who it suits

Oak suits teachers and leaders in schools in England who want a complete, sequenced curriculum, or just a strong starting point for tomorrow's lesson, without paying for it. Early-career teachers, non-specialists covering an unfamiliar subject and departments preparing for a new GCSE specification get the most from the teacher videos, the exam-board versions and the planning guide, and Aila speeds up the adapting. Because every resource is built for the national curriculum in England, schools elsewhere will need to map it to their own framework. Within that scope, it is free, broad and openly adaptable.