Apps for Teachers

Free applications for ICT links and downloads, KS3 & KS4

Recent whitepapers and changes introduced to the secondary curriculum have encouraged schools to develop the use of open source or ‘free’ software, and to spend more time on the teaching of programming, coding and ‘real world’ IT in line with industry expectations.

This page lists and describes free applications, with a focus on open source software, industry standard expectations and outcomes, and programming.  For each software title, a download link for the free software provided and links to tutorials, teacher forums, examples of good practice, pupil resources and national & international competitions using the software are detailed.

Open Source Software



Each item of open source software includes tried and tested teaching activities using the application, and practical referencing to the ICT KS3 and/or KS4 POS from the National Curriculum. A brief description elaborates on the usefulness of the application, how it fits in with recent educational developments, and how the program satisfies cross curricular use in terms of a useful end product. Suggestions and comments on the potential for differentiation are also provided.

In addition, the typical system requirements, including the potential for networking, are provided and described for each item of open source or free software.

Schemes to Deliver Coding into School

A number of well backed industry based schemes to deliver coding into schools have been described, including applications supported by Microsoft, Intel, MIT and Oxford University.

The free applications showcased in this document cover object oriented and visual programming in C and C# style languages, creating online games suitable for PCs Macs or Xboxes,  creating cloud based zooming interactive presentations, timelines, mind maps and scrapbook posters, creating and modelling artificial intelligence simulations,  professional standard art and 3D rendering, industry standard music creation and podcasting,  science resources for modelling electronics, a new take on school wide VLEs,  an interactive and engaging worldwide design simulation competition and a free moderated safety- friendly school email scheme.