Free formative assessment tools for UK teachers

The tools that actually get used in a UK week are duller than a list of websites. Some of them are not websites. A free plan that will not cover your class is not free for the lesson you are about to teach.

Formative means you find out during the learning and you change something. A tool that stores a score and never changes the next activity is a record. It might still be worth having. It is not, by itself, assessment for learning. The question designs live in exit ticket ideas. This page is about the medium, and what it costs in minutes, devices and faff. Card scanners have their own page, Plickers alternatives, and boards have theirs, mini whiteboards versus a digital check. The full set is on the blog.

Free usually means one of three things

• Already in the building. Boards, paper, and the office account the school pays for anyway. The marginal cost of one more question is nil.
• Free with a cap. A website that is free until the class is bigger than the plan, or until you want the question type that does the actual job. The cap is the product.
• Free for now. A new tool that is not charging while it is being tried with teachers. Treat that as a sentence you read on their site, not as a permanent budget line. Know what you will do if it stops.

The cost that matters is rarely the subscription. It is whether pupils can get in before the explanation goes cold, whether you can tell who answered, and whether you will do it again on Thursday when the projector lead is missing.

Boards and paper

Mini whiteboards are the default for a reason. No login, no battery on their side, a diagram is allowed, a phone ban is irrelevant. They are public, so the pupil who waits can copy, and there is no record after they wipe. Use them for methods and sketches. Do not use a one-word show-me as proof of a reason.

A named exit slip is also free. One question, a name, a pile. The pile is why people stop, not because the question was wrong. If you use paper, collect six from the pupils you are unsure about rather than thirty you will not read. The question bank is the exit-ticket page. The medium can stay paper forever. There is no moral prize for using a website.

What the school account already includes

If the school is on Microsoft 365 Education, Microsoft Forms is part of that rather than a separate product you buy. Microsoft's education plans, including the no-cost A1 plan for eligible schools, include Forms. If the school is on Google Workspace, or people simply have Google accounts, Google Forms is the equivalent. You do not need a new supplier for a short-answer question.

Both will do multiple choice and short text. Both can collect names if pupils sign in, and both can be shared more openly if you would rather not fight the passwords. A sign-in is a real name and a lost starter. An open link is a smooth start and a silly name in row 14. Pick the failure you can live with.

What you get is a sheet. You still read the sentences. Use Forms when you need the file tonight. Use something faster when the decision is whether to start the practice.

Quiz tools, and the cap

Kahoot is the one pupils already know. They join with a PIN, a nickname is enough, and they do not need an account to play. The classic live game rewards being right and being fast. That is a retrieval starter with the volume up. It is a weak way to spot a misconception, because the careful wrong answer loses to the quick guess, in public.

As of Kahoot's schools pricing page in October 2026, the free plan lists a live limit of 40 participants, and quiz or true/false questions. Paid plans raise the limit. Caps move, so check the page before you promise a class a game. Other quiz sites follow the same pattern: a free tier, a cap, mostly multiple choice, a leaderboard. If the score depends on speed, you are not measuring the pupil who thinks.

Cards, briefly

Plickers keeps pupil devices out of it. Paper cards, you scan, multiple choice only. Their help pages say the core is free, a free set holds up to five questions, and a class uses at most 63 cards. It is a good fit for a planned letter from everyone, and a bad fit when you needed a sentence. The detail, and when not to switch away from it, is on the Plickers page. Do not replace it with a website that needs thirty iPads if the reason you chose cards was that you do not have thirty iPads.

A two-minute check, and the honest limits

Get It? is free for a limited time, no card, while it is being tried with teachers. You type the topic you taught. It drafts the questions. You edit or delete any you do not want. Pupils open a code on any device, no account, and answer in their own words, typed or spoken. It is not multiple choice. In about two minutes you see who has got it, who is unsure, and who needs help.

The limits are part of the choice. It needs a device and a connection, so a phone ban with no laptops sends you back to boards. A first name is enough, and it should be a first name rather than more than you need. The answers are read by an AI service so you are not marking at the door. The colour you see is guidance. It can be wrong, and you can change it. If school policy says pupil responses must not go to an external AI service, do not use it. That is written on the privacy page, and it is a real constraint, not a footnote.

Use it when the question is "can they explain this, all of them, before I move on?" Do not use it to replace a diagram on a board, and do not use it as a graded test. Formative tools get ruined by being asked to feed a mark book.

How to choose on a Sunday night

• No devices, or the wifi is a coin toss. Boards, or cards if you truly need letters and you have the cards in the room.
• You need working or a sketch. Boards. A text box will punish them for the wrong reason.
• You need a file tonight, and logins work in that room. The forms tool you already have.
• You want energy and recall, and you can live with a cap and a leaderboard. A quiz, after you have checked the free limit.
• You need every pupil's reason, quietly, in the lesson. A short private check. Paper if you will really read it. A code on a device if you will not.

A new login will not rescue a vague question. The tool only decides whether the answer arrives while you can still use it.

Questions people ask

Try it on one class.

One lesson. One question. Two minutes. If it doesn't tell you something you didn't already know, walk away.

Try it free — no card

Students need no account. They just need the code.