Education for all is core to the BBC’s mission and purpose. Our vision as BBC Education is to transform lives through education.
We do this in four ways:
- Our flagship website is BBC Bitesize which provides educationally approved, curriculum relevant self-study and home-learning to 5-16 year olds.
- The BBC Teach website supports teachers by working with the best of the BBC’s brands and programmes to create curriculum related content for the classroom.
- Tiny Happy People supports parents and carers in developing language and communication skills of their 0-4 year-old children.
- Educational campaigns address societal needs and educational deficits. They are delivered with partners and aim to change behaviour. Recent examples include our environmental initiative The Regenerators and Moodboosters, which aims to get primary children moving to improve their mental health and wellbeing.
What we do
Providing a personalised structured learning experience
BBC Bitesize supports students with their educational needs outside the classroom, at home and on the go. Bitesize is directly curriculum-relevant, making it an accurate and trusted resource for learners from reception age through to school-leaving exams and beyond.
Bitesize has been invaluable for young learners since 1998 and today supports the UK curricula in England, Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales using a rich mix of video, audio, games, interactive activities, written content, infographics and guides.
The Bitesize website also provides UK students with careers inspiration and advice; articles to support students as they navigate difficult person challenges; plus guidance for parents.
Today Bitesize welcomes 2.5 million unique browsers on average each week during term time. It was the top resource used by GCSE students in the last school year, as well as being rated as the most useful.
BBC Teachaims to support teachers by curating the best of BBC videos, BBC archive and other curriculum-related resources for use in the classroom.
The BBC Teach website includes over 6000 curriculum mapped short films, arranged by subject and age-group, available for teachers to use in the classroom; over 70 Live Lessons – 30 minute interactive programmes with accompanying resources; and educational campaigns including Moodboosters and Premier League Super Movers.
Tiny Happy People was launched in July 2020 to support parents and carers in developing the language and communication skills of their 0-4 year-old children. We have worked with a coalition of wide-ranging partners including The Royal Foundation, The Royal College of Speech and Language Therapists and the National Literacy Trust. The Tiny Happy People website includes a range of simple activities and play ideas to improve the development of babies and young children.
Educational Campaigns - we run a range of educational campaigns which aim to address societal need and change behaviour. We run ambitious long-running campaigns such as our environmental initiative The Regenerators which launched in October 2021 and Moodboosters which launched in November 2022 to inspire primary school children around the UK to get moving and learning about their mental health and wellbeing. We also run smaller campaigns to support products, these include The Mind Set which offers revision advice and support for students taking their GCSEs/Nationals.
Information for Education resource providers
BBC Education is committed to strengthening its relationship with education resource and EdTech companies in the commercial sector.
As well as opportunities to use BBC Education content and link to other educational content from the BBC website, BBC Education holds regular industry events at which it shares information about its activities and plans.
The BBC’s Royal Charter requires that we work with external partners to both fulfil our public purposes, and to support the wider creative sector. In BBC Education, we do this by partnering with a small roster of education resource providers to co-produce curriculum content.
To receive updates on BBC Education, and invites to our twice yearly Industry Briefings, sign up to our Industry Mailing List.
Bitesize diversity and inclusion commissioning guidelines
BBC Bitesize has producedguidelines for all suppliers setting out how we will work together to meet our ambitions for diversity and inclusion. Suppliers should consult these guidelines when responding to any of our commissioning briefs. There’s more info about all our upcoming commissions on the BBC Commissioning website.
UK education sector briefings
Our last briefing for the UK Education sector was held on 9 November 2023 and you can watch a recording of that meeting below. The next meeting will be held in Spring 2024.
Third party usage and fair trading
BBC Education permits some of its content to be used on other non-BBC websites. The videos which may be embedded for use by third-party providers are available on the BBC Teach YouTube channel. Third party education resource providers are also welcome to link to any content on BBC Education pages within their own resources.
More information on the BBC's Fair trading guidelinescan be found here.
Links to non-BBC content
We want to continue to include relevant links to relevant curriculum content on BBC Education’s websites.
These links are currently in a prominent place on subject index pages on BBC Bitesize, and at the foot of collections on BBC Teach pages. We are also looking to extend External Links to other parts of Bitesize.
Applications can be made via the external links application form. The form is open year round and we will process new link applications at regular intervals throughout the year.
Content Partnership Roster
BBC Education runs an annual ‘gateway’ process for inclusion on their Content Partnership Roster. This affords commercial education resource providers a means to work directly with BBC Education, on an in-kind basis, to co-produce classroom and curriculum content. Roster members are able to advertise their partnership with the BBC, and we may link to their own content from our websites.
The gateway takes place each summer, and potential applicants will receive alerts by signing up to the BBC's Education Industry Mail List.
