Online Python editor for schools

Write and run Python 3 in a browser tab. It works on school desktops and Chromebooks, and over 100 UK schools use it for GCSE and A-Level Computer Science lessons.

How teachers use it

• Send a link and start. A browser tab is the whole setup, so a one-off lesson costs you a link and nothing else.
• Standard Python 3. A working console means input(), loops, lists, functions and file handling behave the way the specification expects.
• Share a starter. Paste your starting code, press Share, and put the link in a worksheet or Google Classroom. It opens ready to run.
• It runs on the student’s machine. Python executes in the browser, so thirty students pressing Run at once is thirty machines working rather than one server.

Moving from Trinket

If your schemes of work were built around Trinket, the day to day is the same: write Python, run it in the browser, share a link with a class. The one thing Trinket does that this does not is embed inside another website, so your links open the editor rather than sitting in a VLE page. The shareable starter code works the same way, and still without an account.

Common questions

Is it really free, and do students need an account?

Yes, and no account. Python runs inside the browser, so there is no server doing the work and no cost to pass on. Signing in only matters if a student wants to save a file and come back to it.

Does it work on school computers and Chromebooks?

Yes. Everything happens in the browser, so any current one will run it, including the locked-down builds most schools use. Your network team only needs the site itself reachable.

Can students share their work with me?

Yes. Share copies a link with the program carried inside it, so it opens for whoever you send it to and neither of you has to sign in. That also means nothing is stored on our servers, and a shared link is as private as the people you send it to.

Does it support input(), loops, lists and functions?

It runs standard Python 3: input() with a working console, loops, lists, dictionaries, functions, classes and file handling. Turtle and pygame have their own editor.

We used Trinket. What is different here?

Day to day it covers the same ground: write Python, run it in the browser, share a link with a class. Trinket can embed inside another website and this cannot, so your links open the editor itself. A school account then adds marking, question banks and class tracking on top.

What do schools get that the free editor does not include?

Files that follow a student between devices, AI feedback on their code, 20+ interactive teaching tools, exam-style question banks for the four main boards, and a teacher dashboard showing where a class is losing marks.

Also available: the Pygame editor for graphics and games, and free teaching resources.