Tes Magazine Paywall: How to Read Tes Articles Without a Subscription

Tes began life in 1910 as the Times Educational Supplement and is still the paper of record for teachers and school leaders in Britain, with a large readership in international schools as well. Its magazine section carries the analysis, leadership advice and classroom research that staffrooms talk about, and almost all of it is reserved for subscribers. A teacher who follows a link from a colleague or a union newsletter usually lands on a subscription prompt. This guide explains how the Tes paywall works and how to read an article in full.

How the Tes paywall works

Tes uses a subscriber paywall on its magazine. Articles published under tes.com/magazine show the headline, standfirst and opening lines to everyone, then ask for a subscription to continue. There is no monthly allowance of free reads; a magazine article is gated from the first visit. The job listings and some news items on the wider site are free, which is where the confusion often comes from.

The gate is applied in the browser. Tes wants its analysis to appear in search results, so the full article is delivered in the page HTML and a script then replaces the body with the subscription prompt for anyone without a subscriber login. A crawler-style reader that fetches the page without running that script receives the complete text. Our explainer on metered versus hard paywalls covers why this matters.

Our tests on 1 October 2026 through Skip the Paywall:

• A 1,780-word Tes analysis on how international schools are preparing for El Niño weather loaded in full, all 51 paragraphs.
• A 778-word Tes piece on why school leaders should understand the early years loaded in full, all 32 paragraphs.
• A 770-word Tes account of how one school raised its good level of development score over three years loaded in full, all 27 paragraphs.

Read a Tes article in full

• Copy the article link. Tes magazine links look like tes.com/magazine/analysis/section/headline-slug.
• Paste it into the box on the home page and press Read Article.
• The article appears in a clean reader view with the headline, byline and full text.

Other approaches

• School subscriptions. Many schools and multi-academy trusts hold a Tes subscription for all staff. Ask your office or library before paying personally.
• Library access. Tes is available through PressReader at a number of UK public libraries, free with a library card.
• Newsletters. The free Tes newsletters link to the week's articles, and a few are left open as samples.
• Student and NQT offers. Tes runs reduced rates for trainee and early-career teachers at various points in the year.

How it compares with similar titles

Tes behaves like the other education titles we have tested. Times Higher Education, which was once Tes's sister paper, and Inside Higher Ed both apply their gates in the browser and load in full. The Chronicle of Higher Education is the exception in the sector: it serves only a short teaser to anyone without a subscription, so the reader cannot help there. The full list of sites that work is kept current.

Subscribe if you read it regularly

Tes employs specialist education journalists who spend their time inside schools, and the magazine is how that work is paid for. If you read it every week, a personal or school subscription is the fair way to keep it going, and the rates for individual teachers are modest.