RM Books and
New English Curriculum (KS3)
The expectation of the new English curriculum at KS3 is that pupils should be able to speak and write
fluently and improve their communication skills through reading and listening. The national curriculum for
English aims to ensure that all pupils:
 Read easily and fluently and with good understanding.
 Develop the habit of reading widely and often, for both pleasure and information.
 Appreciate our rich and varied literary heritage.
Reading at KS3 should be wide, varied and challenging, with pupils making critical comparisons across
texts. Pupils are expected to read whole books, to read in depth and to read for pleasure and information.
For the more advanced students, there should be the opportunities for increased breadth and depth in
reading. Additional practice should be put into place for those who need to consolidate their knowledge,
understanding and skills.
RM Books can support schools when delivering this new curriculum due to the wide range of titles
available. There are thousands of free classic titles including the complete works of Shakespeare, Dickens
and Austen. RM Books offers a modern approach to reading and helps support raising attainment,
especially in literacy. The “school library” element can enable pupils to make independent choices about
the books that they read, whether they are fiction or non-fiction. Students can either be supported or
challenged as books can be filtered on interest age but titles can be selected based on a suitable reading
age. The unique reporting feature enables teachers to track student's usage, including duration of reading
and the number of page turns, to ensure students are progressing with the books allocated to them. With
the Book notes feature, texts can be brought to life as teachers can aid their student’s comprehension by
adding annotations, helpful videos, audio and images and by linking to other engaging and relevant web
resources. Teachers can also add quizzes to test students’ understanding, which are then auto-marked and
presented back to the teacher.
SUBJECT CONTENT
Pupils should be taught to:



Develop an appreciation and love for reading, and read increasingly challenging material
independently through:
o Reading a wide range of fiction and non-fiction, including in particular whole books, short
stories, poems and plays with a wide coverage of genres, historical periods, forms and
authors. The range will include high-quality works from:
 English literature, both pre-1914 and contemporary, including prose, poetry and
drama.
 Shakespeare (2 plays).
 Seminal world literature
o Choosing and reading books independently for challenge, interest and enjoyment.
o Re-reading books encountered earlier to increase familiarity with them and provide a basis
for making comparisons.
Understand increasingly challenging texts.
Read critically (including poetic conventions, how the work of dramatists is communicated
effectively through performance, making comparisons across texts and studying at least two
authors in depth each year).
RM Education
New English Curriculum (KS3)
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Suggested reading list
Title
Classic titles
Little Women
Pride and Prejudice
Northanger Abbey
Sense and Sensibility
The Coral Island
Wuthering Heights
The Secret Garden
Robinson Crusoe
David Copperfield
The Pickwick Papers
Louise May Alcott
Jane Austen
Jane Austen
Jane Austen
R.M.Ballantyne
Emily Bronte
F.H Burnett
Daniel Defoe
Charles Dickens
Charles Dickens
Great Expectations
Charles Dickens
Oliver Twist
The Hound of the Baskervilles
Charles Dickens
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
Alexandre Dumas
Henry Fielding
Kenneth Grahame
Rudyard Kipling
L.M. Montgomery
L.M. Montgomery
E. Nesbit
Sir Walter Scott
Anna Sewell
Richard Brinsley Sheridan
Johanna Spyri
Laurence Sterne
R.L. Stevenson
R.L. Stevenson
Bram Stoker
Jules Verne
The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes
The Count of Monte Cristo
The History of Tom Jones
The Wind in the Willows
The Jungle Book
Anne of Green Gables
Anne of Avonlea
The Railway Children
Ivanhoe
Black Beauty
School for Scandal
Heidi
Tristram Shandy
Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde
Treasure Island
Dracula
20,000 Leagues under the Sea
William Shakespeare
King Richard III
Macbeth
The Merchant of Venice
A Midsummer Night’s Dream
Poets
Simon Armitage
William Blake
Robert Browning
John Clare
T.S. Eliot
Lavinia Greenlaw
Seamus Heaney
Ted Hughes
Seminal World Literature
Where I Belong
The Great Gatsby
Coram Boy
The Conservationist
The Hunchback of Notre Dame
Ulysses
The Middle of Nowhere
Tamburlaine’s Elephants
Sun Time Snow Time (Poems)
RM Education
New English Curriculum (KS3)
Author
Much Ado About Nothing
Romeo and Juliet
The Tempest
Kathleen Jamie
Philip Larkin
Roger McGough
Edwin Morgan
Wilfred Owen
Alexander Pope
Derek Walcott
WB Yeats
c
Gillian Cross
F. Scott Fitzgerald
Jamila Gavin
Nadine Gordimer
Victor Hugo
James Joyce
c
Geraldine McCaughrean
c
Geraldine McCaughrean
Grace Nichols
Title
History
The Jade Boy
VIII
Al Capone Does My Shirts
The Broken Road
Annexed
Treason
Auslander
Eleven Eleven
Troubadour
Fallen Grace
The Remarkable Life and
Times of Eliza Rose
Velvet
The Girl in the Mask
After You’ve Gone
The Call of the Wild
Just Henry
Run Rabbit Run
War Horse
The English Patient
Song Hunter
Sovay
Witch Child
Sword of Light
The Eagle of the Ninth
A World Between Us
Out of Shadows
Code Name Verity
Rose Under Fire
Crime/Thriller/Horror
Pastworld
Drive By
Buried Thunder
Finding Jennifer Jones
Tyme’s End
Say Her Name
Ways to See a Ghost
The Everest Files
The Company of Ghosts
Mind Blind
Sektion 20
Twelve Minutes to Midnight
The Graveyard Book
Now You See Me
Constable and Toop
The Returners
Mortlock
Street Duty: Knock Down
Crossing the Line
Mister. Creecher
The Dead of Winter
Uncle Montague’s Tales of Terror
This is Not Forgiveness
Among the Hoods
The Savages
Author
c
Cate Cain
c
H.M. Castor
c
Gennifer Choldenko
c
B.R. Collins
c
Sharon Dogar
c
Berlie Doherty
c
Paul Dowsell
c
Paul Dowsell
c
Mary Hoffman
c
Mary Hooper
Mary Hooper
c
Mary Hooper
c
Mary-Louise Jenson
Joan Lingard
Jack London
c
Michelle Magorian
c
Barbara Mitchelhill
c
Michael Morpurgo
Michael Ondaatje
c
Sally Prue
c
Celia Rees
Celia Rees
c
Katherine Roberts
Rosemary Sutcliffe
c
Lydia Syson
c
Jason Wallace
c
Elizabeth Wein
c
Elizabeth Wein
c
Ian Beck
Jim Carrington
c
Tim Bowler
c
Anne Cassidy
c
B.R. Collins
c
James Dawson
c
Emily Diamond
c
Matt Dickinson
c
Berlie Doherty
c
Lari Don
c
Paul Dowswell
Christopher Edge
c
Neil Gaiman
c
Emma Haughton
c
Gareth P. Jones
c
Gemma Malley
Jon Mayhew
Chris Ould
c
Gillian Philip
c
Chris Priestley
c
Chris Priestley
c
Chris Priestley
c
Celia Rees
Harriet Sergeant
c
Matt Whyman
2
Title
The Night Run
Gulliver’s Travels
The Adventure of Huckleberry Finn
The Adventure of Tom Sawyer
Around the World in 80 Days
Refugee Boy
Books for 14+ Readers
All the Truth That’s In Me
Bloodtide
Winter Damage
Dead Time
The Ghost Bride
Apple and Rain
Breathe
Boys Don’t Knit
The Things We Did For Love
Maggot Moon
Hostage Three
In Darkness
We Were Liars
Throne of Glass
Red Ink
Ferryman
The Fool’s Girl
The Cloud Hunters
Out of Shadows
Mystery/Adventure/Action
Tarzan: The Greystoke Legacy
The Girl Who Walks On Air
Mortal Chaos
Monkey and Me
Lord of the Flies
Paper Towns
Sky Hawk
The Accidental Time Traveller
The White Darkness
Tall Tales from Pitch End
The Apothecary
The River Singers
Rooftoppers
Holes
Tanglewreck
Short Stories
Lone Wolf
Gladiator
Spies
Point Danger
The Ice Man
Liam
c
Author
Bali Rai
Jonathan Swift
Mark Twain
Mark Twain
Jules Verne
Benjamin Zepheniah
c
Julie Berry
Melvyn Burgess
c
Natasha Carthew
c
Anne Cassidy
c
Yangsze Choo
c
Sarah Crossan
c
Sarah Crossan
c
T.S. Easton
c
Natasha Farrant
c
Sally Gardner
c
Nick Lake
c
Nick Lake
c
E. Lockhart
Sarah J Maas
c
Julie Mayhew
c
Claire McFall
c
Celia Rees
c
Alex Shearer
c
Jason Wallace
Andy Briggs
c
Emma Carroll
c
Matt Dickinson
c
David Gilman
William Golding
John Green
c
Gill Lewis
Janice Mackay
c
Geraldine McCaughrean
c
Nigel McDowell
c
Maile Meloy
c
Tom Moorhouse
c
Katherine Rundell
Louis Sachar
c
Jeanette Winterson
Alan Gibbons
Alan Gibbons
Mike Gould
Cathy MacPhail
Alan Parkinson
Benjamin Zephaniah
Title
Author
Fantasy/Sci-fi
Hollow Earth
John and Carol Barrowman
c
The Claws of Evil
Andrew Beasley
Sorrowline
Niel Bushnell
Gamerunner
B.R. Collins
c
The Traitor Game
B.R. Collins
c
The Great Unexpected
Sharon Creech
c
Unfinished Angel
Sharon Creech
c
After Tomorrow
Gillian Cross
c
Fortunately the Milk…
Neil Gaiman
c
The Little White Horse
Elizabeth Goudge
Stravaganza (series)
Mary Hoffman
Underworld
Cathy MacPhail
c
The Declaration
Gemma Malley
c
Tom’s Midnight Garden
Phillipa Pearce
c
Burn Mark
Laura Powell
Larklight Trilogy
Philip Reeve
Magyk
Angie Sage
The Bone Season
Samantha Shannon
c
Wishful Thinking
Ali Sparkes
c
The Wall
William Sutcliffe
Shadowmancer
G.P. Taylor
Angel
L.A. Weatherly
c
The Battle of the Sun
Jeanette Winterson
Family/Real Life Issues/Coming of Age
c
River Boy
Tim Bowler
Walking Naked
Alyssa Brugman
c
We Can Be Heroes
Catherine Bruton
c
Anthem for Jackson Dawes
Celia Bryce
Swim the Fly
Don Calame
c
How Kirsty Jenkins Stole The Elephant
Elen Caldecott
c
Searching for Sky
Jillian Cantor
c
Inside my Head
Jim Carrington
c
The Boy on the Porch
Sharon Creech
c
The Weight of Water
Sarah Crossan
After Iris
Natasha Farrant
c
Cowgirl
G.R. Gemin
Whisper
Chrissie Keighery
Butter
Erin Lange
c
Everybody Jam
Ali Lewis
c
Roxy’s Baby
Cathy MacPhail
c
The Cardturner
Louis Sachar
c
Liar and Spy
Rebecca Stead
Don’t Pick on Me
Rosemary Stones
A Boy Called Hope
Lara Williamson
The Lucy Variations
Sarah Zarr
(Carnegie nominated authors)
RM Education
New English Curriculum (KS3)
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