Reading Scheme of Work KS3– Autumn 2 (Lesson 3)

KS3 Whole-Class Reading (Years 7–8)

Genre Focus: Fiction (Modern Fantasy)
Core Text: Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone – J.K. Rowling

This lesson forms Lesson 3 of the Autumn 2 whole-class reading unit for KS3 (Years 7–8), focusing on the study of modern fiction through J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone. Building on the previous sessions, the unit continues to develop pupils’ reading fluency, comprehension and literary understanding through engagement with a popular and culturally significant modern text.

Lesson 3 deepens pupils’ understanding of the opening chapters of the novel and provides a structured approach to vocabulary development, oracy, and the key reading domains—retrieval, inference, and authorial reasoning. Pupils explore a new set of challenging tier 2 vocabulary in context, participate in structured discussion activities to strengthen spoken language skills, and respond to a sequence of comprehension questions that promote deeper analysis of character presentation, narrative viewpoint and the building of tension within the text.

This lesson is fully aligned to the KS3 National Curriculum Reading aims, supporting pupils to:

1. Develop an appreciation of literature, engaging with a well-known modern fantasy text.
2. Read critically, using retrieval to identify key information and inference to interpret character motivations and underlying meanings.
3. Understand and apply increasingly challenging vocabulary, using contextual clues and discussion to clarify meaning.
4. Discuss and evaluate the text, using evidence to justify interpretations in spoken and written responses.
5. Build clear, confident and coherent spoken language skills, contributing to structured partner, group and whole-class dialogue.
6. Analyse how language, structure and authorial choices create meaning, with a particular focus on atmosphere, viewpoint and characterisation.

Across the Autumn 2 unit, pupils will continue to engage with the conventions of fiction through whole-class reading, developing comprehension, vocabulary knowledge and oracy while becoming increasingly confident in responding critically to narrative and stylistic features.