Age and Key Stage

For each book in the online catalogue, we have given the UK National Curriculum Key Stage and a suggested age level to help you choose the right books.

Here is an explanation of the UK National Curriculum Key Stages.

National Curriculum Key Stages - England and Wales
Key Stage	Pupil's age	Year group	Code
Foundation Stage	3-5	Nursery, Reception	FS
Key Stage 1	5-7	Y1, Y2	KS1
Key Stage 2	7-11	Y3, Y4, Y5, Y6	KS2
Key Stage 3	11-14	Y7, Y8, Y9	KS3
Key Stage 4	14-16	Y10, Y11	KS4

Equivalent year groups in Scotland
Key Stage	Pupil's age	Year group (Primary and Secondary)	Code
Foundation Stage	3-5	Nursery, P1	FS
Key Stage 1	5-7	P2, P3	KS1
Key Stage 2	7-11	P4, P5, P6, P7	KS2
Key Stage 3	11-14	S1, S2, S3	KS3
Key Stage 4	14-16	S3, S4, S5	KS4

Subject abbreviations
Subject	Code
English	E
Maths	M
Science	S
Art & Design	A
History	H
Geography	G
Music	MU
Physical Education	PE
Religious Education	RE
Design & Technology	DT
Personal, Social & Health Education/Citizenship	PSHE/C
Modern Foreign Languages	MFL
Information & Communication Technology	ICT

Illustration from Usborne Very First Reading: Wild School.

Other pages to help you choose books

Lexile Measures - a system that matches books to a reader's ability
Book bands - books banded by colour to indicate reading level

Browse the Usborne catalogue

Usborne Reading Programme

First Reading Level 1, Young Reading Series 2, Young Reading Story Collections, see all…

Share this page

These icons are links to social bookmarking websites where you can bookmark your favourite webpages and share them with other people. First, you need to register with one of the bookmarking sites. They’re all free, but they work in slightly different ways, so click on the icons to see which one you prefer. Once you have registered, just click on the icon at the bottom of an Usborne webpage to add it to your social bookmarks.