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Foundation Year  

Foundation Year Level Description

The English curriculum is built around the three interrelated strands of language, literature and literacy. Teaching and learning programs should balance and integrate all three strands. Together, the three strands focus on developing students’ knowledge, understanding and skills in listening, reading, viewing, speaking, writing and creating. Learning in English builds on concepts, skills

Read full description ›

The English curriculum is built around the three interrelated strands of language, literature and literacy. Teaching and learning programs should balance and integrate all three strands. Together, the three strands focus on developing students’ knowledge, understanding and skills in listening, reading, viewing, speaking, writing and creating. Learning in English builds on concepts, skills and processes developed in earlier years, and teachers will develop and strengthen these as needed.

In the Foundation year, students communicate with peers, teachers, known adults and students from other classes.

Students engage with a variety of texts for enjoyment. They listen to, read and view spoken, written and multimodal texts in which the primary purpose is to entertain, as well as some texts designed to inform. These include traditional oral texts, picture books, various types of stories, rhyming verse, poetry, non-fiction, film, multimodal texts and dramatic performances. They participate in shared reading, viewing and storytelling using a range of literary texts, and recognise the entertaining nature of literature.

The range of literary texts for Foundation to Year 10 comprises Australian literature, including the oral narrative traditions of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples, as well as the contemporary literature of these two cultural groups, and classic and contemporary world literature, including texts from and about Asia. Literary texts that support and extend Foundation students as beginner readers include decodable and predictable texts that range from caption books to books with one or more sentences per page. These texts involve straightforward sequences of events and everyday happenings with recognisable, realistic or imaginary characters. Informative texts present a small amount of new content about familiar topics of interest; a small range of language features, including simple and compound sentences; mostly familiar vocabulary, known, high-frequency words and single-syllable words that can be decoded phonically, and illustrations that strongly support the printed text.

Students create a range of imaginative, informative and persuasive texts including pictorial representations, short statements, performances, recounts and poetry.

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When planning for learning in Prep - Year 10 English Catholic perspectives include: 

It is through the study of English that individuals learn to analyse, understand, communicate and build relationships with others and with the world around them.

Exploration of Catholic perspectives in the area of English identifies the value of each person created in the image and likeness of God. Respectful interactions are encouraged so that everyone is enabled to flourish.

This would be explored as students communicate with a range of familiar and unfamiliar audiences in face to face and online environments.  Engagement with the traditions and contemporary perspectives of Aboriginal and Torres strait islander people, and Asian cultures should be interwoven with a Catholic perspective. How we respond to the objective dimensions of our identity arises from our relationships with God and the world; with others, institutions, and history. 

Catholic perspectives would be further explored through engaging with the English purposes of enriching the lives of students, developing a sense of English and its richness and power to evoke feelings, conveying information, forming ideas, facilitating interaction with others, entertaining, persuading and arguing. 

Thoughtful engagement with the selection of literature and resources should support critical analysis of contemporary culture and a synthesis of faith and life in the context of gospel values and Church teachings.  

Literature and resources used should aim to challenge students to think, to feel, to value and to act in accordance with Gospel values and should not shy away from an ethical dimension and the promotion of a critical response to dilemmas.  

Foundation Year Content Descriptions

The foundation of all Catholic Social Teaching is the inherent dignity of every human person because everyone is created in God’s image and likeness and therefore, valuable and worthy of respect. The Church calls for Integral Human Development, which concerns the wellbeing of each person in every facet of life including economic, political, social, ecological, and spiritual.  

Language
Language variation and change

Understand that English is one of many languages spoken in Australia and that different languages may be spoken by family, classmates and community

Language for interaction

Explore how language is used differently at home and school depending on the relationships between people


Understand that language can be used to explore ways of expressing needs, likes and dislikes

Text structure and organisation

Understand that texts can take many forms, can be very short (for example an exit sign) or quite long (for example an information book or a film) and that stories and informative texts have different purposes


Understand that some language in written texts is unlike everyday spoken language


Understand that punctuation is a feature of writtendifferent from letters; recognise how capital letters are used for names, and that capital letters and full stops signal the beginning and end of sentences


Understandand screen, including how books, film and simple digital texts work, and know some features of print, for example directionality

Expressing and developing ideas

Recognise that sentences are key units for expressing ideas


Recognise that texts are made up of words and groups of words that make meaning


Explore the different contribution of words and images to meaning in stories and informative texts


Understand the use of vocabulary in familiar contexts related to everyday experiences, personal interests and topics taught at school

Phonics and word knowledge

Recognise and generate rhyming words,patterns, syllables and sounds (phonemes) in spoken words


Recognise and name all upper and lower case letters (graphemes) and know the most common sound that each letter represents


Understand how to use knowledge of letters and sounds includingandto spell words


Know how toandsomeand other familiar words


Understand that words are units of meaning and can be made of more than one meaningful part


Segment sentences into individual words and orally blend and segmentandin singlespoken words, and isolate, blend and manipulate phonemes in singlewords


consonant-vowel-consonant (CVC) words by representing some sounds with the appropriate letters, and blend sounds associated with letters when reading CVC words

Literature
Literature and context

Recognise that texts are created by authors who tell stories and share experiences that may be similar or different to students’ own experiences

Responding to literature

Respond to texts, identifying favourite stories, authors and illustrators


Share feelings and thoughts about the events and characters in texts

Examining literature

Identify some features of texts including events and characters and retell events from a


Recognise some different types of literary texts and identify some characteristic features of literary texts, for example beginnings and endings of traditional texts and rhyme in poetry


Replicate the rhythms and sound patterns in stories, rhymes, songs and poems from a range of cultures

Creating literature

Retell familiar literary texts through performance, use of illustrations and images


Innovate on familiar texts through play

Literacy
Texts in context

Identify some familiar texts and the contexts in which they are used

Interacting with others

to and respond orally to texts and to the communication of others in informal and structured classroom situations


Use interaction skills including listening while others speak, using appropriatelevels, articulation and body language, gestures and eye contact


Deliver short oral presentations to peers

Interpreting, analysing, evaluating

Identify some differences between imaginative and informative texts


Readand predictable texts, practising phrasing and fluency, and monitor meaning usingand emerging contextual, semantic, grammatical andknowledge


Use comprehension strategies to understand and discuss texts listened to, viewed orindependently

Creating texts

short texts to explore, record and report ideas and events using familiar words and beginning writing knowledge


Participate in shared editing of students’ own texts for meaning, spelling, capital letters and full stops


Produce some lower case and upper case letters using learned letter formations


Construct texts using software includingprocessing programs

Show subject-specific achievement standard

Foundation Year Achievement Standard

Receptive modes (listening, reading and viewing)

By the end of the Foundation year, students use predicting and questioning strategies to make meaning from texts. They recall one or two events from texts with familiar topics. They understand that there are different types of texts and that these can have similar characteristics. They identify connections between texts and their personal experience.

They read short, decodable and predictable texts with familiar vocabulary and supportive images, drawing on their developing knowledge of concepts of print, sounds and letters and decoding and self-monitoring strategies. They recognise the letters of the English alphabet, in upper and lower case and know and use the most common sounds represented by most letters. They read high-frequency words and blend sounds orally to read consonant-vowel-consonant words. They use appropriate interaction skills to listen and respond to others in a familiar environment. They listen for rhyme, letter patterns and sounds in words.

Productive modes (speaking, writing and creating)

Students understand that their texts can reflect their own experiences. They identify and describe likes and dislikes about familiar texts, objects, characters and events.

In informal group and whole class settings, students communicate clearly. They retell events and experiences with peers and known adults. They identify and use rhyme, and orally blend and segment sounds in words. When writing, students use familiar words and phrases and images to convey ideas. Their writing shows evidence of letter and sound knowledge, beginning writing behaviours and experimentation with capital letters and full stops. They correctly form known upper- and lower-case letters.

Show sub-strand-specific achievement standard

Foundation Year Work Sample Portfolios

 

Year 1  

Year 1 Level Description

The English curriculum is built around the three interrelated strands of language, literature and literacy. Teaching and learning programs should balance and integrate all three strands. Together, the strands focus on developing students’ knowledge, understanding and skills in listening, reading, viewing, speaking, writing and creating. Learning in English builds on concepts, skills and p

Read full description ›

The English curriculum is built around the three interrelated strands of language, literature and literacy. Teaching and learning programs should balance and integrate all three strands. Together, the strands focus on developing students’ knowledge, understanding and skills in listening, reading, viewing, speaking, writing and creating. Learning in English builds on concepts, skills and processes developed in earlier years, and teachers will revisit and strengthen these as needed.

In Year 1, students communicate with peers, teachers, known adults and students from other classes.

Students engage with a variety of texts for enjoyment. They listen to, read, view and interpret spoken, written and multimodal texts designed to entertain and inform. These encompass traditional oral texts including Aboriginal stories, picture books, various types of stories, rhyming verse, poetry, non-fiction, film, dramatic performances and texts used by students as models for constructing their own texts.

The range of literary texts for Foundation to Year 10 comprises Australian literature, including the oral narrative traditions of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples, as well as the contemporary literature of these two cultural groups, and classic and contemporary world literature, including texts from and about Asia. Literary texts that support and extend Year 1 students as independent readers involve straightforward sequences of events and everyday happenings with recognisably realistic or imaginary characters. Informative texts present a small amount of new content about familiar topics of interest and topics being studied in other areas of the curriculum. These include decodable and predictable texts which present a small range of language features, including simple and compound sentences, some unfamiliar vocabulary, a small number of high-frequency words and words that need to be decoded phonically, as well as illustrations and diagrams that support the printed text.

Students create a variety of imaginative, informative and persuasive texts including recounts, procedures, performances, literary retellings and poetry.

Hide full description ›

When planning for learning in Prep - Year 10 English Catholic perspectives include: 

It is through the study of English that individuals learn to analyse, understand, communicate and build relationships with others and with the world around them.

Exploration of Catholic perspectives in the area of English identifies the value of each person created in the image and likeness of God. Respectful interactions are encouraged so that everyone is enabled to flourish.

This would be explored as students communicate with a range of familiar and unfamiliar audiences in face to face and online environments.  Engagement with the traditions and contemporary perspectives of Aboriginal and Torres strait islander people, and Asian cultures should be interwoven with a Catholic perspective. How we respond to the objective dimensions of our identity arises from our relationships with God and the world; with others, institutions, and history. 

Catholic perspectives would be further explored through engaging with the English purposes of enriching the lives of students, developing a sense of English and its richness and power to evoke feelings, conveying information, forming ideas, facilitating interaction with others, entertaining, persuading and arguing. 

Thoughtful engagement with the selection of literature and resources should support critical analysis of contemporary culture and a synthesis of faith and life in the context of gospel values and Church teachings.  

Literature and resources used should aim to challenge students to think, to feel, to value and to act in accordance with Gospel values and should not shy away from an ethical dimension and the promotion of a critical response to dilemmas.  

Year 1 Content Descriptions

The foundation of all Catholic Social Teaching is the inherent dignity of every human person because everyone is created in God’s image and likeness and therefore, valuable and worthy of respect. The Church calls for Integral Human Development, which concerns the wellbeing of each person in every facet of life including economic, political, social, ecological, and spiritual.  

Language
Language variation and change

Understand that people use different systems of communication to cater to different needs and purposes and that many people may use sign systems to communicate with others

Language for interaction

Understand that language is used in combination with other means of communication, for example facial expressions and gestures to interact with others


Understand that there are different ways of asking for information, making offers and giving commands


Explore different ways of expressing emotions, including verbal, visual,and facial expressions

Text structure and organisation

Understand that the purposes texts serve shape their structure in predictable ways


Understand patterns ofand contrast in simple texts


Recognise that different types of punctuation, including full stops, question marks and exclamation marks, signal sentences that make statements, ask questions, express emotion or give commands


Understandand screen, including how differentare organised using page numbering, tables of content, headings and titles, navigation buttons, bars and links

Expressing and developing ideas

Identify the parts of a simplethat represent ‘What’s happening?’, ‘What state is being described?’, ‘Who or what is involved?’ and the surrounding circumstances


Explore differences in words that represent people, places and things (nouns, including pronouns), happenings and states (verbs), qualities (adjectives) and details such as when, where and how (adverbs)


Compare different kinds of images inand informative texts and discuss how they contribute to meaning


Understand the use of vocabulary in everyday contexts as well as a growing number of school contexts, including appropriate use of formal and informal terms of address in different contexts

Phonics and word knowledge

Manipulate phonemes in spoken words by addition, deletion and substitution of initial, medial and final phonemes to generate new words


Use short vowels, common long vowels,digraphs andblends when writing, and blend these tosinglewords


Understand that a letter can represent more than one sound and that amust contain asound


Understand how to spell one and twowords with common letter patterns


Recognise and know how to use simple grammatical morphemes toword families


Use visual memory toandhigh-frequency words 


Segmentblends or clusters into separate phonemes at the beginnings and ends of onewords

Literature
Literature and context

Discuss how authorscharacters using language and images

Responding to literature

Discuss characters and events in a range of literary texts and share personal responses to these texts, making connections with students' own experiences


Express preferences for specific texts and authors andto the opinions of others

Examining literature

Discuss features of plot, character and setting in different types of literature and explore some features of characters in different texts


to, recite and perform poems, chants, rhymes and songs, imitating and inventing sound patterns includingand rhyme

Creating literature

Recreate texts imaginatively using drawing, writing, performance and digital forms of communication


Innovate on familiar texts by using similar characters, repetitive patterns or vocabulary

Literacy
Texts in context

Respond to texts drawn from a range of cultures and experiences

Interacting with others

Engage in conversations and discussions, using active listening behaviours, showing interest, and contributing ideas, information and questions


Use interaction skills including turn-taking, recognising the contributions of others, speaking clearly and using appropriate volume and pace


Make short presentations using some introducedstructures and language, for example opening statements

Interpreting, analysing, evaluating

Describe some differences between imaginative informative and persuasive texts


Readand predictable texts using developing phrasing, fluency, contextual, semantic, grammatical andknowledge and emergingprocessing strategies, for example prediction, monitoring meaning and re-reading


Use comprehension strategies to build literal and inferred meaning about key events, ideas and information in texts that theyto,andby drawing on growing knowledge of context,structures and

Creating texts

short imaginative and informative texts that show emerging use of appropriatestructure, sentence-level grammar,choice, spelling, punctuation and appropriate multimodal elements, for example illustrations and diagrams


Re-read student’s own texts and discuss possible changes to improve meaning, spelling and punctuation


using unjoined lower case and upper case letters


Construct texts that incorporate supporting images using software includingprocessing programs

Show subject-specific achievement standard

Year 1 Achievement Standard

Receptive modes (listening, reading and viewing)

By the end of Year 1, students understand the different purposes of texts. They make connections to personal experience when explaining characters and main events in short texts. They identify that texts serve different purposes and that this affects how they are organised. They describe characters, settings and events in different types of literature.

Students read aloud, with developing fluency. They read short texts with some unfamiliar vocabulary, simple and compound sentences and supportive images. When reading, they use knowledge of the relationship between sounds and letters, high-frequency words, sentence boundary punctuation and directionality to make meaning. They recall key ideas and recognise literal and implied meaning in texts. They listen to others when taking part in conversations, using appropriate language features and interaction skills.

Productive modes (speaking, writing and creating)

Students understand how characters in texts are developed and give reasons for personal preferences. They create texts that show understanding of the connection between writing, speech and images.

They create short texts for a small range of purposes. They interact in pair, group and class discussions, taking turns when responding. They make short presentations on familiar topics. When writing, students provide details about ideas or events, and details about the participants in those events. They accurately spell high-frequency words and words with regular spelling patterns. They use capital letters and full stops and form all upper- and lower-case letters correctly.

Show sub-strand-specific achievement standard

Year 1 Work Sample Portfolios

 

Year 2  

Year 2 Level Description

The English curriculum is built around the three interrelated strands of language, literature and literacy. Teaching and learning programs should balance and integrate all three strands. Together, the strands focus on developing students’ knowledge, understanding and skills in listening, reading, viewing, speaking, writing and creating. Learning in English builds on concepts, skills and p

Read full description ›

The English curriculum is built around the three interrelated strands of language, literature and literacy. Teaching and learning programs should balance and integrate all three strands. Together, the strands focus on developing students’ knowledge, understanding and skills in listening, reading, viewing, speaking, writing and creating. Learning in English builds on concepts, skills and processes developed in earlier years, and teachers will revisit and strengthen these as needed.

In Year 2, students communicate with peers, teachers, students from other classes and community members.

Students engage with a variety of texts for enjoyment. They listen to, read, view and interpret spoken, written and multimodal texts in which the primary purpose is to entertain, as well as texts designed to inform and persuade. These encompass traditional oral texts, picture books, various types of print and digital stories, simple chapter books, rhyming verse, poetry, non-fiction, film, multimodal texts, dramatic performances and texts used by students as models for constructing their own work.

The range of literary texts for Foundation to Year 10 comprises Australian literature, including the oral narrative traditions of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples, as well as the contemporary literature of these two cultural groups, and classic and contemporary world literature, including texts from and about Asia.

Literary texts that support and extend Year 2 students as independent readers involve sequences of events that span several pages and present unusual happenings within a framework of familiar experiences. Informative texts present new content about topics of interest and topics being studied in other areas of the curriculum. These texts include language features such as varied sentence structures, some unfamiliar vocabulary, a significant number of high-frequency sight words and words that need to be decoded phonically, and a range of punctuation conventions, as well as illustrations and diagrams that support and extend the printed text.

Students create a range of imaginative, informative and persuasive texts including imaginative retellings, reports, performances, poetry and expositions.

Hide full description ›

When planning for learning in Prep - Year 10 English Catholic perspectives include: 

It is through the study of English that individuals learn to analyse, understand, communicate and build relationships with others and with the world around them.

Exploration of Catholic perspectives in the area of English identifies the value of each person created in the image and likeness of God. Respectful interactions are encouraged so that everyone is enabled to flourish.

This would be explored as students communicate with a range of familiar and unfamiliar audiences in face to face and online environments.  Engagement with the traditions and contemporary perspectives of Aboriginal and Torres strait islander people, and Asian cultures should be interwoven with a Catholic perspective. How we respond to the objective dimensions of our identity arises from our relationships with God and the world; with others, institutions, and history. 

Catholic perspectives would be further explored through engaging with the English purposes of enriching the lives of students, developing a sense of English and its richness and power to evoke feelings, conveying information, forming ideas, facilitating interaction with others, entertaining, persuading and arguing. 

Thoughtful engagement with the selection of literature and resources should support critical analysis of contemporary culture and a synthesis of faith and life in the context of gospel values and Church teachings.  

Literature and resources used should aim to challenge students to think, to feel, to value and to act in accordance with Gospel values and should not shy away from an ethical dimension and the promotion of a critical response to dilemmas.  

Year 2 Content Descriptions

The foundation of all Catholic Social Teaching is the inherent dignity of every human person because everyone is created in God’s image and likeness and therefore, valuable and worthy of respect. The Church calls for Integral Human Development, which concerns the wellbeing of each person in every facet of life including economic, political, social, ecological, and spiritual.  

Language
Language variation and change

Understand that spoken, visual and written forms of language are different modes of communication with different features and their use varies according to the audience, purpose,and cultural background

Language for interaction

Understand that language varies when people take on different roles in social and classroom interactions and how the use of key interpersonal language resources varies depending on


Identify language that can be used for appreciating texts and the qualities of people and things

Text structure and organisation

Understand that differenthave identifiablestructures andthat help theserve its purpose


Understand how texts are made cohesive through language features, includingassociations, synonyms, and antonyms


Recognise that capital letters signal proper nouns and commas are used to separate items in lists


Know some features oforganisation including page and screen layouts, alphabetical order, and different types of diagrams, for example timelines

Expressing and developing ideas

Understand that simple connections can be made between ideas by using awith two or more clauses usually linked by a coordinating


Understand that nouns represent people, places, concrete objects and abstract concepts; that there are three types of nouns: common, proper and pronouns; and thatgroups/phrases can be expanded using articles and adjectives


Identify visual representations of characters’ actions, reactions, speech and thought processes in narratives, and consider how these images add to or contradict or multiply the meaning of accompanying words


Understand the use of vocabulary about familiar and new topics and experiment with and begin to make conscious choices of vocabulary to suitand purpose

Phonics and word knowledge

Orally manipulate more complex sounds in spoken words through knowledge ofandsounds,and substitution in combination with use of letters in reading and writing


Understand how to use knowledge of digraphs, long vowels, blends and silent letters to spell one and twowords including some compound words


Build morphemicfamilies using knowledge of prefixes and suffixes


Use knowledge of letter patterns and morphemes toand writeand words whose spelling is not predictable from their sounds


Use most letter-sound matches includingdigraphs, less common longpatterns, letter clusters and silent letters when reading and writing words of one or more


Understand that a sound can be represented by various letter combinations

Literature
Literature and context

Discuss how depictions of characters in print, sound and images reflect the contexts in which they were created

Responding to literature

Compare opinions about characters, events and settings in and between texts


Identify aspects of different types of literary texts that entertain, and give reasons for personal preferences

Examining literature

Discuss the characters and settings of different texts and explore how language is used to present these features in different ways


Identify, reproduce and experiment with rhythmic, sound andpatterns in poems, chants, rhymes and songs

Creating literature

events and characters using different media that develop key events and characters from literary texts


Innovate on familiar texts by experimenting with character, setting or plot

Literacy
Texts in context

Discuss different texts on a similar topic, identifying similarities and differences between the texts

Interacting with others

for specific purposes and information, including instructions, and extend students’ own and others' ideas in discussions


Use interaction skills including initiating topics, making positive statements and voicing disagreement in an appropriate manner, speaking clearly and varying tone, volume and pace appropriately


Rehearse and deliver short presentations on familiar and new topics

Interpreting, analysing, evaluating

Identify theof imaginative, informative and persuasive texts


less predictable texts with phrasing and fluency by combining contextual, semantic, grammatical andknowledge usingprocessing strategies, for example monitoring meaning, predicting, rereading and self-correcting


Use comprehension strategies to build literal and inferred meaning and begin to analyse texts by drawing on growing knowledge of context, language andand print andstructures

Creating texts

short imaginative, informative and persuasive texts using growing knowledge ofstructures andfor familiar and some less familiar audiences, selecting print and multimodal elements appropriate to theand purpose


Re-read and editfor spelling, sentence-boundary punctuation and


legibly and with growing fluency using unjoined upper case and lower case letters


Construct texts featuring print, visual and audio elements using software, includingprocessing programs

Show subject-specific achievement standard

Year 2 Achievement Standard

Receptive modes (listening, reading and viewing)

By the end of Year 2, students understand how similar texts share characteristics by identifying text structures and language features used to describe characters and events, or to communicate factual information.

They read texts that contain varied sentence structures, some unfamiliar vocabulary, a significant number of high-frequency sight words and images that provide extra information. They monitor meaning and self-correct using knowledge of phonics, syntax, punctuation, semantics and context. They use knowledge of a wide variety of letter-sound relationships to read words of one or more syllables with fluency. They identify literal and implied meaning, main ideas and supporting detail. Students make connections between texts by comparing content. They listen for particular purposes. They listen for and manipulate sound combinations and rhythmic sound patterns.

Productive modes (speaking, writing and creating)

When discussing their ideas and experiences, students use everyday language features and topic-specific vocabulary. They explain their preferences for aspects of texts using other texts as comparisons. They create texts that show how images support the meaning of the text.

Students create texts, drawing on their own experiences, their imagination and information they have learnt. They use a variety of strategies to engage in group and class discussions and make presentations. They accurately spell words with regular spelling patterns and spell words with less common long vowel patterns. They use punctuation accurately, and write words and sentences legibly using unjoined upper- and lower-case letters.

Show sub-strand-specific achievement standard

Year 2 Work Sample Portfolios

 

Year 3  

Year 3 Level Description

The English curriculum is built around the three interrelated strands of language, literature and literacy. Teaching and learning programs should balance and integrate all three strands. Together, the strands focus on developing students’ knowledge, understanding and skills in listening, reading, viewing, speaking, writing and creating. Learning in English builds on concepts, skills and p

Read full description ›

The English curriculum is built around the three interrelated strands of language, literature and literacy. Teaching and learning programs should balance and integrate all three strands. Together, the strands focus on developing students’ knowledge, understanding and skills in listening, reading, viewing, speaking, writing and creating. Learning in English builds on concepts, skills and processes developed in earlier years, and teachers will revisit and strengthen these as needed.

In Years 3 and 4, students experience learning in familiar contexts and a range of contexts that relate to study in other areas of the curriculum. They interact with peers and teachers from other classes and schools in a range of face-to-face and online/virtual environments.

Students engage with a variety of texts for enjoyment. They listen to, read, view and interpret spoken, written and multimodal texts in which the primary purpose is aesthetic, as well as texts designed to inform and persuade. These encompass traditional oral texts including Aboriginal stories, picture books, various types of print and digital texts, simple chapter books, rhyming verse, poetry, non-fiction, film, multimodal texts, dramatic performances and texts used by students as models for constructing their own work.

The range of literary texts for Foundation to Year 10 comprises Australian literature, including the oral narrative traditions of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples, as well as the contemporary literature of these two cultural groups, and classic and contemporary world literature, including texts from and about Asia.

Literary texts that support and extend students in Years 3 and 4 as independent readers describe complex sequences of events that extend over several pages and involve unusual happenings within a framework of familiar experiences. Informative texts include content of increasing complexity and technicality about topics of interest and topics being studied in other areas of the curriculum. These texts use complex language features, including varied sentence structures, some unfamiliar vocabulary, a significant number of high-frequency sight words and words that need to be decoded phonically, and a variety of punctuation conventions, as well as illustrations and diagrams that support and extend the printed text.

Students create a range of imaginative, informative and persuasive types of texts including narratives, procedures, performances, reports, reviews, poetry and expositions.

Hide full description ›

When planning for learning in Prep - Year 10 English Catholic perspectives include: 

It is through the study of English that individuals learn to analyse, understand, communicate and build relationships with others and with the world around them.

Exploration of Catholic perspectives in the area of English identifies the value of each person created in the image and likeness of God. Respectful interactions are encouraged so that everyone is enabled to flourish.

This would be explored as students communicate with a range of familiar and unfamiliar audiences in face to face and online environments.  Engagement with the traditions and contemporary perspectives of Aboriginal and Torres strait islander people, and Asian cultures should be interwoven with a Catholic perspective. How we respond to the objective dimensions of our identity arises from our relationships with God and the world; with others, institutions, and history. 

Catholic perspectives would be further explored through engaging with the English purposes of enriching the lives of students, developing a sense of English and its richness and power to evoke feelings, conveying information, forming ideas, facilitating interaction with others, entertaining, persuading and arguing. 

Thoughtful engagement with the selection of literature and resources should support critical analysis of contemporary culture and a synthesis of faith and life in the context of gospel values and Church teachings.  

Literature and resources used should aim to challenge students to think, to feel, to value and to act in accordance with Gospel values and should not shy away from an ethical dimension and the promotion of a critical response to dilemmas.  

Year 3 Content Descriptions

The foundation of all Catholic Social Teaching is the inherent dignity of every human person because everyone is created in God’s image and likeness and therefore, valuable and worthy of respect. The Church calls for Integral Human Development, which concerns the wellbeing of each person in every facet of life including economic, political, social, ecological, and spiritual.  

Language
Language variation and change

Understand that languages have different written and visual communication systems, different oral traditions and different ways of constructing meaning

Language for interaction

Understand that successful cooperation with others depends on shared use of social conventions, including turn-taking patterns, and forms of address that vary according to the degree of formality in social situations


Examine howcan be varied to be more or less forceful

Text structure and organisation

Understand how differentvary in use of language choices, depending on their purpose and(for example,and types of sentences)


Understand that paragraphs are a key organisational feature of written texts


Know thatcontractions are a feature of informal language and that apostrophes of contraction are used to signal missing letters


Identify the features of online texts that enhance navigation

Expressing and developing ideas

Understand that ais a unit ofusually containing aand aand that these need to be in agreement


Understand that verbs represent different processes, for example doing, thinking, saying, and relating and that these processes are anchored in time through


Identify the effect on audiences of techniques, for example shot size, verticalandin picture books, advertisements and film segments


Learn extended and technical vocabulary and ways of expressing opinion including modal verbs and adverbs

Phonics and word knowledge

Understand how to use letter-sound relationships and less common letter patterns to spell words


Recognise and know how tomost high frequency words including some homophones


Understand how to apply knowledge of letter-sound relationships, syllables, andandto fluentlyandmultisyllabic words with more complex letter patterns


Know how to use common prefixes and suffixes, and generalisations for adding ato a

Literature
Literature and context

Discuss texts in which characters, events and settings are portrayed in different ways, and speculate on the authors’ reasons

Responding to literature

Draw connections between personal experiences and the worlds of texts, and share responses with others


Develop criteria for establishing personal preferences for literature

Examining literature

Discuss how language is used to describe the settings in texts, and explore how the settings shape the events and influence the mood of the


Discuss the nature and effects of some language devices used to enhance meaning and shape the reader’s reaction, including rhythm and onomatopoeia in poetry and prose

Creating literature

imaginative texts based on characters, settings and events from students’ own and other cultures using visual features, for example perspective, distance and angle


texts that adaptand patterns encountered in literary texts, for example characterisation, rhyme, rhythm, mood, music, sound effects and dialogue

Literacy
Texts in context

Identify thein aand suggest alternative points of

Interacting with others

to and contribute to conversations and discussions to share information and ideas and negotiate in collaborative situations


Use interaction skills, including active listening behaviours and communicate in a clear, coherent manner using a variety of everyday and learned vocabulary and appropriate tone, pace, pitch and volume


Plan and deliver short presentations, providing some key details in logical sequence

Interpreting, analysing, evaluating

Identify theand purpose of imaginative, informative and persuasive texts


an increasing range of differentby combining contextual, semantic, grammatical andknowledge, usingprocessing strategies, for example monitoring, predicting, confirming, rereading, reading on and self-correcting


Use comprehension strategies to build literal and inferred meaning and begin to evaluate texts by drawing on a growing knowledge of context,structures and

Creating texts

Plan, draft and publish imaginative, informative and persuasive texts demonstrating increasing control overstructures andand selecting print,and multimodal elements appropriate to theand purpose


Re-read and edit texts for meaning, appropriate structure, grammatical choices and punctuation


using joined letters that are clearly formed and consistent in size


Use software includingprocessing programs with growing speed and efficiency to construct and edit texts featuring visual, print and audio elements

Show subject-specific achievement standard

Year 3 Achievement Standard

Receptive modes (listening, reading and viewing)

By the end of Year 3, students understand how content can be organised using different text structures depending on the purpose of the text. They understand how language features, images and vocabulary choices are used for different effects.

They read texts that contain varied sentence structures, a range of punctuation conventions, and images that provide extra information. They use phonics and word knowledge to fluently read more complex words. They identify literal and implied meaning connecting ideas in different parts of a text. They select information, ideas and events in texts that relate to their own lives and to other texts. They listen to others’ views and respond appropriately using interaction skills.

Productive modes (speaking, writing and creating)

Students understand how language features are used to link and sequence ideas. They understand how language can be used to express feelings and opinions on topics. Their texts include writing and images to express and develop, in some detail, experiences, events, information, ideas and characters. Students create a range of texts for familiar and unfamiliar audiences. They contribute actively to class and group discussions, asking questions, providing useful feedback and making presentations. They demonstrate understanding of grammar and choose vocabulary and punctuation appropriate to the purpose and context of their writing. They use knowledge of letter-sound relationships including consonant and vowel clusters and high-frequency words to spell words accurately. They re-read and edit their writing, checking their work for appropriate vocabulary, structure and meaning. They write using joined letters that are accurately formed and consistent in size.

Show sub-strand-specific achievement standard

Year 3 Work Sample Portfolios

 

Year 4  

Year 4 Level Description

The English curriculum is built around the three interrelated strands of language, literature and literacy. Teaching and learning programs should balance and integrate all three strands. Together, the strands focus on developing students’ knowledge, understanding and skills in listening, reading, viewing, speaking, writing and creating. Learning in English builds on concepts, skills and p

Read full description ›

The English curriculum is built around the three interrelated strands of language, literature and literacy. Teaching and learning programs should balance and integrate all three strands. Together, the strands focus on developing students’ knowledge, understanding and skills in listening, reading, viewing, speaking, writing and creating. Learning in English builds on concepts, skills and processes developed in earlier years, and teachers will revisit and strengthen these as needed.

In Years 3 and 4, students experience learning in familiar contexts and a range of contexts that relate to study in other areas of the curriculum. They interact with peers and teachers from other classes and schools in a range of face-to-face and online/virtual environments.

Students engage with a variety of texts for enjoyment. They listen to, read, view and interpret spoken, written and multimodal texts in which the primary purpose is aesthetic, as well as texts designed to inform and persuade. These encompass traditional oral texts including Aboriginal stories, picture books, various types of print and digital texts, simple chapter books, rhyming verse, poetry, non-fiction, film, multimodal texts, dramatic performances and texts used by students as models for constructing their own work.

The range of literary texts for Foundation to Year 10 comprises Australian literature, including the oral narrative traditions of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples, as well as the contemporary literature of these two cultural groups, and classic and contemporary world literature, including texts from and about Asia.

Literary texts that support and extend students in Years 3 and 4 as independent readers describe complex sequences of events that extend over several pages and involve unusual happenings within a framework of familiar experiences. Informative texts include content of increasing complexity and technicality about topics of interest and topics being studied in other areas of the curriculum. These texts use complex language features, including varied sentence structures, some unfamiliar vocabulary, a significant number of high-frequency sight words and words that need to be decoded phonically, and a variety of punctuation conventions, as well as illustrations and diagrams that support and extend the printed text.

Students create a range of imaginative, informative and persuasive types of texts including narratives, procedures, performances, reports, reviews, poetry and expositions.

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When planning for learning in Prep - Year 10 English Catholic perspectives include: 

It is through the study of English that individuals learn to analyse, understand, communicate and build relationships with others and with the world around them.

Exploration of Catholic perspectives in the area of English identifies the value of each person created in the image and likeness of God. Respectful interactions are encouraged so that everyone is enabled to flourish.

This would be explored as students communicate with a range of familiar and unfamiliar audiences in face to face and online environments.  Engagement with the traditions and contemporary perspectives of Aboriginal and Torres strait islander people, and Asian cultures should be interwoven with a Catholic perspective. How we respond to the objective dimensions of our identity arises from our relationships with God and the world; with others, institutions, and history. 

Catholic perspectives would be further explored through engaging with the English purposes of enriching the lives of students, developing a sense of English and its richness and power to evoke feelings, conveying information, forming ideas, facilitating interaction with others, entertaining, persuading and arguing. 

Thoughtful engagement with the selection of literature and resources should support critical analysis of contemporary culture and a synthesis of faith and life in the context of gospel values and Church teachings.  

Literature and resources used should aim to challenge students to think, to feel, to value and to act in accordance with Gospel values and should not shy away from an ethical dimension and the promotion of a critical response to dilemmas.  

Year 4 Content Descriptions

The foundation of all Catholic Social Teaching is the inherent dignity of every human person because everyone is created in God’s image and likeness and therefore, valuable and worthy of respect. The Church calls for Integral Human Development, which concerns the wellbeing of each person in every facet of life including economic, political, social, ecological, and spiritual.  

Language
Language variation and change

Understand thatis one of many social dialects used in Australia, and that while it originated in England it has been influenced by many other languages

Language for interaction

Understand that social interactions influence the way people engage with ideas and respond to others for example when exploring and clarifying the ideas of others, summarising their own views and reporting them to a larger group


Understand differences between the language of opinion and feeling and the language of factual reporting or recording

Text structure and organisation

Understand how texts vary in complexity and technicality depending on the approach to the topic, the purpose and the intended


Understand how texts are made cohesive through the use of linking devices includingandconnectives


Recognise how quotation marks are used in texts to signal dialogue, titles and quoted (direct) speech


Identify features of online texts that enhance readability including text, navigation, links, graphics and

Expressing and developing ideas

Understand that the meaning of sentences can be enriched through the use ofgroups/phrases andgroups/phrases and prepositional phrases


Investigate how quoted (direct) and reported (indirect) speech work in different types of


Understand howgroups/phrases and prepositional phrases work in different ways to provide circumstantial details about an activity


Explore the effect of choices whenan image, placement of elements in the image, andon composition of still and moving images in a range of


Incorporate new vocabulary from a range of sources into students’ own texts including vocabulary encountered in research

Phonics and word knowledge

Understand how to use knowledge of letter patterns including double letters, spelling generalisations, morphemicfamilies, common prefixes and suffixes andorigins to spell more complex words


anda large core of high frequency words including homophones and know how to useto identify correct spelling


Understand how to useknowledge toandmultisyllabic words with more complex letter combinations, including a variety ofsounds and known prefixes and suffixes

Literature
Literature and context

Make connections between the ways different authors may represent similar storylines, ideas and relationships

Responding to literature

Discuss literary experiences with others, sharing responses and expressing a


Useto describe the effects of ideas,structures andof literary texts

Examining literature

Discuss how authors and illustrators make stories exciting, moving and absorbing and hold readers’ interest by using various techniques, for example character development and plot tension


Understand, interpret and experiment with a range of devices and deliberatein poetry and other literary texts, for example nonsense words, spoonerisms, neologisms and puns

Creating literature

literary texts that explore students’ own experiences and imagining


literary texts by developing storylines, characters and settings

Literacy
Texts in context

Identify and explainof texts from earlier times and compare with the vocabulary, images,and content of contemporary texts

Interacting with others

Interpret ideas and information in spoken texts andfor key points in order to carry out tasks and use information to share and extend ideas and information


Use interaction skills such as acknowledging another’sand linking students’ response to the topic, using familiar and new vocabulary and a range ofsuch as tone, pace, pitch and volume toclearly and coherently


Plan, rehearse and deliver presentations incorporating learned content and taking into account the particular purposes and audiences

Interpreting, analysing, evaluating

Identify characteristic features used in imaginative, informative and persuasive texts to meet the purpose of the


differentby combining contextual , semantic, grammatical andknowledge usingfor example monitoring meaning, cross checking and reviewing


Use comprehension strategies to build literal and inferred meaning to expand content knowledge, integrating and linking ideas and analysing and evaluating texts

Creating texts

Plan, draft and publish imaginative, informative and persuasive texts containing key information and supporting details for a widening range of audiences, demonstrating increasing control overstructures and


Re-read and edit for meaning by adding, deleting or moving words orgroups to improve content and structure


using clearly-formed joined letters, and develop increased fluency and automaticity


Use a range of software includingprocessing programs to construct, edit and publish written text, and select, edit and place visual, print and audio elements

Show subject-specific achievement standard

Year 4 Achievement Standard

Receptive modes (listening, reading and viewing)

By the end of Year 4, students understand that texts have different text structures depending on purpose and context. They explain how language features, images and vocabulary are used to engage the interest of audiences. They describe literal and implied meaning connecting ideas in different texts 

They fluently read texts that include varied sentence structures, unfamiliar vocabulary including multisyllabic words. They express preferences for particular types of texts, and respond to others’ viewpoints. They listen for and share key points in discussions.

Productive modes (speaking, writing and creating)

Students use language features to create coherence and add detail to their texts. They understand how to express an opinion based on information in a text. They create texts that show understanding of how images and detail can be used to extend key ideas.

Students create structured texts to explain ideas for different audiences. They make presentations and contribute actively to class and group discussions, varying language according to context. They demonstrate understanding of grammar, select vocabulary from a range of resources and use accurate spelling and punctuation, re-reading and editing their work to improve meaning.

Show sub-strand-specific achievement standard

Year 4 Work Sample Portfolios

 

Year 5  

Year 5 Level Description

The English curriculum is built around the three interrelated strands of language, literature and literacy. Teaching and learning programs should balance and integrate all three strands. Together, the strands focus on developing students’ knowledge, understanding and skills in listening, reading, viewing, speaking, writing and creating. Learning in English builds on concepts, skills and p

Read full description ›

The English curriculum is built around the three interrelated strands of language, literature and literacy. Teaching and learning programs should balance and integrate all three strands. Together, the strands focus on developing students’ knowledge, understanding and skills in listening, reading, viewing, speaking, writing and creating. Learning in English builds on concepts, skills and processes developed in earlier years, and teachers will revisit and strengthen these as needed.

In Years 5 and 6, students communicate with peers and teachers from other classes and schools, community members, and individuals and groups, in a range of face-to-face and online/virtual environments.

Students engage with a variety of texts for enjoyment. They listen to, read, view, interpret and evaluate spoken, written and multimodal texts in which the primary purpose is aesthetic, as well as texts designed to inform and persuade. These include various types of media texts including newspapers, film and digital texts, junior and early adolescent novels, poetry, non-fiction and dramatic performances.

The range of literary texts for Foundation to Year 10 comprises Australian literature, including the oral narrative traditions of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples, as well as the contemporary literature of these two cultural groups, and classic and contemporary world literature, including texts from and about Asia.

Literary texts that support and extend students in Years 5 and 6 as independent readers describe complex sequences, a range of non-stereotypical characters and elaborated events including flashbacks and shifts in time. These texts explore themes of interpersonal relationships and ethical dilemmas within real-world and fantasy settings. Informative texts supply technical and content information about a wide range of topics of interest as well as topics being studied in other areas of the curriculum. Text structures include chapters, headings and subheadings, tables of contents, indexes and glossaries. Language features include complex sentences, unfamiliar technical vocabulary, figurative language, and information presented in various types of graphics.

Students create a range of imaginative, informative and persuasive types of texts including narratives, procedures, performances, reports, reviews, explanations and discussions.

Hide full description ›

When planning for learning in Prep - Year 10 English Catholic perspectives include: 

It is through the study of English that individuals learn to analyse, understand, communicate and build relationships with others and with the world around them.

Exploration of Catholic perspectives in the area of English identifies the value of each person created in the image and likeness of God. Respectful interactions are encouraged so that everyone is enabled to flourish.

This would be explored as students communicate with a range of familiar and unfamiliar audiences in face to face and online environments.  Engagement with the traditions and contemporary perspectives of Aboriginal and Torres strait islander people, and Asian cultures should be interwoven with a Catholic perspective. How we respond to the objective dimensions of our identity arises from our relationships with God and the world; with others, institutions, and history. 

Catholic perspectives would be further explored through engaging with the English purposes of enriching the lives of students, developing a sense of English and its richness and power to evoke feelings, conveying information, forming ideas, facilitating interaction with others, entertaining, persuading and arguing. 

Thoughtful engagement with the selection of literature and resources should support critical analysis of contemporary culture and a synthesis of faith and life in the context of gospel values and Church teachings.  

Literature and resources used should aim to challenge students to think, to feel, to value and to act in accordance with Gospel values and should not shy away from an ethical dimension and the promotion of a critical response to dilemmas.  

Year 5 Content Descriptions

The foundation of all Catholic Social Teaching is the inherent dignity of every human person because everyone is created in God’s image and likeness and therefore, valuable and worthy of respect. The Church calls for Integral Human Development, which concerns the wellbeing of each person in every facet of life including economic, political, social, ecological, and spiritual.  

Language
Language variation and change

Understand that the pronunciation, spelling and meanings of words have histories and change over time

Language for interaction

Understand that patterns of language interaction vary across social contexts andand that they help to signal social roles and relationships


Understand how to move beyond making bare assertions and take account of differing perspectives and points of

Text structure and organisation

Understand how texts vary in purpose, structure and topic as well as the degree of formality


Understand that the starting point of agives prominence to the message in theand allows forof how thewill unfold


Understand how the grammatical category of possessives is signalled through apostrophes and how to use apostrophes with common and proper nouns


Investigate how the organisation of texts into chapters, headings, subheadings, home pages and sub pages for online texts and according to chronology or topic can be used to predict content and assist navigation

Expressing and developing ideas

Understand the difference between main and subordinate clauses and that ainvolves at least one subordinate


Understand howgroups/phrases andgroups/phrases can be expanded in a variety of ways to provide a fuller description of the person, place, thing or idea


Explain sequences of images in print texts and compare these to the ways hyperlinked digital texts are organised, explaining their effect on viewers’ interpretations


Understand the use of vocabulary to express greater precision of meaning, and know that words can have different meanings in different contexts

Phonics and word knowledge

Understand how to use knowledge of known words, base words, prefixes and suffixes,origins, letter patterns and spelling generalisations to spell new words


Explore less common plurals, and understand how achanges the meaning or grammatical form of a


Understand how to useknowledge toandless familiar words that share common letter patterns but have different pronunciations 

Literature
Literature and context

Identify aspects of literary texts that convey details or information about particular social, cultural and historical contexts

Responding to literature

Present aabout particular literary texts using appropriate metalanguage, and reflecting on the viewpoints of others


Useto describe the effects of ideas,structures andon particular audiences

Examining literature

Recognise that ideas in literary texts can be conveyed from different viewpoints, which can lead to different kinds of interpretations and responses


Understand, interpret and experiment withand imagery, including simile, metaphor and personification, in narratives, shape poetry, songs, anthems and odes

Creating literature

literary texts using realistic and fantasy settings and characters that draw on the worlds represented in texts students have experienced


literary texts that experiment with structures, ideas andof selected authors

Literacy
Texts in context

Show how ideas and points ofin texts are conveyed through the use of vocabulary, including idiomatic expressions, objective and subjective language, and that these can change according to

Interacting with others

Clarify understanding of content as it unfolds in formal and informal situations, connecting ideas to students’ own experiences and present and justify a


Use interaction skills, for example paraphrasing, questioning and interpretingand choose vocabulary andappropriate for different audiences and purposes


Plan, rehearse and deliver presentations for defined audiences and purposes incorporating accurate and sequenced content and multimodal elements

Interpreting, analysing, evaluating

Identify and explain characteristicstructures andused in imaginative, informative and persuasive texts to meet the purpose of the


Navigate andtexts for specific purposes applying appropriateprocessing strategies, for example predicting and confirming, monitoring meaning, skimming and


Use comprehension strategies to analyse information, integrating and linking ideas from a variety of print and digital sources

Creating texts

Plan, draft and publish imaginative, informative and persuasive print and multimodal texts, choosingstructures, language features, images and sound appropriate to purpose and


Re-read and edit student’s own and others’ work using agreed criteria forstructures and


Develop astyle that is becoming legible, fluent and automatic


Use a range of software includingprocessing programs with fluency to construct, edit and publish written text, and select, edit and place visual, print and audio elements

Show subject-specific achievement standard

Year 5 Achievement Standard

Receptive modes (listening, reading and viewing)

By the end of Year 5, students explain how text structures assist in understanding the text. They understand how language features, images and vocabulary influence interpretations of characters, settings and events.

When reading, they encounter and decode unfamiliar words using phonic, grammatical, semantic and contextual knowledge. They analyse and explain literal and implied information from a variety of texts. They describe how events, characters and settings in texts are depicted and explain their own responses to them. They listen and ask questions to clarify content.

Productive modes (speaking, writing and creating)

Students use language features to show how ideas can be extended. They develop and explain a point of view about a text, selecting information, ideas and images from a range of resources.

Students create imaginative, informative and persuasive texts for different purposes and audiences. They make presentations which include multimodal elements for defined purposes. They contribute actively to class and group discussions, taking into account other perspectives. When writing, they demonstrate understanding of grammar using a variety of sentence types. They select specific vocabulary and use accurate spelling and punctuation. They edit their work for cohesive structure and meaning.

Show sub-strand-specific achievement standard

Year 5 Work Sample Portfolios

 

Year 6  

Year 6 Level Description

The English curriculum is built around the three interrelated strands of language, literature and literacy. Teaching and learning programs should balance and integrate all three strands. Together, the strands focus on developing students’ knowledge, understanding and skills in listening, reading, viewing, speaking, writing and creating. Learning in English builds on concepts, skills and p

Read full description ›

The English curriculum is built around the three interrelated strands of language, literature and literacy. Teaching and learning programs should balance and integrate all three strands. Together, the strands focus on developing students’ knowledge, understanding and skills in listening, reading, viewing, speaking, writing and creating. Learning in English builds on concepts, skills and processes developed in earlier years, and teachers will revisit and strengthen these as needed.

In Years 5 and 6, students communicate with peers and teachers from other classes and schools, community members, and individuals and groups, in a range of face-to-face and online/virtual environments.

Students engage with a variety of texts for enjoyment. They listen to, read, view, interpret and evaluate spoken, written and multimodal texts in which the primary purpose is aesthetic, as well as texts designed to inform and persuade. These include various types of media texts including newspapers, film and digital texts, junior and early adolescent novels, poetry, non-fiction and dramatic performances. Students develop their understanding of how texts, including media texts, are influenced by context, purpose and audience.

The range of literary texts for Foundation to Year 10 comprises Australian literature, including the oral narrative traditions of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples, as well as the contemporary literature of these two cultural groups, and classic and contemporary world literature, including texts from and about Asia.

Literary texts that support and extend students in Years 5 and 6 as independent readers describe complex sequences, a range of non-stereotypical characters and elaborated events including flashbacks and shifts in time. These texts explore themes of interpersonal relationships and ethical dilemmas within real-world and fantasy settings. Informative texts supply technical and content information about a wide range of topics of interest as well as topics being studied in other areas of the curriculum. Text structures include chapters, headings and subheadings, tables of contents, indexes and glossaries. Language features include complex sentences, unfamiliar technical vocabulary, figurative language, and information presented in various types of graphics.

Students create a range of imaginative, informative and persuasive types of texts such as narratives, procedures, performances, reports, reviews, explanations and discussions.

Hide full description ›

When planning for learning in Prep - Year 10 English Catholic perspectives include: 

It is through the study of English that individuals learn to analyse, understand, communicate and build relationships with others and with the world around them.

Exploration of Catholic perspectives in the area of English identifies the value of each person created in the image and likeness of God. Respectful interactions are encouraged so that everyone is enabled to flourish.

This would be explored as students communicate with a range of familiar and unfamiliar audiences in face to face and online environments.  Engagement with the traditions and contemporary perspectives of Aboriginal and Torres strait islander people, and Asian cultures should be interwoven with a Catholic perspective. How we respond to the objective dimensions of our identity arises from our relationships with God and the world; with others, institutions, and history. 

Catholic perspectives would be further explored through engaging with the English purposes of enriching the lives of students, developing a sense of English and its richness and power to evoke feelings, conveying information, forming ideas, facilitating interaction with others, entertaining, persuading and arguing. 

Thoughtful engagement with the selection of literature and resources should support critical analysis of contemporary culture and a synthesis of faith and life in the context of gospel values and Church teachings.  

Literature and resources used should aim to challenge students to think, to feel, to value and to act in accordance with Gospel values and should not shy away from an ethical dimension and the promotion of a critical response to dilemmas.  

Year 6 Content Descriptions

The foundation of all Catholic Social Teaching is the inherent dignity of every human person because everyone is created in God’s image and likeness and therefore, valuable and worthy of respect. The Church calls for Integral Human Development, which concerns the wellbeing of each person in every facet of life including economic, political, social, ecological, and spiritual.  

Language
Language variation and change

Understand that different social and geographical dialects or accents are used in Australia in addition to

Language for interaction

Understand that strategies for interaction become more complex and demanding as levels of formality and social distance increase


Understand the uses of objective andand

Text structure and organisation

Understand how authors often innovate onstructures and play withto achieve particular aesthetic, humorous and persuasive purposes and effects


Understand that cohesive links can be made in texts by omitting or replacing words


Understand the uses of commas to separate clauses

Expressing and developing ideas

Investigate how complex sentences can be used in a variety of ways to elaborate, extend and explain ideas


Understand how ideas can be expanded and sharpened through careful choice of verbs, elaborated tenses and a range ofgroups/phrases


Identify and explain how analytical images like figures, tables, diagrams, maps and graphs contribute to our understanding of verbal information in factual and persuasive texts


Investigate how vocabulary choices, includingcan express shades of meaning, feeling and opinion

Phonics and word knowledge

Understand how to use knowledge of known words,origins including some Latin and Greek roots, base words, prefixes, suffixes, letter patterns and spelling generalisations to spell new words including technical words


Understand how to useknowledge and accumulated understandings about blending, letter-sound relationships, common and uncommon letter patterns andgeneralisations toandincreasingly complex words

Literature
Literature and context

Make connections between students’ own experiences and those of characters and events represented in texts drawn from different historical, social and cultural contexts

Responding to literature

Analyse and evaluate similarities and differences in texts on similar topics, themes or plots


Identify and explain how choices in language, for example modality, emphasis,and metaphor, influence personal response to different texts

Examining literature

Identify, describe, and discuss similarities and differences between texts, including those by the sameor illustrator, and evaluate characteristics that define an author’s individual style


Identify the relationship between words, sounds,andin narratives and poetry such as ballads, limericks and free verse

Creating literature

literary texts that adapt or combine aspects of texts students have experienced in innovative ways


Experiment withstructures andand their effects in creating literary texts, for example, using imagery,variation, metaphor andchoice

Literacy
Texts in context

Compare texts includingthat represent ideas and events in different ways, explaining the effects of the different approaches

Interacting with others

Participate in and contribute to discussions, clarifying and interrogating ideas, developing and supporting arguments, sharing and evaluating information, experiences and opinions


Use interaction skills, varying conventions of spoken interactions such asvolume, tone, pitch and pace, according to group size, formality of interaction and needs and expertise of the


Plan, rehearse and deliver presentations, selecting and sequencing appropriate content and multimodal elements for defined audiences and purposes, making appropriate choices forand emphasis

Interpreting, analysing, evaluating

Analyse howstructures andwork together to meet the purpose of a


Select, navigate andtexts for a range of purposes, applying appropriateand interpreting structural features, for example table of contents, glossary, chapters, headings and subheadings


Use comprehension strategies to interpret and analyse information and ideas, comparing content from a variety of textual sources including media and digital texts


Analyse strategies authors use to influence readers

Creating texts

Plan, draft and publish imaginative, informative and persuasive texts, choosing and experimenting withstructures, language features, images and digital resources appropriate to purpose and


Re-read and edit students’ own and others’ work using agreed criteria and explaining editing choices


Develop astyle that is legible, fluent and automatic and varies according toand purpose


Use a range of software, includingprocessing programs, learning new functions as required totexts

Show subject-specific achievement standard

Year 6 Achievement Standard

Receptive modes (listening, reading and viewing)

By the end of Year 6, students understand how the use of text structures can achieve particular effects. They analyse and explain how language features, images and vocabulary are used by different authors to represent ideas, characters and events.

Students compare and analyse information in different and complex texts, explaining literal and implied meaning. They select and use evidence from a text to explain their response to it. They listen to discussions, clarifying content and challenging others’ ideas.

Productive modes (speaking, writing and creating)

Students understand how language features and language patterns can be used for emphasis. They show how specific details can be used to support a point of view. They explain how their choices of language features and images are used.

Students create detailed texts elaborating on key ideas for a range of purposes and audiences. They make presentations and contribute actively to class and group discussions, using a variety of strategies for effect. They demonstrate an understanding of grammar, and make considered vocabulary choices to enhance cohesion and structure in their writing. They use accurate spelling and punctuation for clarity and make and explain editorial choices based on criteria.

Show sub-strand-specific achievement standard

Year 6 Work Sample Portfolios

 

Year 7  

Year 7 Level Description

The English curriculum is built around the three interrelated strands of language, literature and literacy. Teaching and learning programs should balance and integrate all three strands. Together, the strands focus on developing students’ knowledge, understanding and skills in listening, reading, viewing, speaking, writing and creating. Learning in English builds on concepts, skills and p

Read full description ›

The English curriculum is built around the three interrelated strands of language, literature and literacy. Teaching and learning programs should balance and integrate all three strands. Together, the strands focus on developing students’ knowledge, understanding and skills in listening, reading, viewing, speaking, writing and creating. Learning in English builds on concepts, skills and processes developed in earlier years, and teachers will revisit and strengthen these as needed.

In Years 7 and 8, students communicate with peers, teachers, individuals, groups and community members in a range of face-to-face and online/virtual environments. They experience learning in familiar and unfamiliar contexts that relate to the school curriculum, local community, regional and global contexts.

Students engage with a variety of texts for enjoyment. They listen to, read, view, interpret, evaluate and perform a range of spoken, written and multimodal texts in which the primary purpose is aesthetic, as well as texts designed to inform and persuade. These include various types of media texts including newspapers, magazines and digital texts, early adolescent novels, non-fiction, poetry and dramatic performances. Students develop their understanding of how texts, including media texts, are influenced by context, purpose and audience.

The range of literary texts for Foundation to Year 10 comprises Australian literature, including the oral narrative traditions of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples, as well as the contemporary literature of these two cultural groups, and classic and contemporary world literature, including texts from and about Asia.

Literary texts that support and extend students in Years 7 and 8 as independent readers are drawn from a range of realistic, fantasy, speculative fiction and historical genres and involve some challenging and unpredictable plot sequences and a range of non-stereotypical characters. These texts explore themes of interpersonal relationships and ethical dilemmas within real-world and fictional settings and represent a variety of perspectives. Informative texts present technical and content information from various sources about specialised topics. Text structures are more complex including chapters, headings and subheadings, tables of contents, indexes and glossaries. Language features include successive complex sentences with embedded clauses, unfamiliar technical vocabulary, figurative and rhetorical language, and information supported by various types of graphics.

Students create a range of imaginative, informative and persuasive types of texts, for example narratives, procedures, performances, reports and discussions, and are beginning to create literary analyses and transformations of texts.

Hide full description ›

When planning for learning in Prep - Year 10 English Catholic perspectives include: 

It is through the study of English that individuals learn to analyse, understand, communicate and build relationships with others and with the world around them.

Exploration of Catholic perspectives in the area of English identifies the value of each person created in the image and likeness of God. Respectful interactions are encouraged so that everyone is enabled to flourish.

This would be explored as students communicate with a range of familiar and unfamiliar audiences in face to face and online environments.  Engagement with the traditions and contemporary perspectives of Aboriginal and Torres strait islander people, and Asian cultures should be interwoven with a Catholic perspective. How we respond to the objective dimensions of our identity arises from our relationships with God and the world; with others, institutions, and history. 

Catholic perspectives would be further explored through engaging with the English purposes of enriching the lives of students, developing a sense of English and its richness and power to evoke feelings, conveying information, forming ideas, facilitating interaction with others, entertaining, persuading and arguing. 

Thoughtful engagement with the selection of literature and resources should support critical analysis of contemporary culture and a synthesis of faith and life in the context of gospel values and Church teachings.  

Literature and resources used should aim to challenge students to think, to feel, to value and to act in accordance with Gospel values and should not shy away from an ethical dimension and the promotion of a critical response to dilemmas.  

Year 7 Content Descriptions

The foundation of all Catholic Social Teaching is the inherent dignity of every human person because everyone is created in God’s image and likeness and therefore, valuable and worthy of respect. The Church calls for Integral Human Development, which concerns the wellbeing of each person in every facet of life including economic, political, social, ecological, and spiritual.  

Language
Language variation and change

Understand the way language evolves to reflect a changing world, particularly in response to the use of new technology for presenting texts and communicating

Language for interaction

Understand how accents, styles of speech and idioms express andpersonal and social identities


Understand how language is used to evaluate texts and how evaluations about acan be substantiated by reference to theand other sources

Text structure and organisation

Understand and explain how thestructures andof texts become more complex in informative and persuasive texts and identify underlying structures such as taxonomies, cause and effect, and extended metaphors


Understand that the coherence of more complex texts relies on devices that signaland guide readers, for example overviews, initial and concluding paragraphs and topic sentences, indexes or site maps or breadcrumb trails for online texts


Understand the use of punctuation to support meaning in complex sentences with prepositional phrases and embedded clauses

Expressing and developing ideas

Recognise and understand that subordinate clauses embedded withingroups/phrases are a common feature of writtenstructures and increase the density of information


Understand howis achieved through discriminating choices in modal verbs, adverbs, adjectives and nouns


Analyse howis generated in visual texts by means of choices, for example gaze, angle and social distance


Investigate vocabulary typical of extended and more academic texts and the role of abstract nouns, classification, description and generalisation in building specialised knowledge through language


Understand how to use spelling rules andorigins, for example Greek and Latin roots, base words, suffixes, prefixes, spelling patterns and generalisations to learn new words and how to spell them

Literature
Literature and context

Identify and explore ideas and viewpoints about events, issues and characters represented in texts drawn from different historical, social and cultural contexts

Responding to literature

Reflect on ideas and opinions about characters, settings and events in literary texts, identifying areas of agreement and difference with others and justifying a


Compare the ways that language and images are used tocharacter, and to influence emotions and opinions in different


Discuss aspects of texts, for example theirand social value, using relevant and appropriate

Examining literature

Recognise and analyse the ways that characterisation, events and settings are combined in narratives, and discuss the purposes and appeal of different approaches


Understand, interpret and discuss how language is compressed to produce a dramatic effect in film or drama, and tolayers of meaning in poetry, for example haiku, tankas, couplets, free verse and verse novels

Creating literature

literary texts that adaptencountered in other texts, for example,viewpoint, structure of stanzas, contrast and


Experiment withstructures andand their effects in creating literary texts, for example, using rhythm, sound effects, monologue, layout, navigation and colour

Literacy
Texts in context

Analyse and explain the effect of technological innovations on texts, particularly

Interacting with others

Identify and discuss main ideas, concepts and points ofin spoken texts to evaluate qualities, for example the strength of an argument or the lyrical power of a poetic rendition


Use interaction skills when discussing and presenting ideas and information, selecting body language,qualities and other elements, (for example music and sound) to add interest and meaning


Plan, rehearse and deliver presentations, selecting and sequencing appropriate content and multimodal elements to promote aor enable a new way of seeing

Interpreting, analysing, evaluating

Analyse and explain the waysstructures andshape meaning and vary according toand purpose


Use prior knowledge andto interpret a range of


Use comprehension strategies to interpret, analyse and synthesise ideas and information, critiquing ideas and issues from a variety of textual sources


Compare thestructures andof multimodal texts, explaining how they combine to influence audiences

Creating texts

Plan, draft and publish imaginative, informative and persuasive texts, selecting aspects ofmatter and particular language, visual, and audio features to convey information and ideas


Edit for meaning by removing repetition, refining ideas, reordering sentences and adding or substituting words for impact


Consolidate a personalstyle that is legible, fluent and automatic and supports writing for extended periods


Use a range of software, includingprocessing programs, to confidently create, edit and publish written and multimodal texts

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Year 7 Achievement Standard

Receptive modes (listening, reading and viewing)

By the end of Year 7, students understand how text structures can influence the complexity of a text and are dependent on audience, purpose and context. They demonstrate understanding of how the choice of language features, images and vocabulary affects meaning.

Students explain issues and ideas from a variety of sources, analysing supporting evidence and implied meaning. They select specific details from texts to develop their own response, recognising that texts reflect different viewpoints. They listen for and explain different perspectives in texts.

Productive modes (speaking, writing and creating)

Students understand how the selection of a variety of language features can influence an audience. They understand how to draw on personal knowledge, textual analysis and other sources to express or challenge a point of view. They create texts showing how language features and images from other texts can be combined for effect.

Students create structured and coherent texts for a range of purposes and audiences. They make presentations and contribute actively to class and group discussions, using language features to engage the audience. When creating and editing texts they demonstrate understanding of grammar, use a variety of more specialised vocabulary and accurate spelling and punctuation.

Show sub-strand-specific achievement standard

Year 7 Work Sample Portfolios

 

Year 8  

Year 8 Level Description

The English curriculum is built around the three interrelated strands of language, literature and literacy. Teaching and learning programs should balance and integrate all three strands. Together, the strands focus on developing students’ knowledge, understanding and skills in listening, reading, viewing, speaking, writing and creating. Learning in English builds on concepts, skills and p

Read full description ›

The English curriculum is built around the three interrelated strands of language, literature and literacy. Teaching and learning programs should balance and integrate all three strands. Together, the strands focus on developing students’ knowledge, understanding and skills in listening, reading, viewing, speaking, writing and creating. Learning in English builds on concepts, skills and processes developed in earlier years, and teachers will revisit and strengthen these as needed.

In Years 7 and 8, students interact with peers, teachers, individuals, groups and community members in a range of face-to-face and online/virtual environments. They experience learning in both familiar and unfamiliar contexts that relate to the school curriculum, local community, regional and global contexts.

Students engage with a variety of texts for enjoyment. They listen to, read, view, interpret, evaluate and perform a range of spoken, written and multimodal texts in which the primary purpose is aesthetic, as well as texts designed to inform and persuade. These include various types of media texts including newspapers, magazines and digital texts, early adolescent novels, non-fiction, poetry and dramatic performances. Students develop their understanding of how texts, including media texts, are influenced by context, purpose and audience.

The range of literary texts for Foundation to Year 10 comprises Australian literature, including the oral narrative traditions of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples, as well as the contemporary literature of these two cultural groups, and classic and contemporary world literature, including texts from and about Asia.

Literary texts that support and extend students in Years 7 and 8 as independent readers are drawn from a range of realistic, fantasy, speculative fiction and historical genres and involve some challenging and unpredictable plot sequences and a range of non-stereotypical characters. These texts explore themes of interpersonal relationships and ethical dilemmas within real-world and fictional settings and represent a variety of perspectives. Informative texts present technical and content information from various sources about specialised topics. Text structures are more complex including chapters, headings and subheadings, tables of contents, indexes and glossaries. Language features include successive complex sentences with embedded clauses, unfamiliar technical vocabulary, figurative and rhetorical language, and information supported by various types of graphics.

Students create a range of imaginative, informative and persuasive types of texts, for example narratives, procedures, performances, reports and discussions, and continue to create literary analyses and transformations of texts.

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When planning for learning in Prep - Year 10 English Catholic perspectives include: 

It is through the study of English that individuals learn to analyse, understand, communicate and build relationships with others and with the world around them.

Exploration of Catholic perspectives in the area of English identifies the value of each person created in the image and likeness of God. Respectful interactions are encouraged so that everyone is enabled to flourish.

This would be explored as students communicate with a range of familiar and unfamiliar audiences in face to face and online environments.  Engagement with the traditions and contemporary perspectives of Aboriginal and Torres strait islander people, and Asian cultures should be interwoven with a Catholic perspective. How we respond to the objective dimensions of our identity arises from our relationships with God and the world; with others, institutions, and history. 

Catholic perspectives would be further explored through engaging with the English purposes of enriching the lives of students, developing a sense of English and its richness and power to evoke feelings, conveying information, forming ideas, facilitating interaction with others, entertaining, persuading and arguing. 

Thoughtful engagement with the selection of literature and resources should support critical analysis of contemporary culture and a synthesis of faith and life in the context of gospel values and Church teachings.  

Literature and resources used should aim to challenge students to think, to feel, to value and to act in accordance with Gospel values and should not shy away from an ethical dimension and the promotion of a critical response to dilemmas.  

Year 8 Content Descriptions

The foundation of all Catholic Social Teaching is the inherent dignity of every human person because everyone is created in God’s image and likeness and therefore, valuable and worthy of respect. The Church calls for Integral Human Development, which concerns the wellbeing of each person in every facet of life including economic, political, social, ecological, and spiritual.  

Language
Language variation and change

Understand the influence and impact that the English language has had on other languages or dialects and how English has been influenced in return

Language for interaction

Understand how conventions of speech adopted by communities influence the identities of people in those communities


Understand how rhetorical devices are used to persuade and how different layers of meaning are developed through the use of metaphor, irony and parody

Text structure and organisation

Analyse how thestructures andof persuasive texts, including media texts, vary according to theandof communication


Understand howin texts is improved by strengthening the internal structure of paragraphs through the use of examples, quotations and substantiation of claims


Understand how coherence is created in complex texts through devices like lexical cohesion, ellipsis, grammaticalandconnectives


Understand the use of punctuation conventions, including colons, semicolons, dashes and brackets in formal and informal texts

Expressing and developing ideas

Analyse and examine how effective authors control and use a variety ofstructures, including clauses embedded within the structure of a nounor


Understand the effect ofin the writing of informative and persuasive texts


Investigate how visual and multimodal texts allude to or draw on other texts or images to enhance and layer meaning


Recognise that vocabulary choices contribute to the specificity, abstraction and style of texts


Understand how to apply learned knowledge consistently in order to spell accurately and to learn new words including nominalisations

Literature
Literature and context

Explore the ways that ideas and viewpoints in literary texts drawn from different historical, social and cultural contexts may reflect or challenge the values of individuals and groups


Explore the interconnectedness of Country/Place, People, Identity and Culture in texts including those by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander authors

Responding to literature

Share, reflect on, clarify and evaluate opinions and arguments about aspects of literary texts


Understand and explain how combinations of words and images in texts are used to represent particular groups in society, and how texts position readers in relation to those groups


Recognise and explain differing viewpoints about the world, cultures, individual people and concerns represented in texts

Examining literature

Recognise, explain and analyse the ways literary texts draw on readers’ knowledge of other texts and enable new understanding andofqualities


Identify and evaluate devices thattone, for example humour, wordplay, innuendo and parody in poetry, humorous prose, drama or visual texts


Interpret and analyse language choices, includingpatterns, dialogue,and other language features, in short stories, literary essays and plays

Creating literature

literary texts that draw uponstructures andof other texts for particular purposes and effects


Experiment with particulardrawn from different types of texts, including combinations of language and visual choices tonew texts

Literacy
Texts in context

Analyse and explain how language has evolved over time and how technology and the media have influenced language use and forms of communication

Interacting with others

Interpret the stated and implied meanings in spoken texts, and use evidence to support or challenge different perspectives


Use interaction skills for identified purposes, usingand language conventions to suit different situations, selecting vocabulary, modulatingand using elements such as music, images and sound for specific effects


Plan, rehearse and deliver presentations, selecting and sequencing appropriate content, including multimodal elements, to reflect a diversity of viewpoints

Interpreting, analysing, evaluating

Analyse and evaluate the ways thatstructures andvary according to the purpose of theand the ways that referenced sources add authority to a


Apply increasing knowledge of vocabulary,structures andto understand the content of texts


Use comprehension strategies to interpret and evaluate texts by reflecting on the validity of content and the credibility of sources, including finding evidence in thefor the author’s


Explore and explain the ways authors combine different modes and media in creating texts, and the impact of these choices on the viewer/listener

Creating texts

imaginative, informative and persuasive texts that raise issues, report events and advance opinions, using deliberate language and textual choices, and including digital elements as appropriate


Experiment withstructures andto refine and clarify ideas to improve the effectiveness of students’ own texts


Use a range of software, includingprocessing programs, to create, edit and publish texts imaginatively

Show subject-specific achievement standard

Year 8 Achievement Standard

Receptive modes (listening, reading and viewing)

By the end of Year 8, students understand how the selection of text structures is influenced by the selection of language mode and how this varies for different purposes and audiences. Students explain how language features, images and vocabulary are used to represent different ideas and issues in texts.

Students interpret texts, questioning the reliability of sources of ideas and information. They select evidence from the text to show how events, situations and people can be represented from different viewpoints. They listen for and identify different emphases in texts, using that understanding to elaborate on discussions.

Productive modes (speaking, writing and creating)

Students understand how the selection of language features can be used for particular purposes and effects. They explain the effectiveness of language choices they make to influence the audience. Through combining ideas, images and language features from other texts, students show how ideas can be expressed in new ways.

Students create texts for different purposes, selecting language to influence audience response. They make presentations and contribute actively to class and group discussions, using language patterns for effect. When creating and editing texts to create specific effects, they take into account intended purposes and the needs and interests of audiences. They demonstrate understanding of grammar, select vocabulary for effect and use accurate spelling and punctuation.

Show sub-strand-specific achievement standard

Year 8 Work Sample Portfolios

 

Year 9  

Year 9 Level Description

The English curriculum is built around the three interrelated strands of language, literature and literacy. Teaching and learning programs should balance and integrate all three strands. Together, the strands focus on developing students’ knowledge, understanding and skills in listening, reading, viewing, speaking, writing and creating. Learning in English builds on concepts, skills and p

Read full description ›

The English curriculum is built around the three interrelated strands of language, literature and literacy. Teaching and learning programs should balance and integrate all three strands. Together, the strands focus on developing students’ knowledge, understanding and skills in listening, reading, viewing, speaking, writing and creating. Learning in English builds on concepts, skills and processes developed in earlier years, and teachers will revisit and strengthen these as needed.

In Years 9 and 10, students interact with peers, teachers, individuals, groups and community members in a range of face-to-face and online/virtual environments. They experience learning in familiar and unfamiliar contexts, including local community, vocational and global contexts.

Students engage with a variety of texts for enjoyment. They interpret, create, evaluate, discuss and perform a wide range of literary texts in which the primary purpose is aesthetic, as well as texts designed to inform and persuade. These include various types of media texts, including newspapers, film and digital texts, fiction, non-fiction, poetry, dramatic performances and multimodal texts, with themes and issues involving levels of abstraction, higher order reasoning and intertextual references. Students develop a critical understanding of the contemporary media and the differences between media texts.

The range of literary texts for Foundation to Year 10 comprises Australian literature, including the oral narrative traditions of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples, as well as the contemporary literature of these two cultural groups, and classic and contemporary world literature, including texts from and about Asia.

Literary texts that support and extend students in Years 9 and 10 as independent readers are drawn from a range of genres and involve complex, challenging and unpredictable plot sequences and hybrid structures that may serve multiple purposes. These texts explore themes of human experience and cultural significance, interpersonal relationships, and ethical and global dilemmas within real-world and fictional settings and represent a variety of perspectives. Informative texts represent a synthesis of technical and abstract information (from credible/verifiable sources) about a wide range of specialised topics. Text structures are more complex and include chapters, headings and subheadings, tables of contents, indexes and glossaries. Language features include successive complex sentences with embedded clauses, a high proportion of unfamiliar and technical vocabulary, figurative and rhetorical language, and dense information supported by various types of graphics presented in visual form.

Students create a range of imaginative, informative and persuasive types of texts including narratives, procedures, performances, reports, discussions, literary analyses, transformations of texts and reviews.

Hide full description ›

When planning for learning in Prep - Year 10 English Catholic perspectives include: 

It is through the study of English that individuals learn to analyse, understand, communicate and build relationships with others and with the world around them.

Exploration of Catholic perspectives in the area of English identifies the value of each person created in the image and likeness of God. Respectful interactions are encouraged so that everyone is enabled to flourish.

This would be explored as students communicate with a range of familiar and unfamiliar audiences in face to face and online environments.  Engagement with the traditions and contemporary perspectives of Aboriginal and Torres strait islander people, and Asian cultures should be interwoven with a Catholic perspective. How we respond to the objective dimensions of our identity arises from our relationships with God and the world; with others, institutions, and history. 

Catholic perspectives would be further explored through engaging with the English purposes of enriching the lives of students, developing a sense of English and its richness and power to evoke feelings, conveying information, forming ideas, facilitating interaction with others, entertaining, persuading and arguing. 

Thoughtful engagement with the selection of literature and resources should support critical analysis of contemporary culture and a synthesis of faith and life in the context of gospel values and Church teachings.  

Literature and resources used should aim to challenge students to think, to feel, to value and to act in accordance with Gospel values and should not shy away from an ethical dimension and the promotion of a critical response to dilemmas.  

Year 9 Content Descriptions

The foundation of all Catholic Social Teaching is the inherent dignity of every human person because everyone is created in God’s image and likeness and therefore, valuable and worthy of respect. The Church calls for Integral Human Development, which concerns the wellbeing of each person in every facet of life including economic, political, social, ecological, and spiritual.  

Language
Language variation and change

Understand thatis a living language within which the creation and loss of words and the evolution of usage is ongoing

Language for interaction

Understand that roles and relationships are developed and challenged through language and interpersonal skills


Investigate how evaluation can be expressed directly and indirectly using devices, for example allusion, evocative vocabulary and metaphor

Text structure and organisation

Understand that authors innovate withstructures and language for specific purposes and effects


Compare and contrast the use of cohesive devices in texts, focusing on how they serve to signpost ideas, to make connections and to build semantic associations between ideas


Understand how punctuation is used along withand font variations in constructing texts for different audiences and purposes

Expressing and developing ideas

Explain how authors creatively use the structures of sentences and clauses for particular effects


Understand how certain abstract nouns can be used to summarise preceding or subsequent stretches of


Analyse and explain the use of symbols, icons and myth in still and moving images and how these augment meaning


Identify how vocabulary choices contribute to specificity, abstraction and stylistic effectiveness


Understand how spelling is used creatively in texts for particular effects, for example characterisation and humour and to represent accents and styles of speech

Literature
Literature and context

Interpret and compare how representations of people and culture in literary texts are drawn from different historical, social and cultural contexts

Responding to literature

Present an argument about a literarybased on initial impressions and subsequent analysis of the whole


Reflect on, discuss and explore notions of literary value and how and why such notions vary according to


Explore and reflect on personal understanding of the world and significant human experience gained from interpreting various representations of life matters in texts

Examining literature

Analyse texts from familiar and unfamiliar contexts, and discuss and evaluate their content and the appeal of an individual author’s literary style


Investigate and experiment with the use and effect of extended metaphor, metonymy, allegory, icons, myths and symbolism in texts, for example poetry, short films, graphic novels, and plays on similar themes


Analysestructures andof literary texts, and make relevant comparisons with other texts

Creating literature

literary texts, including hybrid texts, that innovate on aspects of other texts, for example by using parody,and


Experiment with the ways that language features, image and sound can be adapted in literary texts, for example the effects of stereotypical characters and settings, the playfulness of humour andand the use of hyperlink

Literacy
Texts in context

Analyse how the construction and interpretation of texts, including media texts, can be influenced by cultural perspectives and other texts

Interacting with others

to spoken texts constructed for different purposes, for example to entertain and to persuade, and analyse howof these texts position listeners to respond in particular ways


Use interaction skills to present and discuss an idea and to influence and engage anby selecting persuasive language, varyingtone, pitch, and pace, and using elements such as music and sound effects


Plan, rehearse and deliver presentations, selecting and sequencing appropriate content and multimodal elements forand playful purposes

Interpreting, analysing, evaluating

Interpret, analyse and evaluate how different perspectives of issue, event, situation, individuals or groups are constructed to serve specific purposes in texts


Apply an expanding vocabulary toincreasingly complex texts with fluency and comprehension


Use comprehension strategies to interpret and analyse texts, comparing and evaluating representations of an event, issue, situation or character in different texts


Explore and explain the combinations of language and visual choices that authors make to present information, opinions and perspectives in different texts

Creating texts

imaginative, informative and persuasive texts that present aand advance or illustrate arguments, including texts that integrate visual, print and/or audio features


Review and edit students’ own and others’ texts to improve clarity and control over content, organisation, paragraphing,structure, vocabulary and audio/visual features


Use a range of software, includingprocessing programs, flexibly and imaginatively to publish texts

Show subject-specific achievement standard

Year 9 Achievement Standard

Receptive modes (listening, reading and viewing)

By the end of Year 9, students analyse the ways that text structures can be manipulated for effect. They analyse and explain how images, vocabulary choices and language features distinguish the work of individual authors.

They evaluate and integrate ideas and information from texts to form their own interpretations. They select evidence from texts to analyse and explain how language choices and conventions are used to influence an audience. They listen for ways texts position an audience.

Productive modes (speaking, writing and creating)

Students understand how to use a variety of language features to create different levels of meaning. They understand how interpretations can vary by comparing their responses to texts to the responses of others. In creating texts, students demonstrate how manipulating language features and images can create innovative texts.

Students create texts that respond to issues, interpreting and integrating ideas from other texts. They make presentations and contribute actively to class and group discussions, comparing and evaluating responses to ideas and issues. They edit for effect, selecting vocabulary and grammar that contribute to the precision and persuasiveness of texts and using accurate spelling and punctuation.

Show sub-strand-specific achievement standard

Year 9 Work Sample Portfolios

 

Year 10  

Year 10 Level Description

The English curriculum is built around the three interrelated strands of language, literature and literacy. Teaching and learning programs should balance and integrate all three strands. Together, the strands focus on developing students’ knowledge, understanding and skills in listening, reading, viewing, speaking, writing and creating. Learning in English builds on concepts, skills and p

Read full description ›

The English curriculum is built around the three interrelated strands of language, literature and literacy. Teaching and learning programs should balance and integrate all three strands. Together, the strands focus on developing students’ knowledge, understanding and skills in listening, reading, viewing, speaking, writing and creating. Learning in English builds on concepts, skills and processes developed in earlier years, and teachers will revisit and strengthen these as needed.

In Years 9 and 10, students interact with peers, teachers, individuals, groups and community members in a range of face-to-face and online/virtual environments. They experience learning in familiar and unfamiliar contexts, including local community, vocational and global contexts.

Students engage with a variety of texts for enjoyment. They interpret, create, evaluate, discuss and perform a wide range of literary texts in which the primary purpose is aesthetic, as well as texts designed to inform and persuade. These include various types of media texts, including newspapers, film and digital texts, fiction, non-fiction, poetry, dramatic performances and multimodal texts, with themes and issues involving levels of abstraction, higher order reasoning and intertextual references. Students develop critical understanding of the contemporary media and the differences between media texts.

The range of literary texts for Foundation to Year 10 comprises Australian literature, including the oral narrative traditions of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples, as well as the contemporary literature of these two cultural groups, and classic and contemporary world literature, including texts from and about Asia.

Literary texts that support and extend students in Years 9 and 10 as independent readers are drawn from a range of genres and involve complex, challenging and unpredictable plot sequences and hybrid structures that may serve multiple purposes. These texts explore themes of human experience and cultural significance, interpersonal relationships, and ethical and global dilemmas within real-world and fictional settings and represent a variety of perspectives. Informative texts represent a synthesis of technical and abstract information (from credible/verifiable sources) about a wide range of specialised topics. Text structures are more complex and include chapters, headings and subheadings, tables of contents, indexes and glossaries. Language features include successive complex sentences with embedded clauses, a high proportion of unfamiliar and technical vocabulary, figurative and rhetorical language, and dense information supported by various types of graphics and images.

Students create a range of imaginative, informative and persuasive types of texts including narratives, procedures, performances, reports, discussions, literary analyses, transformations of texts and reviews.

Hide full description ›

When planning for learning in Prep - Year 10 English Catholic perspectives include: 

It is through the study of English that individuals learn to analyse, understand, communicate and build relationships with others and with the world around them.

Exploration of Catholic perspectives in the area of English identifies the value of each person created in the image and likeness of God. Respectful interactions are encouraged so that everyone is enabled to flourish.

This would be explored as students communicate with a range of familiar and unfamiliar audiences in face to face and online environments.  Engagement with the traditions and contemporary perspectives of Aboriginal and Torres strait islander people, and Asian cultures should be interwoven with a Catholic perspective. How we respond to the objective dimensions of our identity arises from our relationships with God and the world; with others, institutions, and history. 

Catholic perspectives would be further explored through engaging with the English purposes of enriching the lives of students, developing a sense of English and its richness and power to evoke feelings, conveying information, forming ideas, facilitating interaction with others, entertaining, persuading and arguing. 

Thoughtful engagement with the selection of literature and resources should support critical analysis of contemporary culture and a synthesis of faith and life in the context of gospel values and Church teachings.  

Literature and resources used should aim to challenge students to think, to feel, to value and to act in accordance with Gospel values and should not shy away from an ethical dimension and the promotion of a critical response to dilemmas.  

Year 10 Content Descriptions

The foundation of all Catholic Social Teaching is the inherent dignity of every human person because everyone is created in God’s image and likeness and therefore, valuable and worthy of respect. The Church calls for Integral Human Development, which concerns the wellbeing of each person in every facet of life including economic, political, social, ecological, and spiritual.  

Language
Language variation and change

Understand thatin its spoken and written forms has a history of evolution and change and continues to evolve

Language for interaction

Understand how language use can have inclusive and exclusive social effects, and can empower or disempower people


Understand that people’s evaluations of texts are influenced by their value systems, theand the purpose andof communication

Text structure and organisation

Compare the purposes,structures andof traditional and contemporary texts in different media


Understand how paragraphs and images can be arranged for different purposes, audiences, perspectives and stylistic effects


Understand conventions for citing others, and how to reference these in different ways

Expressing and developing ideas

Analyse and evaluate the effectiveness of a wide range ofandstructures as authorsand craft texts


Analyse how higher order concepts are developed in complex texts throughincluding nominalisation,combinations, technicality and abstraction


Evaluate the impact on audiences of different choices in the representation of still and moving images


Refine vocabulary choices to discriminate between shades of meaning, with deliberate attention to the effect on audiences


Understand how to use knowledge of the spelling system to spell unusual and technical words accurately, for example those based on uncommon Greek and Latin roots

Literature
Literature and context

Compare and evaluate a range of representations of individuals and groups in different historical, social and cultural contexts

Responding to literature

Reflect on, extend, endorse or refute others’ interpretations of and responses to literature


Analyse and explain howstructures,andof texts and thein which texts are experienced may influenceresponse


Evaluate the social, moral and ethical positions represented in texts

Examining literature

Identify, explain and discuss howviewpoint, structure, characterisation and devices includingandshape different interpretations and responses to a


Compare and evaluate how ‘voice’ as a literary device can be used in a range of differentsuch as poetry to evoke particular emotional responses


Analyse and evaluatestructures andof literary texts and make relevant thematic and intertextual connections with other texts

Creating literature

literary texts that reflect an emerging sense of personal style and evaluate the effectiveness of these texts


literary texts with a sustained ‘voice’, selecting and adapting appropriatestructures, literary devices, language, auditory and visual structures and features for a specific purpose and intended


imaginative texts that make relevant thematic and intertextual connections with other texts

Literacy
Texts in context

Analyse and evaluate how people, cultures, places, events, objects and concepts are represented in texts, including media texts, through language, structural and/or visual choices

Interacting with others

Identify and explore the purposes and effects of differentstructures andof spoken texts, and use this knowledge topurposeful texts that inform, persuade and engage


Use organisation patterns,and language conventions to present aon a subject, speaking clearly, coherently and with effect, using logic,and rhetorical devices to engage audiences


Plan, rehearse and deliver presentations, selecting and sequencing appropriate content and multimodal elements to influence a course of action

Interpreting, analysing, evaluating

Identify and analyse implicit or explicit values, beliefs and assumptions in texts and how these are influenced by purposes and likely audiences


Choose a reading technique and reading path appropriate for the type of text, to retrieve and connect ideas within and between texts


Use comprehension strategies to compare and contrast information within and between texts, identifying and analysing embedded perspectives, and evaluating supporting evidence

Creating texts

sustained texts, including texts that combine specific digital or media content, for imaginative, informative, or persuasive purposes that reflect upon challenging and complex issues


Review, edit and refine students’ own and others’ texts for control of content, organisation,structure, vocabulary, and/orto achieve particular purposes and effects


Use a range of software, includingprocessing programs, confidently, flexibly and imaginatively to create, edit and publish texts, considering the identified purpose and the characteristics of the user

Show subject-specific achievement standard

Year 10 Achievement Standard

Receptive modes (listening, reading and viewing)

By the end of Year 10, students evaluate how text structures can be used in innovative ways by different authors. They explain how the choice of language features, images and vocabulary contributes to the development of individual style.

They develop and justify their own interpretations of texts. They evaluate other interpretations, analysing the evidence used to support them. They listen for ways features within texts can be manipulated to achieve particular effects.

Productive modes (speaking, writing and creating)

Students show how the selection of language features can achieve precision and stylistic effect. They explain different viewpoints, attitudes and perspectives through the development of cohesive and logical arguments. They develop their own style by experimenting with language features, stylistic devices, text structures and images.

Students create a wide range of texts to articulate complex ideas. They make presentations and contribute actively to class and group discussions, building on others' ideas, solving problems, justifying opinions and developing and expanding arguments. They demonstrate understanding of grammar, vary vocabulary choices for impact, and accurately use spelling and punctuation when creating and editing texts.

Show sub-strand-specific achievement standard

Year 10 Work Sample Portfolios