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11–12English Life Skills 11–12 Syllabus

Record of changes
Implementation from 2026
Expand for detailed implementation advice
OverviewRationaleAimOutcomesContentAssessmentGlossaryTeaching and learning support

Content

Life Skills

Life Skills for Stage 6

Through collaborative curriculum planning, it may be decided that Life Skills outcomes and content are the most appropriate option for some students with intellectual disability.

Narrative and human experiences (aligned to English Studies)

For students studying English Life Skills, the focus area Narrative and human experiences provides opportunities to explore narratives that share people’s experiences. Students explore how characters respond to events and the relationships between characters. They explore how storytelling is used to share moments of challenge and growth. Selected texts can take a range of forms and should be selected based on students’ interest and needs. Students create personal responses to the characters’ experiences in texts.

The content below aligns to the content of the focus area Narrative and human experiences in English Studies 11–12 and has been provided as a suggestion only. Further content can also be used to address this focus area and meet the individual needs of students as appropriate.

Strategies for engaging with texts

  • Use reading, viewing or listening strategies to locate and extract information and ideas

  • Identify preferred reading strategies that improve understanding and engagement

Understanding language forms and features

  • Recognise ways language forms, features or structures can create meaning in a text

  • Recognise ways language forms and features change according to purpose and audience

Responding to ideas and experiences in texts

  • Identify the message, values or experiences in a text

  • Identify personally relevant and important themes presented in texts

  • Explore how different characters in texts respond to a particular theme or issue

  • Explore different perspectives on a particular topic, theme or event

  • Understand how culture and identity influence personal responses to texts

  • Respond to a text by providing a personal opinion or perspective

  • Identify how a personal opinion can be changed in response to a text

Context and texts

  • Identify how texts can represent a particular time or event

  • Recognise that an author’s personal experiences can shape meaning in a text

  • Recognise that audience responses to texts can vary

  • Identify that texts represent a diverse range of lived experiences or cultural perspectives

  • Recognise how context influences audience, ideas and attitudes

Relationships between texts

  • Use strategies to organise information and make connections between ideas in texts

  • Understand the impact of texts on personal understanding of the world

Composing texts

  • Compose texts that offer personal responses to a chosen text

  • Compose texts for different purposes and audiences using appropriate form, language or visual features to communicate, including workplace and real-life texts

Using language forms and features

  • Use language forms or structures to express ideas

  • Use a range of sentence structures to create meaning

  • Use vocabulary for purposeful effect

  • Use visual or language features to create texts

Planning, reflecting and revising composition

  • Use scaffolding to plan compositions

  • Select editing techniques or tools to enhance clarity and meaning in texts

Related files