Rationale
Rationale for English in Stage 6 curriculum
In acknowledgement of its role as the national language, English is a mandatory subject from Kindergarten to Year 12 in the NSW curriculum. Knowledge, understanding and skills acquired in English are central to students’ learning and development.
Language and text shape understanding of individuals and the world. Language allows students to relate to others, and contributes to their intellectual, social and emotional development. In English K–12, students study language in its various textual forms, with increasing complexity, to understand how meaning is shaped, conveyed, interpreted and reflected.
Students engage with literature from Australia and across the world. They develop an understanding of the diversity of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples and the interconnections of Country/Place, Culture and Community. Texts communicate in distinctive ways and are shaped by experiences, knowledge and cultures. By exploring past and contemporary texts with a range of cultural and social perspectives, students broaden their experiences and become empowered in their identities, values and ethics.
Through interrelated practices and experiences in understanding and creating texts, students explore the power, purpose, value and art of English. Practice and experience supports students to become literate and confident communicators, critical and imaginative thinkers, and informed and active participants in society.
The study of English in this syllabus is founded on the belief that language learning is recursive and develops through ever-widening contexts. Students learn English through explicit teaching of language and literacy, and through their engagement with a range of purposeful and increasingly demanding textual experiences.
Rationale for English Standard
The English Standard 11–12 Syllabus provides students who have a diverse range of literacy skills with the opportunity to analyse, study and enjoy a breadth and variety of English texts to become confident and effective communicators.
Students engage with texts that include quality literature from the past, and contemporary texts from Australia and other cultures. They explore language forms, features and structures of texts in a range of academic, personal, social, cultural, historical and workplace contexts. Students study, analyse, respond to and compose texts to broaden their perspectives, access information and assess the reliability of representations. They synthesise the knowledge developed from a range of texts to fulfil a variety of purposes. Understanding and responding to texts provides students with opportunities to appreciate the imaginative and the affective domains, and to recognise the ways texts convey, interpret, question and reflect opinions and perspectives.
The English Standard 11–12 Syllabus supports a range of approaches to interacting with texts so that students become flexible and critical thinkers, capable of appreciating the diversity and variety of cultural heritages that make up Australian society. Students further develop skills in literacy and independent, collaborative and reflective learning required for post-school life, including the world of work and post-school training and education.