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NSW Curriculum
NSW Education Standards Authority

11–12English Studies 11–12 Syllabus

Record of changes
Implementation from 2026
Expand for detailed implementation advice

Content

Year 11

Elective focus areas

The following elective focus areas can be selected for Year 11 or Year 12.

Elective K: Achieving through English – English in education, work and community

Through the study of texts in this focus area, students develop an understanding of, and practical competence in, the use of language that allows access to opportunities in schooling, training and employment. Students have the opportunity to broaden their understanding of the relationships between education, work and community, and the importance of language and texts in these settings. Students will develop their skills across a range of textual modes related to the workplace and with other practical applications.

Students engage with a range of literary and other texts that expand horizons by showing, through an imaginative use of language, the variety and richness of people’s working, educational and community lives. Texts may include longer works such as films, novels, biographies, television series and drama texts, as well as extracts and short texts. Students develop comprehension strategies and improve skills that enable them to express themselves in English confidently, effectively, appropriately and with grammatical accuracy. Students develop skills that assist them to access and comprehend information, ideas and language in everyday and workplace texts, and compose appropriate texts in response.

Understanding
  • The ways language forms and features are used to communicate ideas and shape meaning

  • Explicit and implicit meaning in texts

  • The ways mode and medium can influence language and structure

  • The ways that audience, purpose and context shape meaning in a variety of social, community and workplace texts

Responding
  • Compose a variety of texts that use language forms and features to present particular attitudes, values and perspectives

  • Compose critical texts that use appropriate evidence to support a clear point of view

  • Use complex sentences to communicate the relationship between ideas in a range of texts

  • Use appropriate textual forms and structures to communicate information and ideas

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