How to Read the VCE English Study Design

A study design is the official document that sets out what a VCE subject covers and how it's assessed. It comes from the Victorian Curriculum and Assessment Authority (VCAA), which runs the VCE, and your teacher plans lessons and assessment tasks from it. English and English as an Additional Language (EAL) share one study design, which you can download as a Word document from VCAA's English and EAL page.

In Year 11 you'll do Units 1 and 2, so the section to start with is the one headed “Units 1 and 2”, from page 12 of the October 2024 version. Most of the pages before it are for schools. The one worth bookmarking is “Terms used in this study” on page 10, a glossary of the study design's own words: it explains, for example, that metalanguage means the terms used to describe language, and that mentor texts are pieces of writing you read and re-read as models for your own.

Some outcomes and tasks are worded twice, once for English students and once for EAL students. You only need the version for the subject you're enrolled in.

Each unit usually runs for a semester, and the study design divides it into areas of study, which are the unit's main parts. Each area of study has an outcome: one sentence saying what you should be able to do by the end of the unit. Under each outcome sit two lists. Key knowledge is what you need to understand, and key skills are what you need to be able to do with it.

Here is Unit 1’s first area of study as the study design sets it out. Unit 2 revisits reading with a different kind of text.

No single task has to cover a whole list. Across the unit, your classwork and tasks give you chances to show all of it.

Reading and exploring texts is where you learn to write about a set text, and our guide to writing a text response takes you through it.

For Exploring argument, our guide to argument analysis shows how to write about the way a persuasive text works on its audience.

A SAC, short for school-assessed coursework, is an essay, piece of writing, presentation or test your school sets and marks as part of a unit. Our guide to starting Year 11 explains how SACs sit alongside the S (satisfactory) or N (not satisfactory) you get for each unit. Your teacher awards the S when they decide you've shown the unit's outcomes.

For Unit 1, the study design lists the kinds of task a school can use under the heading “Suitable tasks for assessment in this unit may be selected from the following”: a personal response to a set text, two student-created texts (such as short stories, speeches or essays) and a description of writing processes. Your school picks from that list and writes its own task sheet and marking criteria, because in Units 1 and 2 how tasks are marked is “a matter for school decision”.

When a task sheet arrives, you can read it beside the study design in three steps:

• Find the outcome it assesses. Many task sheets name it. If yours doesn't, your teacher can tell you.
• Read that outcome's key skills and mark the ones the task sheet echoes. For a personal response to a set text, “use textual evidence, where appropriate, to support writing” means supporting your response with evidence from the text where appropriate.
• Compare the marked skills with your task's marking criteria. A skill that turns up in both is a sensible place to start practising, because your school and the study design are both asking for it.

The current study design applies to Units 1 and 2 from 2023 and Units 3 and 4 from 2024. Your teacher can confirm the version to use for Year 11 in 2027 and Year 12 in 2028.

The current design also shows what Year 12 builds on. Each area of study you do in Year 11 has a Year 12 counterpart, and the end-of-year exam has a section for each.

VCAA's exam specifications (Word document) say all the key knowledge and key skills behind the Units 3 and 4 outcomes can be examined, so knowing how to read those lists can help in Year 12 as well.

Our guide to the VCE English exam goes through each section and how to prepare for it.

Your English teacher is the first person to ask, because they set your task and know which parts of the study design it draws on. You can bring the outcome with your marked key skills and ask what showing one of them looks like in a piece of writing for their class.

VCAA's own material is free too. Its sample learning activities show the kind of classwork each outcome is built around, and in Year 12 its past exams and examination reports show how the exam tests the key skills.

If a key skill still isn't clicking after that, such as using evidence from the text or explaining the choices in your own writing, one-to-one help can work on it alongside your teacher. Our VCE English tutors help with text response, creating texts and argument analysis, and sessions can start from the task or teacher feedback you're working on.

You don't need to read the study design cover to cover. Knowing where your unit's outcomes sit, and reading their key skills before each task, means the next time someone says “it's all in the study design”, you'll know which page they mean.

Is the EAL study design different?

In Unit 1, English students “explore” a text's vocabulary, text structures, language features and ideas, while EAL students “identify selected” ones. In Unit 3, EAL students also complete a listening task, and in Year 12 English and EAL have separate exams.

How is Year 12 English assessed?

Under the current design, your Year 12 SACs make up half your study score, your result out of 50 for the subject, with 25 per cent from each unit. The three-hour exam makes up the other half.

Who chooses the texts I study?

Your school chooses them in Units 1 and 2, within the study design's rules, such as studying at least five set texts across the two units. In Units 3 and 4 they come from VCAA's text list, which it publishes each year on its English planning page.

Do I have to keep doing English?

Yes, to get your VCE. VCAA requires three units from any English subject, two of which must be Units 3 and 4. Your ATAR also needs a study score from one subject in the English group, according to VTAC's scaling guide.

We checked these official sources on 6 November 2026.