English in the national curriculum : what knowledge?

The NSW English syllabus for Forms I-IV, published in 1971, had as its aim ‘to develop in pupils the utmost personal competence in using the language’. It famously represented the subject as a triangle, with each apex representing one of the three elements of the central phrase, ‘The language in use in context’. In keeping with the central tenets of the then still relatively new ‘Growth’ model, the 1971 document stressed the active use of language to achieve ‘competence’, thus representing ‘a deliberate shift of emphasis from English as information to English as activity’. The Syllabus was, and remains, as ‘revolutionary’ – ‘the most dramatic re-definition of junior secondary English for NSW in this century’.