Skip to content

Year 5 English in the Australian Curriculum

24 content descriptions from Version 9.0. Choose "Plan this" to open a lesson plan set up for that content description.

Content descriptions

Language

Language for interacting with others

  • AC9E5LA01

    understand that language is selected for social contexts and that it helps to signal social roles and relationships

    Plan this
  • AC9E5LA02

    understand how to move beyond making bare assertions by taking account of differing ideas or opinions and authoritative sources

    Plan this

Text structure and organisation

  • AC9E5LA03

    describe how spoken, written and multimodal texts use language features and are typically organised into characteristic stages and phases, depending on purposes in texts

    Plan this
  • AC9E5LA04

    understand how texts can be made cohesive by using the starting point of a sentence or paragraph to give prominence to the message and to guide the reader through the text

    Plan this

Language for expressing and developing ideas

  • AC9E5LA05

    understand that the structure of a complex sentence includes a main clause and at least one dependent clause, and understand how writers can use this structure for effect

    Plan this
  • AC9E5LA06

    understand how noun groups can be expanded in a variety of ways to provide a fuller description of a person, place, thing or idea

    Plan this
  • AC9E5LA07

    explain how the sequence of images in print, digital and film texts has an effect on meaning

    Plan this
  • AC9E5LA08

    understand how vocabulary is used to express greater precision of meaning, including through the use of specialist and technical terms, and explore the history of words

    Plan this
  • AC9E5LA09

    use commas to indicate prepositional phrases, and apostrophes where there is multiple possession

    Plan this

Literature

Literature and contexts

  • AC9E5LE01

    identify aspects of literary texts that represent details or information about historical, social and cultural contexts in literature by First Nations Australian, and wide-ranging Australian and world authors

    Plan this

Engaging with and responding to literature

  • AC9E5LE02

    present an opinion on a literary text using specific terms about literary devices, text structures and language features, and reflect on the viewpoints of others

    Plan this

Examining literature

  • AC9E5LE03

    recognise that the point of view in a literary text influences how readers interpret and respond to events and characters

    Plan this
  • AC9E5LE04

    examine the effects of imagery, including simile, metaphor and personification, and sound devices in narratives, poetry and songs

    Plan this

Creating literature

  • AC9E5LE05

    create and edit literary texts, experimenting with figurative language, storylines, characters and settings from texts students have experienced

    Plan this

Literacy

Texts in context

  • AC9E5LY01

    describe the ways in which a text reflects the time and place in which it was created

    Plan this

Interacting with others

  • AC9E5LY02

    use appropriate interaction skills including paraphrasing and questioning to clarify meaning, make connections to own experience, and present and justify an opinion or idea

    Plan this

Analysing, interpreting and evaluating

  • AC9E5LY03

    explain characteristic features used in imaginative, informative and persuasive texts to meet the purpose of the text

    Plan this
  • AC9E5LY04

    navigate and read texts for specific purposes, monitoring meaning using strategies such as skimming, scanning and confirming

    Plan this
  • AC9E5LY05

    use comprehension strategies such as visualising, predicting, connecting, summarising, monitoring and questioning to build literal and inferred meaning to evaluate information and ideas

    Plan this

Creating texts

  • AC9E5LY06

    plan, create, edit and publish written and multimodal texts whose purposes may be imaginative, informative and persuasive, developing ideas using visual features, text structure appropriate to the topic and purpose, text connectives, expanded noun groups, specialist and technical vocabulary, and punctuation including dialogue punctuation

    Plan this
  • AC9E5LY07

    plan, create, rehearse and deliver spoken and multimodal presentations that include relevant, elaborated ideas, sequencing ideas and using complex sentences, specialist and technical vocabulary, pitch, tone, pace, volume, and visual and digital features

    Plan this

Phonic and word knowledge

  • AC9E5LY08

    use phonic, morphemic and vocabulary knowledge to read and spell words that share common letter patterns but have different pronunciations

    Plan this
  • AC9E5LY09

    build and spell new words from knowledge of known words, base words, prefixes and suffixes, word origins, letter patterns and spelling generalisations

    Plan this
  • AC9E5LY10

    explore less common plurals, and understand how a suffix changes the meaning or grammatical form of a word

    Plan this

Other Year 5 learning areas

Questions teachers ask

What do students learn in Year 5 English?
The Australian Curriculum v9 has 24 English content descriptions for Year 5. They are listed on this page with their codes.
How do I plan a Year 5 English lesson for a content description?
Choose "Plan this" next to the content description. Heapso opens a lesson plan set to Year 5 English with that code linked, so the plan is built around it. You can change anything before Pip writes.

Plan your next Year 5 English unit

Heapso opens a unit plan set to Year 5 English. Add the content descriptions you're teaching and Pip cites only those.

Plan this unit free

© Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority (ACARA) 2010 to present, unless otherwise indicated. This material was downloaded from the Australian Curriculum website (accessed 18 October 2026) and was not modified. The material is licensed under CC BY 4.0.

Licence: CC BY 4.0. ACARA's terms of use. Heapso isn't affiliated with ACARA, and ACARA doesn't endorse Heapso or any product that uses the Australian Curriculum.

The Australian Curriculum website