Level 4 English: Every Victorian Curriculum Code, Explained

Level 4 English in the Victorian Curriculum 2.0 is 29 content descriptions, VC2E4LA01 through VC2E4LY12. The national curriculum uses 28 for the same year, and the extra Victorian code is the most useful one in the level: editing gets a descriptor of its own, and that descriptor tells students to move text.

Level 4 is the level everything gets joined. Clauses get joined and made unequal (VC2E4LA06, the complex sentence). Paragraphs get joined to each other (VC2E4LA04, text connectives). Speech gets joined to narration (VC2E4LA11 and VC2E4LA12). And the spelling strand joins up too: Level 3 kept phonology and morphology in separate codes, and VC2E4LY03 puts them in one. Level 3 built the parts. Level 4 connects them. This is a working guide to all 29 codes: where the Victorian numbering diverges from the national set and why that matters when you convert a program, the three codes that decide Level 5, a term-by-term order, and six checks worth running before December.

What changes this level

Four shifts, and two of them are Victorian rather than national.

The sentence becomes unequal. Level 2 joined two independent clauses with a coordinating conjunction. Level 3 defined the clause and made its subject and verb agree. VC2E4LA06 now puts one clause inside another: an independent clause plus at least one dependent clause, hooked on with a subordinating conjunction so that a relationship such as time or cause is expressed. The words doing the work are create relationships. Subordination is not a technique for making sentences longer, it is how a writer says which of two ideas is the main one. VC2E4LY10 then requires those sentences in real writing, so the Language code has a Literacy code holding it to account.

Editing becomes surgical, and it is a code. VC2E4LY11 asks students to re-read and edit for meaning by adding, deleting or moving words or word groups to improve what the text says and how it is built. That is the first time a Victorian descriptor tells a student to relocate text rather than repair it. Nationally there is no Year 4 editing code at all: editing is one of four verbs inside AC9E4LY06 and it is never defined. Victoria gives it a descriptor, a verb list and an object, which makes it assessable and makes it teachable as its own block of lessons.

Stance splits three ways, not two. VC2E4LA02 asks students to identify and differentiate the language of opinion, of facts and of feelings. The national AC9E4LA02 names two categories, subjective and objective. Victoria names three, and the third one is the reason the code is hard: opinion and feeling are both subjective and they are not the same thing, and most Level 4 children treat them as one. This code is the direct successor to the standalone Victorian modality descriptor at Level 3 (VC2E3LA09), so the two-column sort taught last year becomes a three-column sort this year.

Evaluation arrives with a hedge on it. VC2E4LY09 adds begin to evaluate to the comprehension strategies. The national AC9E4LY05 drops the hedge and asks for evaluation outright, having said begin to back in Year 3. Level 3 in Victoria was the level analysis lost its hedge, a year ahead of the national curriculum. Level 4 is the level evaluation gains one, a year behind. The two frameworks cross over here, and a program converted in either direction will carry the wrong verb.

Handwriting also moves to automaticity at VC2E4LY12, and unlike the national curriculum, Victoria keeps asking for it: VC2E5LY12 and VC2E6LY11 both name legible, fluent, automatic writing. AC9E4LY08 is the last handwriting descriptor in the national English curriculum. Victoria has two more levels of it.

The level at a glance

Language stayed at twelve and Literacy dropped from thirteen to twelve. The lost code is a spelling one: Level 3 ran a four-code chain from phoneme–grapheme correspondences through to homophones, and Level 4 runs three, because phonology and morphology are now applied together in VC2E4LY03 rather than taught in separate descriptors.

Reading the codes, and where the numbering diverges

The pattern is VC2 + E + level + strand + number, so VC2E4LA06 is Level 4, Language, sixth description. LA is Language, LE is Literature, LY is Literacy. Victoria says level rather than year.

If you are converting a national program, the Language strand maps straight across for the first six codes and then stops mapping. The national curriculum puts quoted and reported speech at AC9E4LA07, five codes before its dialogue punctuation descriptor. Victoria moves that content to the very end of the strand, VC2E4LA12, sitting directly after the dialogue punctuation code at VC2E4LA11. Everything between is therefore shifted down by one: Victorian LA07 is phrases (national LA08), Victorian LA08 is tense (national LA09), Victorian LA09 is images (national LA10), Victorian LA10 is vocabulary (national LA11).

That is not just an offset to be careful about, it is a teaching instruction. Victoria’s numbering puts the punctuation of dialogue and the choice between direct and reported speech next to each other, which is exactly how they should be taught. The national ordering separates them far enough that most programs teach the marks in one unit and never get to the choice.

The Literacy strand is again in teaching order rather than national order, as it was at Levels 2 and 3. VC2E4LY03 to LY05 are the spelling chain at the front of the strand; the national curriculum numbers the same content at AC9E4LY09 to LY11, at the end. Follow the Victorian numbers.

One more absence worth knowing before you plan. There is no Level 4 apostrophe code. Apostrophes appear at VC2E3LA12, including the irregular plurals Victoria adds, and then do not appear again until VC2E5LA09, which asks for multiple possession in regular and irregular nouns. Unfinished Level 3 apostrophe work gets a full year of silence and then a harder question.

Strand by strand

Language (VC2E4LA01 to VC2E4LA12)

Twelve descriptions, in four groups.

The stance group is VC2E4LA01 and VC2E4LA02: how language develops relationships in formal and informal situations, and identifying and differentiating the language of opinion, of fact and of feeling. VC2E4LA02 gets full treatment below, because the three-way split is Victorian and it is the code most often taught as a two-way one.

The text-structure group is VC2E4LA03, VC2E4LA04, VC2E4LA05 and VC2E4LA09: how text types across the curriculum use different language features and fall into characteristic stages depending on purpose; text connectives, both temporal and conditional, plus topic word associations, used to order and tie ideas together; the navigation features that make a digital text readable, including headlines, drop-down menus, links, graphics and layout; and how sound together with framing, the placement of elements and salience shape the composition of still and moving images.

VC2E4LA09 is another quiet Victorian addition. The national AC9E4LA10 covers image composition only; Victoria puts sound in the same descriptor, matching what it did at Levels 2 and 3. The cheapest honest way to meet it is one short film clip watched twice, once with the sound off, and one photograph with the question of what your eye hits first and why.

VC2E4LA04 is the level’s structural pivot. Level 3 asked students to group related information into paragraphs. Level 4 asks them to join the paragraphs to each other, and it names two mechanisms: connective words and topic word associations. The second one is doing at least as much work as the first and it is almost never taught. Topic word associations are the chain of related vocabulary that runs down a page and holds it together (volcano, eruption, magma, lava, crater), and connective words bolted onto a text with no chain are scaffolding attached to a building that is not there. The thirty-second diagnostic is the deletion test: cross out every firstly, next and finally in the child’s piece and read what is left.

The grammar group is VC2E4LA06, VC2E4LA07, VC2E4LA08 and VC2E4LA12: the complex sentence; adverb groups or phrases and prepositional phrases supplying circumstantial detail about an activity; past, present and future tense and its impact on meaning; and the use of quoted and reported speech.

VC2E4LA07 is the partner code most planners miss, and Victoria’s numbering makes it easy to miss in the other direction: it sits immediately after the complex sentence, which invites you to teach it second. Teach it first. Circumstantial detail (when, where, how, why, with what) is the content a dependent clause carries, and a child who has practised adding it as a phrase (after the storm, on the way home) has already done the semantic half of subordination before meeting the grammar half. Teaching VC2E4LA07 before VC2E4LA06 turns the complex sentence into an upgrade of something familiar rather than a new topic.

VC2E4LA08 upgrades tense from Level 3’s anchoring to impact on meaning. Level 3 asked for consistency; Level 4 asks what the choice does. That upgrade is load-bearing for reported speech, where converting direct to indirect usually requires the verb to shift back in time on purpose.

Vocabulary and dialogue punctuation are VC2E4LA10 and VC2E4LA11. VC2E4LA10 expands vocabulary through synonyms and antonyms and through words encountered in a range of sources, and it is the code most often reduced to a thesaurus exercise, which produces writing full of words the child cannot actually use. Pair every synonym with the sentence it belongs in and the code does what it is for. VC2E4LA11 is quotation marks and the conventions for capitals, commas and boundary punctuation, and it should be taught in the same unit as VC2E4LA12, which is what the Victorian numbering is telling you.

Literature (VC2E4LE01 to VC2E4LE05)

Five descriptions, and the change from Level 3 is that literature moves from effect to construction.

VC2E4LE03 is the pivot: comparing how authors and illustrators make literary texts exciting, moving and absorbing, and hold a reader’s interest, through plot tension, character and setting. Two things are Victorian here. The verb is compare, which means more than one text rather than a discussion of one, and the effects are named in threes: exciting, moving, absorbing. Those are not synonyms. A text can be exciting without being moving, and asking a Level 4 child which of the three a chapter was doing is a better question than asking whether it was engaging.

Plot tension is the new idea and it is the most useful single concept in Level 4 Literature, because it is the only one that explains why a story with a beginning, a middle and an end can still be boring.

VC2E4LE04 covers literary devices and deliberate wordplay including grammar, in prose and poetry. That grammar clause is Victorian and it is worth taking seriously: it says a sentence structure is a literary device. A short sentence after three long ones is a choice, and a Level 4 child who has just met the complex sentence at VC2E4LA06 can be shown the same structure being used deliberately in a book. That single connection is what makes the grammar strand feel like it is for something.

VC2E4LE02 asks for descriptions of the effects of text structures and language features when responding to texts and sharing opinions, which is where the strand meets VC2E4LA02: an opinion about a text is opinion language about an observable feature, and Level 4 is the first level students are expected to keep those apart.

VC2E4LE05 is the strand’s output: creating texts by developing storylines, characters and settings, using language features drawn from the literature students have met and from their own experience. That last clause is Victorian and it is a small permission worth using, because it makes a child’s own material legitimate source text rather than a distraction from the reading.

VC2E4LE01 carries the requirement for texts by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander authors, extended this level to recognising similar storylines, ideas and relationships in different contexts, which again asks for comparison across texts.

Literacy (VC2E4LY01 to VC2E4LY12)

Twelve descriptions, and the numbering groups them for you.

The oral pair is VC2E4LY01 and VC2E4LY02: interaction skills for gathering information to carry out tasks, contributing to discussion, acknowledging another opinion, linking a response to the text or topic and extending ideas; and delivering a structured spoken text to an audience using the features of voice. VC2E4LY02 is delivery only, exactly as it was at Level 3, because the composing half lives at VC2E4LY10, which covers written and spoken texts. The national AC9E4LY07 keeps composition and delivery in one descriptor. In Victoria the spoken text is built at LY10 and performed at LY02, two codes at opposite ends of the strand, and you have to join them on your program because the curriculum does not.

The spelling chain is VC2E4LY03, VC2E4LY04 and VC2E4LY05, and the contraction from four codes to three is the story. VC2E4LY03 merges what Level 3 kept separate: phonological and morphological knowledge applied together to read and write multisyllabic words with more complex letter combinations, a variety of vowel sounds and known prefixes and suffixes. VC2E4LY04 adds double letters, spelling generalisations, morphological word families, common prefixes and suffixes, and word origins. VC2E4LY05 handles high-frequency words and homophones and adds using context to settle which spelling is correct.

Word origins is the genuinely new content, and it arrives without ceremony inside VC2E4LY04. It is the start of etymology as a spelling strategy, which is what makes the Level 5 and Level 6 vocabulary codes possible. Five minutes on why science, scissors and scene share a spelling is worth more than a week of listing them as exceptions.

Reading and comprehension is VC2E4LY06 to VC2E4LY09: reading a range of text types with phonic, semantic and grammatical knowledge integrated, accurately and fluently, with re-reading and self-correction; comparing how texts from different times with similar purposes depict ideas or events; identifying the characteristic features a text type uses to meet its purpose and audience; and comprehension strategies used to expand topic knowledge and to begin evaluating texts while building literal and inferred meaning.

Output is VC2E4LY10, VC2E4LY11 and VC2E4LY12: creating narrative, informative and persuasive texts in writing and in speech with relevant, linked ideas for a range of audiences and multimodal elements where they help; re-reading and editing for meaning by adding, deleting or moving words or word groups; and joined handwriting with developing fluency and automaticity.

Note what VC2E4LY10 stops saying. Level 3 named paragraphs explicitly. Level 4 asks instead for relevant, linked ideas, which means paragraphing is assumed from here and never taught again by a Victorian descriptor. And note what no Victorian descriptor has ever said: there is no plan and no publish anywhere in Victorian English, Foundation to Level 10. The national AC9E4LY06 names both. Victoria gives you create and edit, and the planning step has to go on your program in your own words, because nothing in the curriculum will prompt you for it.

The three codes that decide Level 5

VC2E4LY11: editing means moving text, not fixing it

The misconception: that editing is proofreading, so the code is met by a spelling and punctuation pass at the end of a piece. Read the verbs: adding, deleting and moving words or word groups to improve content and structure. Not one of the three is a correction. This is revision, and Level 3’s VC2E3LY12 already promoted it from the Level 2 proofreading version. Level 4 adds the relocation verb, and relocation is the one children never do on their own.

What you will see: a piece handed back with four spellings corrected, a full stop added and nothing else touched, submitted as an edited draft. The other tell is the child who edits by rewriting: given feedback, they produce a fresh copy of the same text with the same structure and slightly different words, because they have no mechanism for moving a sentence that exists. And the third is the child who deletes nothing, ever, because everything they wrote cost them effort and cutting it feels like losing marks.

The fix: make the three verbs physical and separate them from the writing. Print a draft double-spaced, hand over scissors, and require one cut sentence, one added sentence and one moved sentence, marked with a caret and an arrow. Three moves, one pass, no spelling allowed. The scissors are not a gimmick: a child who has physically relocated a sentence and read the result has a mental model of the operation, and after two or three rounds they can do it with a caret on paper or by dragging on a screen. Then run editing as its own block of lessons with one named target per pass, rather than as a tidy-up after a writing task, because Victoria has given you a descriptor to hang those lessons on and the national curriculum has not.

VC2E4LA02: opinion, facts and feelings is three columns, not two

The misconception: that this is the fact-versus-opinion lesson, so two columns will do. Victoria names three categories, and the third is the one that carries the level. An opinion is a claim you could argue for (this is the best beach in Victoria). A feeling is a state you are reporting (I love this beach). Both are subjective, and only one of them can be supported with evidence. A child who cannot tell them apart writes persuasive texts made entirely of feelings and cannot understand why they are not persuasive.

What you will see: a persuasive paragraph in which every sentence is a feeling wearing an opinion’s clothing. “I think school should start later because I hate getting up.” The because is doing structural work and carrying no argument. The second signal is the reverse, a child who marks every sentence containing I as an opinion and every sentence without it as a fact, which is a grammatical rule standing in for a judgement, and it produces the wrong answer on this beach is the best in Victoria every time. The third is a factual sentence marked as opinion because the child disagrees with it.

The fix: sort before you write, and use three columns from the first lesson. Give twelve sentences and the headings this could be checked, this could be argued for and this is how someone felt. Do not accept a sort without a reason attached, because the reason is the code. Then run the conversion drill, which is where it becomes useful: take one feeling sentence and require the opinion version of the same idea, with a reason that someone who does not share the feeling could still accept. I hate getting up becomes a later start would suit the way teenagers sleep. That single conversion is the whole difference between a Level 4 persuasive text and a Level 2 one, and it is the direct descendant of last year’s modality sort at VC2E3LA09.

VC2E4LY09: evaluating is not saying whether you liked it

The misconception: that the new evaluation clause is met by an opinion about the text, so “did you enjoy it and why” covers it. Level 3’s VC2E3LY10 asked for analysis: what did the writer do, and how does the text work. Level 4 keeps that and adds a first evaluation clause, hedged as begin to. Evaluation is a judgement about whether the thing worked for its purpose, which means the purpose has to be established before the judgement is possible. Enjoyment is not a purpose.

This is also the point where the two frameworks cross. The national curriculum asked students to begin evaluating in Year 3 and asks for evaluation outright in Year 4. Victoria has the hedge a year later, at Level 4, and drops it at Level 5. If you are running a Victorian program against national resources, the Year 4 comprehension material will be pitched one notch above the Victorian descriptor, and the Level 5 material will match.

What you will see: a review rather than an evaluation. “I liked it because it was funny and I would recommend it to my friends.” That is a preference with a reason, which VC2E3LE02 wanted at Level 3 and which is not what this code asks for. The other tell is evaluation of the topic instead of the text: asked whether an information report about sharks worked, the child tells you whether sharks are interesting.

The fix: install a two-question routine after reading and always in this order. First, what was this text trying to do, and who to. Second, name one thing the writer did that made that work, and one thing that got in the way. The second question is impossible without the first, which is the point of the order, and the phrase got in the way is what stops the answer collapsing into praise. Do this with short informative texts before literary ones, because purpose is visible in an information report and arguable in a novel, and a Level 4 child needs the visible version first. Pair it with VC2E4LY08, which supplies the vocabulary of purpose and audience the answer needs.

What students need to arrive with

The prerequisites are all in the Level 3 English code set, and four of them carry the level.

• VC2E3LA04 (paragraphs as the building block that holds related information together). VC2E4LA04 connects paragraphs to each other, and there is nothing to connect if the ideas were never grouped. A child producing arbitrary four-line chunks will appear to fail the connectives code when the real gap is a year older. This is the one that cannot be worked around.
• VC2E3LA06 (the clause as a grammatical unit with a subject and verb that agree). VC2E4LA06 makes one clause dependent on another and never defines a clause. Without Level 3, Level 4 is subordinating an invisible unit.
• VC2E3LA09 (modal verbs for obligation, probability and possibility). This is the standalone Victorian modality code, and VC2E4LA02 is its successor. A child who sorted modality into two columns last year can sort stance into three this year. A child who ranked modal verbs on a strength dial cannot.
• VC2E3LY04 (base words, prefixes, suffixes and the generalisations for adding a suffix). VC2E4LY03 merges phonology and morphology and assumes the morphology half is available.

Check all four in February, and check VC2E3LA07 as well, the verb-processes code. It has no Level 4 successor and it is assumed from here on, which is worth knowing before you discover in March that half the class cannot find a verb.

What this level sets up

• VC2E4LA06 becomes VC2E5LA05: the same structure, an independent clause plus at least one dependent clause, but with the added requirement of understanding how writers use it for effect. Level 4 builds it, Level 5 uses it deliberately.
• VC2E4LA04 becomes VC2E5LA04, a much larger jump than the numbering suggests: cohesion created by using the starting point of a sentence or paragraph to give prominence to the message and guide the reader. Level 4 connects ideas with words; Level 5 connects them with position.
• VC2E4LA07 becomes VC2E5LA06 (expanding noun groups for fuller description) and VC2E5LA09 (commas marking prepositional phrases). The phrase work splits into a meaning half and a punctuation half.
• Apostrophes return at VC2E5LA09, at multiple possession across regular and irregular nouns. There is no Level 4 apostrophe code, so anything unfinished from VC2E3LA12 sits untouched for a year and then reappears at a higher bar.
• VC2E4LA10 becomes VC2E5LA08: vocabulary used for greater precision of meaning, including specialist and technical terms. The word origins clause inside VC2E4LY04 is what makes that reachable.
• VC2E4LE04 becomes VC2E5LE04, which names figurative language for the first time: simile, metaphor and personification, plus sound devices, compared across prose and poetry. Level 4’s deliberate wordplay is the runway.
• VC2E4LY09 becomes VC2E5LY09, which drops begin to. Evaluation stops being hedged, and it is the same sentence otherwise, so the only thing that changes is the standard you hold the answer to.
• VC2E4LY11 becomes VC2E5LY11, which adds two things: editing the texts of others, and doing it against agreed criteria. Level 4 edits your own work by instinct; Level 5 edits anyone’s against a rubric.
• VC2E4LY12 becomes VC2E5LY12 and then VC2E6LY11. Victoria keeps naming handwriting for two more levels, where the national curriculum stops at Year 4.

A term-by-term order

1. Term 1: phrases before clauses. VC2E4LA07 first, as circumstantial detail added in phrases, because it is the semantic half of subordination and a child can do it immediately. Then VC2E4LA06 introduced as an upgrade of that phrase into a clause, rationed to four subordinating conjunctions with one relationship each: because for cause, although for contrast, while for simultaneity, after for sequence. VC2E4LY03 on multisyllabic words with phonology and morphology used together from Week 1. VC2E4LY12 handwriting daily and short. VC2E4LY01 and VC2E4LA01 inside routines.
2. Term 2: connecting the paragraphs, and stance. VC2E4LA04 taught in two halves and in this order: the topic word chain first, with a highlighter on a published information text, then temporal and conditional connectives on top, with the deletion test as the check. VC2E4LA02 taught as a three-column sort with reasons attached, then the feeling-to-opinion conversion drill. VC2E4LY10 with linked ideas and complex sentences named as the writing targets on the same lesson line. VC2E4LA08 tense moved from consistency to effect. VC2E4LY04 spelling with word origins introduced as a strategy rather than as trivia. Add VC2E4LA03 and VC2E4LY08.
3. Term 3: dialogue, tension, and evaluation. VC2E4LA11 and VC2E4LA12 taught together as conversion drills, direct speech to reported and back, thirty seconds each, several times a week, exactly as the Victorian numbering suggests. Converting forces three codes at once: the punctuation changes, the pronouns change, and the tense usually shifts back under VC2E4LA08. VC2E4LE03 on plot tension alongside them so the dialogue has somewhere to matter, with the exciting, moving, absorbing distinction used as the question. VC2E4LY09 with the two-question evaluation routine installed after every read, on informative texts first. Add VC2E4LE04 with grammar treated as a device.
4. Term 4: editing as a taught skill, images and precision. VC2E4LY11 run as its own block of lessons with scissors and one named target per pass, because at Level 4 it means relocation and it will not become that by accident. VC2E4LY02 spoken delivery, using a text built under VC2E4LY10 so the two codes meet. VC2E4LE05 creating with storylines and characters drawn from reading and from the child’s own experience. VC2E4LA09 sound, framing, placement and salience, on one photograph and then a film clip watched twice. VC2E4LA10 synonyms and antonyms with each word attached to the sentence it belongs in. VC2E4LY07 comparing texts from different times. VC2E4LY05 homophones with context as the disambiguator.

Two non-obvious choices. The first is teaching VC2E4LA07 before VC2E4LA06 even though the Victorian numbering runs the other way: the phrase code looks like terminology and gets a week of labelling, and it is the fastest route into the complex sentence, because it lets a child add when and where and why to a sentence before anyone says subordinate. The second is giving VC2E4LY11 a whole term rather than ten minutes at the end of each writing task. Victoria is one of the few frameworks that makes editing a code in its own right, and a code with no timetabled lessons behind it is a code you are reporting on without teaching.

Six checks before Level 5

• Hand them a double-spaced draft and ask for one cut, one addition and one moved sentence. Corrections instead of moves, or a refusal to delete anything, means VC2E4LY11 is being met as proofreading. Reteach with scissors, three moves, one pass, no spelling allowed.
• “This beach is the best in Victoria” and “I love this beach”: ask which is an opinion and which is a feeling. The same answer for both, or a sort based on whether the sentence contains I, means VC2E4LA02 has been taught as two columns. Reteach with the three-column sort and the conversion drill.
• After a short information report, ask what the writer did that got in the way. An answer about the topic rather than the text, or “nothing, it was good”, means the evaluation clause of VC2E4LY09 has not landed. Reteach with the two-question routine, in order, purpose first.
• “Write me one sentence about the weather using although.” A fragment, or a compound sentence with although swapped in for but, means VC2E4LA06 is a vocabulary rule rather than a structure. Reteach from VC2E4LA07 phrases, and check they can do it with a conjunction other than because.
• Cross out every connective in their last piece and read it back to them. If it falls apart into unrelated paragraphs, the topic word chain half of VC2E4LA04 was never taught. Reteach with the highlighter on a published text before asking for one of their own.
• Dictate disappointed and ask how they worked it out. The doubling in the middle is the VC2E4LY04 test and the explanation is the VC2E4LY03 test: an answer built from dis plus appoint plus ed shows morphology in use, and sounding it out letter by letter shows it is not.

Six checks, five minutes, one child at a time. Each failure names a specific piece of a specific term to repeat rather than a general sense that a child is behind.

Recording the alignment

For a school program or a Victorian home education plan, record the code on the activity as you go. “Writing” tells a reviewer nothing; “VC2E4LY11, three-move revision pass on an information report, 12 May” answers the question before it is asked. Victorian home educators register with the VRQA and are asked for a plan covering eight key learning areas, and codes are the cheapest way to show English is covered properly. Our guides to the Victorian Curriculum, the four Capabilities and state-by-state registration requirements cover the rest. The national equivalent of this level is Year 4 English in the Australian Curriculum, where the numbering diverges after LA06 and the evaluation clause runs a year ahead, and the differences between the two frameworks are larger in English than in maths. In NSW the same content sits inside Stage 2 English, which covers Years 3 and 4 as one stage with eleven outcomes. Next comes Level 5 English, and the companion post on every Level 4 Maths code covers the other half of the level.

Level 4 is the level writing stops being about getting words down and starts being about controlling them, and control is the hardest thing to ask of a nine-year-old who does not care about the subject. Nobody builds plot tension into a story they are bored by, and nobody cuts a sentence out of a piece they never wanted to write. Using an interest as the way in costs nothing in curriculum terms, because VC2E4LA06 is met identically whether the complex sentence is about the water cycle or about a video game. Sprout Lessons builds an interactive lesson from any of these 29 codes, pitched at Level 4 and wrapped in whatever the child is currently obsessed with, with the VC2 code recorded in the footer. Try it free.

Curriculum codes reference the Victorian Curriculum F–10 Version 2.0 © VCAA. The curriculum can be accessed directly at f10.vcaa.vic.edu.au. The VCAA does not endorse this product. Always verify against the current content descriptions and achievement standards.

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