English: Te Reo Pākeha

Language is how we make sense of the world, and English at WHS gives students the tools to use it with purpose, clarity, and confidence. Students engage with English as a discipline of language, literature, and communication, learning to read critically, write with craft, and speak and listen with intent.

Texts are created by people from many times, places, and perspectives. Students learn that New Zealand's bicultural and multicultural literary heritage offers a rich and distinctive voice within global literary traditions, and that the stories we tell both shape and reflect who we are.

Years 9 and 10

Students build their disciplinary knowledge through integrated study across two strands.

Text Studies develops students' ability to engage with complex ideas across a wide range of literary and non-fiction texts. They examine how texts reflect and respond to historical, cultural, and social contexts, compare viewpoints, and support their interpretations with clear evidence. Texts from New Zealand's literary tradition, including bicultural and multicultural voices, are central to this study.

Language Studies strengthens students' fluency and control in creating texts across written, oral, visual, and digital modes. They learn how authors use language, structure, and form to shape meaning, and develop the skills to critically evaluate how texts are constructed and how they position their audiences.

Throughout Years 9 and 10, students create a variety of texts for different purposes and audiences, including essays, creative writing, and analytical responses, learning to express their ideas with increasing clarity and control.

Years 11 to 13

Students deepen their understanding of language and literature and begin to specialise. Building on earlier learning, they may study English, or from Year 12 - Media Studies, Journalism and Communications.

They engage with increasingly complex texts, develop their literary analysis skills, and refine their ability to craft writing with genuine voice and purpose. Students explore how language and literature provide a space for expression, experimentation, and the examination of ideas that are evolving, contested, or open to interpretation.

These skills and experiences support pathways into tertiary study and careers in journalism, law, education, the creative arts, and public life.
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Above all, we want our students to be thoughtful, discerning, and creative communicators: readers and writers who know that language connects them to the experiences, stories, and conversations of their communities and their world.

"To read is to fly: it is to soar to a point of vantage which
gives a view over wide terrains of history, human variety, ideas,
shared  experience and the fruits of many inquiries."

- A.C. Grayling

2027 Course Information

Curriculum and Course Option Updates for 2027
Please note that due to changes in the New Zealand curriculum and senior qualifications system, the course information currently on our website is no longer applicable for Year 9 and 10 students enrolling in 2027. We are in the process of updating our course options to reflect these changes.

Updated information about new course options and future pathways will be published on our website later this term. 

For students going into Year 11-13 in 2027, please view our Learning Area overview and Course Options below.