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Skill: course-build → write-video-script, write-lesson, write-mcqs, sentence-atomise, vault-sync @ 2ec3c5d

James's notes on Topic 34 — triage (2 October 2026)

Source: reviews/james/NOTES_G3T34_2026-10-02.md (three notes: the intro script, L02, the summary script). None of Topic 34's videos exists, so every change is a text edit; nothing is committed.

In plain words

The intro no longer has a sign that "says three of them go in one group". Tallis is on a class trip; his teacher asks him what the shark has inside that the octopus and the jellyfish don't; he guesses eyes and a mouth and is wrong both times; the teacher says it is hidden inside and sorts every animal into two groups. The crab is gone. The L02 script asks "Is she right?" and says "Both are vertebrates". The summary opens "Here's everything we found out about which animals have backbones, and how we sort animals into groups" and is cut from 245 to 164 spoken words. And the rule behind the L02 note — every sentence a student reads has a subject and a verb — now has a mechanical check (sweep S38) that ran over all 42 topics.

The table

his note (verbatim)actionwhere
"'yet the sign says three of them go in one group,' this is a bit weird and vague and unrealistic - no sign is gonna say that. it could be Tallis's teacher says to him: the shark has something that the octopus and jellyfish don't - do you know what it is? (I think delete the crab example, its not needed -- in general try to avoid weird contrived unrealistic scenarios like a sign that wouldn't actually exist at the equarium."applied: the intro rewritten in his shape (below); the crab deleted from the intro and from the summary's aquarium beat; 119 words, 2 question marks (the teacher's and the ready line), one scene, coins nothing, the "To find out, we will look at…" map line, the ready line and the unchanged poll. Vault: 10 Rules/No invented apparatus, agents or models in stems.md, 2026-10-02 section — the rule now reaches intro scenes, headaches and script beats (no sign, notice or label invented to pose the question; the question comes from a person who would ask it; the scene carries only the members the question uses); lines in write-video-script (intro step) and write-lesson (headache step)content/G3T34.py intro_script and summary_script; vault
"Right? - not enough wrods - is she right or wrong?"applied: L02 beat 1 "Mirren says it has no bones. Right?" → "Mirren says it has no bones. Is she right?"content/G3T34_lessons.py L02 script
"Remember, you should write proper sentences with subjects and verbs. e/g. 'Both vertebrates' - needs a verb --> both are vertebrates --> this is a general rule that i'veasked you to apply several times now - it should be written into the writing skills. maybe it needs to be its own skill… or maybe its part of the sentence atomiser --> you can make a call"applied: L02 beat 5 → "A fish has a line of bones from head to tail. A cat has bones down its back. Both are vertebrates."; beat 6 → "A turtle has a hard shell but a backbone inside, so it is a vertebrate. A crab has a hard shell but no bones inside, so it is an invertebrate." The call: the rule stays in sentence-atomise (its procedure already says "a named actor, a verb"); what was missing was a CHECK. New sweep S38 in build_tools_check_topic.py (with the verb lexicon build_tools_verbs.py) fails any student-facing sentence with no verb — scripts, article lines, headaches, stems, sentence options, fb, why; a beat whose video exists is a WARN "audio-edit candidate" instead. Run over all 42 topics: 338 fragments in the authoring chain fixed (Topic 34's 35 here; the rest by topic in grade3/records/SENTENCE_FRAGMENT_SWEEP_2026-10-02.md), 268 in rendered videos listed for him. Vault: new 10 Rules/Every sentence a student reads has a subject and a verb.md (his words as origin; scope: chips, labels, titles, noun-phrase options, Yes./No., the "your turn" close excluded); lines in skills/sentence-atomise, write-mcqs, write-video-script, write-lesson. Writing-Skills pack (~/Documents/Writing-Skills, commit fbb20bd): the rule in skills/atomise-sentences/SKILL.md with origin and boundary; a "fragment" flag in shared/check_voice.py; CHANGELOGcontent/G3T34_lessons.py; build_tools_check_topic.py, build_tools_verbs.py; vault; Writing-Skills
"'Here's everything we found out about which animals have bacbones...' that would be a better start probably"applied: summary beat 1 "Features, groups, backbones and arthropods. Here's everything we found out." → "Here's everything we found out about which animals have backbones, and how we sort animals into groups." The summary was 245 spoken words against the grade 3–5 cap of 175 (write-video-script, 1 Oct), so it was re-cut to 164: every lexicon sentence word for word, one example line per rule, the aquarium pay-off ("the shark has a backbone, and the jellyfish and the octopus have none. That is what the shark has that they don't."), the "First, features. / Next, the backbone. / And last, arthropods." list openers and the "That's the whole topic" tail cutcontent/G3T34.py summary_script

The new intro, in full

  1. Here's Tallis on a class trip, in the aquarium tunnel. A shark glides overhead, a jellyfish drifts past, and an octopus clings to the glass.
  2. His teacher points at the shark. 'It has something inside that the octopus and the jellyfish don't. Do you know what it is?'
  3. Tallis guesses eyes, but the octopus has two big eyes too. Then he guesses a mouth, but all three of them have a mouth.
  4. His teacher smiles. 'It's hidden inside, and scientists use it to sort every animal in the world into two groups.'
  5. To find out, we will look at sorting animals into groups by what their bodies have.
  6. Okay, so are you ready to start sorting animals? → poll (Yes, let's go! / Not sure yet / Let me watch that again)

Judgements