MS Life Science — the one page for James (12 October 2026, late evening)
Where the build stands. Your Topic 1 review is applied: ten lessons (lessons 2, 3 and 4 cut as too obvious or already grade 3–5; the two tissue lessons merged and "cells" coined there; the five organ systems moved after the organ lesson; the heart carries lesson 10's attached question; the redundant last lesson became quiz questions; the ordering item is in the mixed quiz). Topics 2 and 3 were then audited against the same rulings: Topic 2 is ten lessons (the "spot an animal cell" lesson folded into "Plant cell or animal cell?"), Topic 3 is eight (its first three lessons now retrieve the grade-4 idea in one sentence and spend the video on the middle-school idea). Summaries are parked in all three topics; each topic ends mixed practice → PP100. Every changed question was read cold: 0 key disagreements across the three topics.
What to read: every video script on one page — Topic 2 is ready for your read. Under each lesson: its atom, the narration one beat per line (what is on screen in grey), the attached question, the essential questions with their keys, then the topic's mixed quiz. Tap Fine or Change this under each; Change this opens a box; Send sends it and shows "Sent hh:mm".
Topic 1 video batch is staged, not sent. You said Topic 1 is good to send to video once the fixes were in; the fixes are in and the batch (the intro plus ten lessons) is on disk awaiting your tap below. The Topic 1 end-of-topic test is written and read: 31 items to your 12 October spec (every taught atom has at least two; MCQ, closed typed or ordering; no free response). Two cold readers agreed every key, an examiner checked the questions and the science, the adjudicator took the give-aways out of the wording and replaced two re-dressed lesson scenes, and two fresh readers re-read the changed items. Read it on the Topic 1 page.
| Lessons | Essential questions | Attached questions | Mixed quiz | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Topic 1 | 10 | 76 | 10 | 16 |
| Topic 2 | 10 | 51 | 10 | 14 |
| Topic 3 | 8 | 46 | 8 | 11 |
Decisions
1. Send the Topic 1 videos now?
The course says: Topic 1 — the intro and ten lesson videos — is staged as the course's first batch for the video pipeline.
Why it is a question: - You said "topic 1 is good to send to video" with the fixes you asked for, and they are in. - You have not yet seen the fixed scripts (the heart question, the merged tissue lesson, the moved organ-systems lesson). - The course rule asks you before a course's first batch, so this is that ask. - One more hold, not yours: the render server has failed every MS Chemistry video today, so even after your tap the batch waits for a control render to succeed first.
Cost of changing it: a day's delay while you re-read Topic 1 on the scripts page.
My recommendation: send now — every changed line passed the script check and a cold read, and a changed video is cheap to re-make; it goes the moment the render server is back.
A: Send the Topic 1 batch now / B: Wait until I have re-read the Topic 1 scripts
2. Three lessons each carry two register atoms. Merge them in the knowledge graph?
The course says: Topic 1 lesson 6 carries LIF-013 and LIF-014 (a tissue, and what it is made of); lesson 10 carries LIF-017 and LIF-018 (order the five levels, and place a part at its level); Topic 2 lesson 8 carries LIF-028 and LIF-029 (spot a plant cell, spot an animal cell).
Why it is a question: - Each pair is one idea and its mirror or its application, and one video teaches both. - The register stays the test's map: a PP100 item is still tagged to one atom either way. - Merging makes the graph read like the course; keeping both keeps the finer tag for tests.
Cost of changing it: three register edits, logged, validated and pushed; no lesson changes.
My recommendation: keep two atoms on one lesson — the finer tag costs nothing and the tests use it.
A: Keep two atoms on one lesson / B: Merge each pair in the register
3. Three Topic 1 atoms are assumed, not taught. Is that right?
The course says: LIF-002, LIF-003 and LIF-004 (what living things need; living and non-living; once-living) are retrieved in Topic 1's practice and PP100 but have no lesson, because you cut lessons 2–4 as grade 3–5 repeats.
Why it is a question: - No student has taken the grade 3–5 courses yet, so the ideas arrive only as a recall sentence and a question. - The mixed quiz tests them (four items) and the PP100 will; a student who never met them sees them first in a test. - Giving them a lesson brings back what you cut.
Cost of changing it: one short video for the three, or three recall items before lesson 1.
My recommendation: assumed, tested in practice only — and three recall items before lesson 1, as Topics 2 and 3 do.
A: Assumed, with recall items before lesson 1 / B: Give them a lesson
4. Topic 3 recalls "the soil barely loses mass" four lessons before the willow. Keep it there?
The course says: A recall item before lesson 4 asks where a potted tree's material comes from when the soil barely loses mass; lesson 8's willow is the payoff of that idea.
Why it is a question: - The grade-5 idea is needed by lesson 4 (what a plant takes in), so the rule puts the retrieval there. - It makes lesson 8 the evidence and the mechanism, not the reveal. - Moving it to just before lesson 8 keeps the reveal but leaves lesson 4 without its retrieval.
Cost of changing it: re-point one recall item; no script changes.
My recommendation: keep it before lesson 4 — the willow's numbers still land as evidence, and lesson 4 needs the idea.
A: Keep the recall before lesson 4 / B: Move it to just before lesson 8
5. Does "vacuole" alone count as the third plant-cell mark?
The course says: The typed item asks for the three parts a plant cell has that an animal cell never has; the accept list requires "large vacuole", so "vacuole" alone is marked wrong.
Why it is a question: - You ruled the mark is ONE LARGE vacuole, because animal cells have small vacuoles too. - A student who types "cell wall, chloroplasts, vacuole" knows the three parts but not the point. - You accepted "membrane" alone and refused "wall" alone on the same page.
Cost of changing it: one accept list.
My recommendation: refuse "vacuole" alone — the word "large" is the whole point of the mark.
A: Refuse "vacuole" alone / B: Accept "vacuole" alone
6. Is the Topic 1 test served whole, or drawn from?
The course says: 31 items, two or three on each of the twelve taught ideas, 14 easy, 14 medium, 3 hard.
Why it is a question: - Served whole, a student meets every idea twice and the test is the same for everyone. - Drawn from, a shorter test is possible, but 31 is too few to draw 20 without most students seeing most of it. - The bank is written to be safe either way: no item hands over another's answer in wording, and a short draw-one list covers the rest.
Cost of changing it: none in the files; it is a platform setting.
My recommendation: served whole, as the end-of-topic test, until Becky's rework says what the platform does.
A: Serve all 31 as the test / B: Draw 20 from the 31
Applied without asking
Summaries parked in Topics 2 and 3 as in Topic 1 (nothing deleted). Topic 2 lesson 8 renamed "Plant cell or animal cell?" because it now tests both ways. Topic 3 lesson 2 keeps six questions (the four on-sight sorts stay in reserve as grade 4's); lesson 3 keeps four, its why carried by the attached question. The willow lesson stays taught, not assumed, as your exact-masses ruling treats it. The strand intro video stays (it teaches nothing and is not a summary). Topic 1 lesson 10's typed order closes a run of which-level questions on purpose: that is its quiz, where you put the which-level skill. Option order is not fixed across a topic; the page shuffles every item.
Your rulings, applied
- Topic 1 review (all 12 points), your seven page rulings (arrow "react to make"; "a green plant"; chloroplasts without "only"; three marks with the large vacuole; autotroph and heterotroph atoms; "hotter thing heats" for every band; the inbox), the willow exact with a difference question, reserves left reserved, and the 33 clusters on a simple page (held while Becky reworks the tests).