The end result of the leaked Ofsted inspection guide for English is going to be thousands of GCSE essays that attempt to spot polyptoton in the wild and then have literally nothing to say about its usage. Because, at KS4, there is pretty much nothing to say about polypbloodytoton

Every exam board - who have spent the last two years telling us to stop teaching pointless Greek rhetorical terms - weeping, rending garments at this guidance.

It's a curriculum vision that fetishises magpied Classics knowledge delivered as trivia. 'Knowledge of Classical... theories, such as those of Aristotle.' And 'knowledge of devices used in Renaissance literature and knowledge of techniques of oratory from Classical civilisations'

@TabitaSurge So canonical works (largely white men) are able to speak to pupils’ lives? Aargh

The construction of the canon here is too much for me to engage with on one morning twitter thread. But sweet Jesus. That's my placeholder.

@rhetorician Oh yeah. They give a specific example: "pupils identifying with Pip’s confusion about his identity, maybe not for the same reasons but being able to see the connections with their own lives" Hmmm

Important note: Ofsted has a new secondary English lead. @greeborunner, I know you cannot reply about any of this, but godspeed you in burning this all with cleansing fire

@TabitaSurge Struggling to access this dropbox. Is there anywhere else that it can be read?