Hello there, Mr. Barnsley here.

Fantastic to see you today.

Thank you so much for joining me.

In today's lesson, we are gonna be exploring Winsome Pinnock's "Leave Taking," an absolutely fantastic play.

I love it.

This shouldn't be the first time you have read the play.

I am gonna assume some prior knowledge that you've read the play, you know the characters, you know the plot.

Today, we're taking a much deeper dive and we're focusing on one of the key settings in the play, one of the two key settings, and that's Enid's flat.

So we're gonna be really looking at Enid's flat today and why Winsome Pinnock chose to set so much of a play in this location.

You're gonna want to make sure you have a copy of the text in front of you.

We will be referring to it throughout.

Remember, that is published by Nick Hearn Books.

Okay, if you are ready, I'm ready.

Let's get started.

So let's have a look at today's outcome then.

By the end of the lesson, you will be able to explain how Winsome Pinnock uses the symbolism of Enid's flat to explore themes from the play, such as identity, conflict, and integration.

So that word, integration, that was in our outcome is one of our key words today, and it means the process of adapting to and becoming part of a new society.

Someone who integrates might move somewhere, but really becomes part of society and community when they get there.

If something is described as being paradoxical, it is something that appears contradictory, or two things that appear in conflict with each other.

But often, if we look at something that's paradoxical in detail, if we analyse it in detail, it can often reveal a deeper truth to us.

Another word to look out for today is heritage, and this is the traditions, the beliefs, the cultural elements that's passed down from previous generations, and they can often shape a person's identity and sense of belonging.

And finally, the final word we were looking for today is sanctuary, and this is somewhere that is a safe or comforting space, and it often provides emotional and spiritual refuge, safety from external pressures or conflicts.

So do keep an eye out for these four words today.

See if you can use them also in your own discussion and writing.

So as mentioned, we are gonna be exploring Enid's flat today, one of the two main settings in "Leave Taking." Two learning cycles today.

We'll make sure we understand Enid's flat and what it means to different characters, and then we will use it to inform our writing, specifically thinking about the use of it as symbolism.

So let's start by understanding Enid's flat.

So over to you to kick us off with a discussion question.

We know Enid's flat is one of the major settings in the play.

Can you remember which key events occur here? If you've got a partner, you can share some ideas, talk with them, but don't worry if you're working by yourself, you can just note down some of the ideas.

Of course, you want your copy of the play to hand, published by Nick Hearn Books.

So do have that open so you can flick through and remind yourselves in case you have forgotten anything.

All right, pause the video over to you.

What are the key events that happen or take place in Enid's flat.

Press play when you're ready to continue.

Welcome back.

I'm sure many of you there were flicking through your copy of the play, and that's fantastic.

That's exactly what you should be doing.

I wonder if you mentioned any of these events that you can see on screen now.

You might have talked about the argument that happens between Enid and her daughter, Dell which actually results, ends up in Enid slapping her daughter.

You might have talked about another argument that happens between Brod and Enid, and they argue over their memories of Jamaica.

We also see that really upsetting moment where Enid learns about and continues to mourn the death of her mother, who she felt very distant from.

They were obviously distant in where they were situated in the world.

Her mother was in Jamaica and she was in London, but they were also kind of emotionally quite distanced, but we still saw Enid really struggling with her grief.

We know that Brod and Enid kind of have more than one argument in this flat, and eventually, this leads to Brod being kicked out.

We also know, we don't see this in the play, but we know that there was kind of more, even more serious conflict that happened in the play when Brod telling Del that Enid suffered domestic abuse from Del's father, and that obviously happened in this flat before the play had begun.

So do you notice any connection between all these events that happen in Enid's flat? Do you notice any form of connection? Why don't you take a moment to pause the video and have a think, look at those what you can see on screen or think about anything else that you discussed? What connections do you see? Again, if you have a partner, you can do this together, you can share some ideas, or you can just think through this independently.

Do press play when you've got some ideas.

Well done for thinking so carefully there.

I wonder if you said something similar to what you can see on the screen, that all of these events are connected in some way by conflict.

So we actually see that Enid's flat, one of the two major settings, really becomes a setting, a place of conflict.

And very often, it exemplifies not only these physical conflicts between kind of two or more characters, but also this conflict that Enid feels within herself, this distance she feels from her previous life and her family and her identity in Jamaica.

So not only do we have this kind of external conflict, but well done if you started talking about internal conflict as well.

All right, so we have mentioned that the play has two settings, Enid's flat and Mai's bedsit.

This means that when the play is stage, these are the two locations that will be visible.

Remember, we're thinking about stagecraft, we're thinking about decisions made here.

And one decision that Pinnock made is that she wanted her play set in these two different locations.

How do you think or what do you remember about how these two locations differ physically? How might they look different? You can do this from memory, but if you want to go back and remind yourself by flicking through the text, particularly looking at some of the stage directions, those descriptions at the top of each scene, that might help you here.

Again, I want you to pause the video.

You can do this in pairs or small groups, or you can work through this independently if you're working at home.

Okay, pause the video, give this a go, and press play when you are ready to continue.

Welcome back.

I wonder if you said some of these things about Enid's flat.

It's quite large and spacious.

The space is very clean and orderly.

We see Enid cleaning and taking great care in the cleaning of her flat early on in the play.

The focus is very much on domestic life, okay? We see kind of cleaning, we hear about Enid's job, we see Viv studying in this flat.

It's very much a domestic space.

And there's very little links to kind of spiritual life, and also, there's kind of much fewer links to Enid's Jamaican past.

Now, if we compare this to Mai's bedsit, we know that Mai's bedsit, of course in nature, a bedsit is a very small space.

Remember, a bedsit is where all of the living spaces, so kitchen, living room, bedroom, are all in one space.

The only kind of separate space is likely to be the bathroom.

And this space, whilst being small, is also very messy.

It's very cluttered, but in contrast, we know it includes lots of artefacts, particularly linked to obeah beer, and these are linked to Mai's Jamaican heritage.

Also, remembering that there is a lot of connection there between African spiritual past and Jamaican heritage.

So there is really, I think we could say, and well done if you spotted this, some clear contrast between the two different settings.

So let's continue to think then.

We're always thinking when we think about stagecraft, why has the playwright decided to do this? And so let's start thinking about how do these two different settings vary in what they mean to different characters? So I'm gonna give you some keywords.

I want you to try and use Always, one of them isn't one of our keywords from the beginning, but some of these are other words that I want to try and use in your discussion.

Ambition, the desire to do more and be better.

Stagnation, the idea that things kind of stay the same and can feel sometimes quite claustrophobic.

Sanctuary, a reminder that's one of our keywords, kind of a place of safety.

And conflict, of course, can mean kind of physical or verbal altercations, but can also be inner kind of conflict that characters might have.

All right, so over to you to do in pairs, small groups, or by yourself, think about how do these two settings vary, how do they differ in what they mean to different characters? All right, pause the video, give this a go, and press play when you've got some ideas that you're ready to share.

Welcome back.

I'm sure you are having some really great discussions there.

I'm sure you had some brilliant ideas.

Let's have a look at some of these on the screen and you can compare yours to some of the ideas that I might be sharing with you.

So again, let's start with Enid's flat and then we'll compare it to Mai's bedsit.

So Enid's flat can definitely be seen as this place of ambition and progress.

We can see Viv studying for the future.

She wants to do well, she's ambitious, she wants to improve her life, and we know that Enid is working really hard because she wants to kind of integrate into society and she might view hard work as being a British trait.

She really wants to show that she's integrating inside.

She wants to create a better life for herself and her daughters.

However, despite the material comfort, the fact that this feels like a very domesticated space, it's actually still quite a significant place of conflict.

We see lots of different kinds of conflict, generational conflict between mother and daughters.

We see or we hear of the domestic conflict between Enid and the girl's father, who is obviously no longer on the scene.

We know that there is cultural conflict.

We see this in Enid's grief as she learns about her mother's death and the distance that kind of feels from her Jamaican culture, her Jamaican heritage.

And we see that actually this is a lot of place where emotional distance between Enid and other characters occurred.

Her mother, Brod and Del, all we see the beginnings of this emotional distance certainly occurring in Enid's flat.

In contrast, you might have said that, actually, Mai's bedsit appears to be a place of stagnation.

A reminder that often bedsits were seen as supposedly temporary accommodation when people immigrated from Jamaica as part of the Windrush regeneration.

These were supposed to be seen as temporary accommodation, but often people didn't manage to earn the money to move out of these, and so we could argue this is a quite a stagnant place and, Mai is kind of caught between kind of her life in Jamaica and this new life in in Britain.

However, saying that, we could also say that this is a place of sanctuary and support for many of the characters.

We know that both Del and Brod turn up in Mai's bedsit when they have been kind of had arguments with Enid, but even Enid herself we see kind of going to Mai's bedsit as a place of safety and sanctuary.

Well done if you said anything on screen.

Of course, you might have slightly different ideas as well and that's perfectly fine.

That's great, in fact, as long as you are justifying those ideas with moments from the text.

All right, let's do a quick check then.

Check we've been following everything we've been discussing so far.

Which of the the words below can best be associated with Enid's flat, fo you think? Is that A, transience, kind of caught between two states? Is it B, conflict? Is it C, sanctuary? Or is it D, clutter? Which of those words do you think best describes or can best be associated with Enid's flat? Pause the video, have a think, and press play when you've got an answer.

Welcome back.

Great work if you said B, conflict.

Of course, I would use all of those other words in association with Mai's bedsit, so well done if you'd spotted that as well.

All right, onto our first task of today and we're gonna do some comparison, and we're gonna compare the description of Mai's bedsit in the opening scene or the opening stage directions of scene one, with the description of Enid's flat in the stage directions at the start of scene two.

You are gonna want your copy of the text open or in front of you, although I will be sharing these extracts on the screen shortly.

What we're gonna do is we are gonna note the differences, and I want you to use the following questions to guide you.

So what differences do you see between these two places? Let's see if we can physically find evidence now in the text.

But the real challenging question here is always thinking about why.

Okay, so thinking about what is Pinnock's purpose here? Why did she choose to stage or to set her play across these two different settings? So what does Pinnock suggest about how each of those two different characters, Mai and Enid, and how they see their place in British society, and how is she doing that through their accommodation? So through the bedsit and through the flat, so a really challenging question there.

You're having to look at the differences and then start to analyse, what is this telling us about the characters? All right, let's have a look at those two extracts then, shall we? They are on the screen for you now.

Of course, you can find them in your copy of the text.

So time for you to pause the video, read through both of these descriptions, and then start to annotate what are the differences, and most importantly, what do they tell us about the two characters and how they view themselves and their place in British society? All right, good luck on this.

press play when you're ready to continue.

All right, welcome back.

I'm sure you had so many interesting ideas there, and this is why I find analysing stagecraft so interesting because we can definitely make comments about characters from their dialogue, from the things they say, but I think it's a real skill to look at the rest of the text, the stage directions around there and make these inferences, make these analysis about the characters.

And obviously, even more challenging when we're comparing two characters, comparing and contrasting two characters.

So I want to share some of the ideas of things that you might have said.

You can compare these to your annotations, and of course, you can add these to your annotations if I say something that you hadn't thought of.

So first of all, you might have talked about the difference between the clutter of Mai's bedsit and the cleanliness of Enid's, and we know that Mai's bedsit is very chaotic and this symbolises her kind of disconnection and isolation from British society.

We know she's kind of stuck in this state between her kind of her her culture and her identity and her life in Jamaica and this new life that she's trying to forge, whereas we could argue that Enid's flat, is clean, orderly, and this could reflect her desire to have this stable life in Britain and to be respected in British society.

You might have noticed this difference between the spirituality of Mai's bedsit in comparison to the more domestic scene of Enid's.

Now we know that Mai's space contains these spiritual and specialised elements, half-burnt candle, the scattered playing cards, and this really emphasises her to her spiritual traditions, those that are kind of Caribbean, rooted in African and Caribbean heritage and history, whereas Enid's flat is very different in contrast.

And this really centres on the domestic, it emphasises cleanliness, and also we see it's a place where Viv can study.

And this probably shows that Enid is prioritising family, she's prioritising work, she prioritises education.

These are all values that she really associates with success and integration in Britain.

And kind of leading on from that, we could talk about the difference between disconnect and integration.

Mai's bedsit really does feel like this transient space between two worlds, detached from British norms. It's got these spiritual and ritualistic elements that connect her to her roots, her Caribbean roots, and much more focused on her past rather than her present or even her future, whereas Enid, on the other hand, her space seems to be really focused on the here and now.

She's arguably working more on integrating into British society, improving her family's place and life in community, and she does this through discipline and hard work.

There's also this kind of tension between the stagnation, things staying the same, and this desire for progress, and we talked about stagnation being kind of a word we might associate with Mai's space.

She kind of slumped in her chair, she struggles with writing, she contrasts sharply with this really forward-looking character we see kind of really early on with Enid, and particularly, her desire to keep her flat clean.

This combined with Viv's studying really shows this focus on progress, improvement, future.

And again, we could really link these to aspirations and values within British society, or certainly what Enid herself associates with the value of British society, okay? And it's really important here that we're not saying this is exactly how, this is Britain's values.

This is how Enid is viewing Britain's values or the values of British society at the time.

Loads of really great ideas there.

Really thinking deeply about what these two settings tell us about the characters.

I do wonder if there are any other moments in the play, so we've just talked about our initial introduction to those two settings.

Can you think of any other moments in the play that link to any of these ideas that we've discussed? Why don't you pause the video if you've got a partner, you can discuss that together, or otherwise, you can just think through independently.

And of course, now is the time to add any further annotations to your work that you've done.

Alright, press play when you're ready to move on to our next learning cycle.

Okay, welcome back.

We are now ready.

We've done lots of great thinking, you've got some fantastic ideas.

Now it's time to turn this into writing about the symbolism, the importance of Enid's flat.

So Izzy made the following comment about Enid's flat.

Izzy is one of our Oak pupils, and she said, "It seems to me that, in some ways, Enid's flat is paradoxical." There's lots of contrast there.

"On one hand, it symbolises how Enid feels a sense of belonging in England, where she successfully made her home, but in other ways, it arguably symbolises her lack of belonging within her family and her lack of connection to her Jamaican past." What do you think led Izzy to make this comment? Pause the video.

Have a think in pairs or by yourself.

Why might Izzy have said this? What evidence could you use to justify that? All right, pause the video, have a think, and press play when you're ready to continue.

Welcome back.

You may have said something along the lines of what you can see on the screen, that the flat's very modern, it's very spacious, and it obviously reflects the relative success and integration into British society, which Enid is very proud of.

She feels comfortable with incorporating British culture into the house, Shakespeare, historically part of Britain's literary heritage, and she sees her daughter as English.

She describes 'em as her English daughters because obviously they were born there.

However, as we mentioned, it's also a scene of many major conflicts in the play, with Del, with Brod, and even kind of the conflict she has with her memory of Mooma, and so we can see there is also this internal conflict, this emotional distance from her Jamaican family and her Jamaican past.

Okay, really well done if you said something similar to what you can see on the screen.

Okay, let's check our understanding then.

True or false? In the play, Enid describes her daughters as my, "Jamaican girls." Is that true or false? Pause the video, have a think, and press play when you've got an idea.

Yeah, well done if you said that was false.

Why might you have said false? Well, you should have remembered, or hopefully you remembered that she refers to her daughters as her English girls, not her Jamaican girls, which potentially suggests that she believes that she and her family have made a really successful attempt at integrating in British society.

Okay, really well done if you got that correct.

So we could say that Enid's flat arguably symbolises both her success in integration since coming to the England, but also the conflicts that she experiences with her Jamaican past.

Look at that tentative language, arguably.

We're saying, look, we're not saying it definitely does.

We're saying it could symbolise either of these things.

What themes then could this idea link to to when we're writing an essay about "Leave Taking?" We know when we are writing about a text, we always want to link to kind of themes that we see running across the text.

So we're taking this kind of small focus of Enid's flat and we want to try and apply it to our understanding of the text as a whole.

What themes could this idea link to when you're writing about "Leave Taking" in an essay? All right, pause video, have a think with a partner or by yourself, and press play when you've got some ideas.

Welcome back.

I'm sure you had lots of ideas there.

You might have talked about identity, you might have talked about family, you might have talked about belonging, you might have talked about conflict, both generational, domestic conflict, you might have talked about culture and tradition.

So you can see these are most of our main themes in this play, and Enid's flat, the setting of Enid's flat, the decision to set so much of the play in this setting can be linked to all of these key themes.

So it's a really useful structural device that we can talk about in our analysis.

So Andeep, one of our Oak pupils, is writing an analytical essay, and he's been tasked with answering the following question.

How does Pinnock explore ideas around identity and belonging in "Leave Taking?" Now, this is a very kind of typical kind of question we may be asked.

It's about one of the really major themes, identity and belonging.

Now, what I want you to think about is thinking about the character of Enid specifically, what could Andeep include in this essay that we might not have thought about before? Think about everything we've talked about in today's lesson.

Pauses the video, have a think in pairs or by yourself, and press play when you are ready to continue.

Welcome back.

I wonder, I really, really, really hope that you said not only could we talk about the things that Enid does and the words that Enid says, we can absolutely talk about the setting of Enid's flat, Enid's home and do some analysis of that and tell us what that tells us about identity and belonging.

Okay, Andeep had a go at writing the first part of his main body paragraph, and he said this, let's read through it together.

"Pinnock uses the intergenerational conflict between Enid and her daughters to explore ideas around identity and belonging.

Significantly, the play opens with Enid taking her daughters to an obeah reading, which Del calls, "Stupid, "Voodoo, and "Mumbo jumbo." Del hurts Enid, "You go too far," but the succession of insults also shows Del doesn't understand or respect an aspect of her and her mother's cultural identity.

This misunderstanding goes two ways.

In scene two, Del accuses her mother of not acknowledging the racial discrimination Del faces as a second-generation immigrant, describing police vans as hunting us down, a metaphor which expresses Del's feelings of vulnerability in her own home." Okay, this is the start of the paragraph, one that we're gonna be developing further, what's successful about it? Before we move on and develop it further, what is successful about it? Pause the video, have a think, and press play when you've got some ideas.

Welcome back.

Well done if you say that this started with a really clear topic sentence.

We're gonna be talking about intergenerational conflict between Enid and her daughters here.

Well done if you said there's kind of lots of quotations from the play, ones that we're gonna analyse in detail, but there's also some supporting quotations.

Actually these are just gonna help prove our point.

We're not gonna zoom in on them, we're not gonna say lots about them, we're just gonna use them to kind of support our argument, and that's what we want to see in a good analytical paragraph, a clear argument and then lots of quotation, either to analyse or to support our arguments further.

All right, onto our final task of today's lesson.

You are gonna develop Andeep's answer by including some analysis of the symbolism of Enid's flat.

So everything we've talked about today, you are going to continue Andeep's response talking about intergenerational conflict, but we're gonna do this through the analysis of Enid's flat.

I'm gonna put some supporting details on the screen that are gonna help you.

So a reminder, the question is how does Pinnock explore ideas about identity and belonging in "Leave Taking?" And here is the supporting details.

So this is part of Andeep's plan.

You are gonna use these ideas and develop them, turn them into fully fleshed analytical sentences in the part of the paragraph.

So some of the supporting detail we're gonna talk about, Enid's scrubbing and tidying, and this could symbolise her pride in where she lives and the improvement that she feels, the improvement of her life she's seen since moving from Jamaica.

We could have the focus on cleaning, and we could even talk about the contrast with the clutter of Mai's bedsit.

There are some quotations you could use.

And we could also talk about how Enid cleaning contrasts with Viv studying, reflecting this generational cultural differences, but all about kind of ambition and integration, and in Enid's world, bettering herself.

And you can think about whether bettering themselves or kind of this ambition is something that Del and Viv approve of in comparison to their mother.

All right, this is a chance for you to put everything that you've learned today together and really start working on this deep analysis and the symbolism of setting.

I know you can do this.

I feel really confident that you've got all the knowledge that you need, but it's over to you now.

So pause the video, best of luck, and press play when you are done.

Welcome back, really, really great work there and really well done to anyone who checked their spelling, punctuation, grammar before they put their pen down.

That is what we like to see.

All right, let's have a look at a model answer to see how you could have approached this task.

So one of our Oak pupils said, "Pinnock uses Enid's flat to explore the tension between identity and belonging.

We are introduced to Enid scrubbing and tidying the flat, which reflects her desire for respectability and her effort to integrate into British society.

Enid's focus on scrubbing the floor while Viv sits with books balanced on her lap highlights their emphasis on discipline, work, and academic success.

However, the flat lacks any overt connection to Enid's Jamaican past in contrast to Mai's cluttered bedsit, which is filled with spiritual symbols, like a half-burnt candle, playing cards scattered all over, symbolising Mai's connection to her Caribbean roots, something Enid appears disconnected from." Let's take a moment then.

Can you identify the topic sentence-supporting quotations and main quotations in this analysis? And as you are doing that, if there's any ideas that you like from this model answer, why don't you take a moment to embed them into your own? Okay, pause the video, take a moment to reflect, and improve if you need to, and then press play when you're ready to complete today's lesson.

Okay, that's it.

We've reached the end of today's lesson, and what a fantastic job you have done.

Some really detailed discussions, and of course, analysis at the end, written analysis at the end there.

Well done.

I'm really, really proud of you.

On the screen, you can see a summary of the key learning.

Let's quickly go through that together.

It's really important you feel confident before you move on to our next lesson.

So we've learned today that Enid's flat symbolises conflict, both generational and cultural within her family.

We've learned that the clean, orderly flat reflects Enid's desire for stability and integration into British society.

We know that Mai's bedsit contrasts with Enid's flat, representing spiritual and cultural roots through its clutter and artefacts.

We also know the lack of Jamaican cultural elements in Enid's flat highlights her emotional distance from her Jamaican past.

And we know that Enid's domestic focus and Viv's academic pursuits really reflect generational differences in values and aspirations.

All right, really well done today.

I think you've done a fantastic job.

I do hope to see you in one of our lessons again in the future.

All right, have a great day and see you all soon.

Bye-bye.