Hello there, Mr. Barnsley here.

Thank you so much for joining me today.

In today's lesson, we are gonna be continuing our exploration of Winston Pinnock's fantastic play, "Leave Taking".

In today's lesson, we are going to be exploring the role that the country of Jamaica plays in the play, and particularly how different characters' views and memories of Jamaica really impact their sense of belonging in the United Kingdom.

Now, you are going to need your copy of "Leave Taking" by Winston Pinnock that was published by Nick Hern Books.

Do make sure you have that in front of you, as we're gonna be needing to make reference to it today.

Also, this shouldn't be the first time you are studying "Leave Taking." I am gonna expect some knowledge, understanding, and memory of the text.

Knowledge of the plot and the characters.

So, if you don't feel really confident, maybe you need to spend some time studying the play before you dive into today's lesson.

So, if you are feeling ready to start, I'm feeling ready to start, then I think we should.

Let's go.

Okay, then by the end of today's lesson, you will be able to analyse how different characters and their perceptions of Jamaica influence their identities and their experiences in the UK.

So, some key words we're gonna keep an eye out for.

The first is nostalgia.

And this is a real sentimental longing for or affection for the past.

Often, when we are feeling really nostalgic, we really idealise the past.

We think it was perfect or had very little faults.

We don't always remember the things that maybe were imperfect about whatever it is that we are kind of remembering.

Imperialism is a policy of extending a country's power and influence through colonisation or military force.

So, you may have learned in history or you may know through your study of different texts in English that Britain were an imperialist force, and particularly relevant for this text.

There is an imperialist history with Britain and Jamaica.

So, belonging, the word belonging, we know is one of our key themes in this play.

And it means a feeling of being connected to or accepted by a particular group of people, a place, or a community.

And finally, the word pragmatic, which we will be using later, means if someone is pragmatic, they deal with a situation in a really practical, in a really realistic way.

They base it on practical considerations rather than ideals, and hopes, and wishes, and dreams. So let's keep an eye out for these four words.

Let's see if we can use them in our discussions and let's see if we can use them in our analysis, because there are two parts in today's lesson where we are looking at the role of Jamaica in "Leave Taking." Firstly, we're gonna think about the character's perceptions, Jamaica, how different characters feel about the country.

And then we're gonna move on to writing.

We're gonna do a piece of analytical writing in the second half of today's lesson.

So, let's start by thinking about our different characters and their perceptions of Jamaica.

Now, Jamaica is really interesting when we think about setting and stage craft in "Leave Taking," because none, absolutely zero, of our action on stage takes place in Jamaica.

However, we know that the country, the idea of Jamaica, still has a really large presence on the play.

So, I want you to think about, remind yourself what references are made to Jamaica in the play by our characters.

This can be done as a discussion activity.

So, if you have a partner or if you've got small group to work with, then you can pause the video and discuss work with them.

But do not worry if you're working by yourself.

You can just think through this.

You can even make a few notes if you wish.

Now, I think this is a perfect opportunity to make reference to our text.

So, you should have a copy of Winston Pinnock's "Leave Taking" in front of you published by Nick Hern books.

Do make sure you have in front of you and flick through it if you need to remind yourself.

All right, over to you, pause the video, give this a go, and press play when you're ready to continue.

Welcome back.

Let's share some of the ideas that you might have had.

You can compare these to the discussions you were having and the thoughts you were doing independently.

So, things that you might have said.

Well, in scene three, we know that Viv says that she wants to travel to Jamaica.

So, she was born in the UK, she wants to travel to Jamaica.

We know Brod teaches the girls, both Del and Viv, quite a lot about Jamaican history.

He talks about the Ashanti warrior queen in in scene two.

But Enid in contrast talks about her hard life in Jamaica, the poverty she experienced.

And she says that you don't understand what poverty does to people.

She says that in scene four.

We see Enid and Brod, two characters who have emigrated from Jamaica to the UK.

We see them reminisce about one specific memory that they shared together, a service with Pastor Johnson during a hurricane.

And of course, we can't talk about Jamaica without the scenes of grief that we see as Enid kind of comes to terms with the death of her mother, and these real conflicting memories that she has both about her mother and that relationship to Jamaica, which Mooma often represents to Enid.

So, we can see there across many scenes, Jamaica plays a really significant part in this play, even though none of the play is set there.

So, after reading the play, what about Oak pupils, Aisha, says this? She says, "It really comes across how different characters in 'Leave Taking' have been constructed by Pinnock, have been created, have been made by Pinnock, to have very different perceptions of Jamaica and the role it plays in their lives." So, what I really love about this comment is this, the use of verb constructed.

Aisha is already showing that Pinnock has made really deliberate decisions to have her characters feel different things, different emotions towards Jamaica, and that's been done really, really purposefully.

And that's what we're gonna be thinking about in today's lesson.

And in particular, we are gonna be thinking about these three characters, Brod, Enid, and Viv.

So, over to you to get our brains in gear and let's get thinking, what perceptions of Jamaica has Pinnock given the above characters? So, what events in the play might have led them to think this way? So, Brod, Enid, Viv.

Over to you.

If you've got a partner or in small groups, you can discuss, share your ideas together.

If you're working by yourself, you can just think through this question independently.

All right, pause the video, do some thinking, and press play when you're ready to continue.

Welcome back.

I hope you gave yourself plenty of discussion and thinking time there.

Really well done to anyone who was flicking through the copies of the text.

I think it's always really, really powerful if you can link any of your analysis and link any of your ideas to specific moments in the text.

So, well done if that was you, that's great to see.

All right, let's start with the character, Brod, and think about his perceptions of Jamaica and why he might perceive it in that way.

So, you might have used one of our keywords today, nostalgic.

Pinnock has crafted Brod to be really idealistic and nostalgic towards Jamaica.

He thinks back really positively on his memories there, perhaps overlooking some of the negatives.

He's just kind of idealising it.

And we see this through.

He sees the land as pure rainforest.

And that could be, you know, a real contrast to what he might see as the grey suburbia of London.

He might also think of, like, the defiance of this nature kind of blooming up in Jamaica and defiance to the British rule and imperialism.

We could argue then that his views have been shaped, because he's actually received a lot of negative treatment in the UK.

He's perceived as being an alien.

That's a quote from the text, but it's a term used by someone who doesn't, you know, isn't from here.

And this is a term that was used by the British government.

So you can see it's quite ostracising, isolating language.

And you could definitely argue that this negative treatment of Brod really does help him, you know, or kind of cause him to have this more nostalgic and idealistic way of remembering his past in Jamaica.

And perhaps, you know, this negativity he has towards Britain clouds some of the negativity that he may have had to Jamaica before he moved.

In contrast, we have the character of Enid.

Now, we see her views of Jamaica are very pragmatic.

They're based in kind of reality.

She remembers her hardships there.

She talks about the poverty and the hard life she has.

Pinnock really shows her as someone who understands that her life relatively and the poverty that she faced has improved, has got better since she moved to England.

So, we could argue that her views are shaped by the successes that she's achieved and the way that she feels she's integrated in England.

Perhaps this is because she started a family.

She's got two daughters who were born in the UK and she sees that as a success.

She sees that as integration.

She obviously also sees the success of her daughters, particularly Viv, who we know is academic and studying throughout the play.

Now, moving on to Viv, or what can we say about Viv? Viv is different to Enid and Brod.

Her experiences of Jamaica are not based on her history and her experience, because she has been born in the UK.

So, we could argue that Viv is someone who's got very curious view towards Jamaica.

She wants to develop her her own firsthand experience with it, because she doesn't have it, okay? She's a second generation immigrant, which means her parents immigrated but she was born in the UK.

However, she still sees Jamaica as a really important part of her identity.

She understands its hardships, but she also sees the positives.

So, perhaps we could say that her views have been formed by the conflicting recollections of Enid's and Brod.

She's hearing both of them, she's listening to both of them, and she's not dismissing either of them.

And actually, in some ways, she perhaps has the most realistic vision of Jamaica, even though she's the one with the least personal experience.

That is something you might wish to argue.

All right, let's check our understanding.

See how we're getting along then.

Viv only hears about Jamaica through the secondhand accounts of Enid and Brod.

Which of the below do you think best describes Viv's perceptions of Jamaica? Is it A, curious, B, pragmatic, C, nostalgic, or D, idealistic? Pause video, have a think, and press play when you've got an answer.

Great job if you said A, curious, okay? We know she doesn't have any firsthand experience, so she to kind of her account of Jamaica, her understanding of Jamaica, and her vision for Jamaica off is coming from accounts, of very different accounts, of Enid and Brod.

All right, over to you then for our first task.

We are gonna complete a table, which will appear on the screen very shortly.

And you are gonna explore each character's perception of Jamaica.

We're gonna kind of collect some notes here, make notes on the three characters, what we've discussed so far.

I have included some prompts, some prompting questions in the table.

So, for Brod, questions that might want to kind of get you thinking, what does Jamaica represent for Brod? How have his views been shaped by his life in Britain? And for Enid, arguably, Enid's perception of Jamaica are very complex.

Why are they so complex? And then think about Viv.

How do Viv's views towards Jamaica show a generational difference? Think about her being a second generation immigrant.

Okay, I really want us now to collect all the things that we've discussed so far.

Show all the learning, capture all the learning that you've been working on, that you've been kind of discussing today.

You've done a great job so far.

All right, pause the video, over to you, good luck, and press play when you think you are done.

Okay, welcome back.

I'm sure some fantastic work going on there and are really well done, again, to any of you who were flicking through your copy of the text to support any of your arguments or ideas with specific examples.

I'm just gonna go through Brod.

We could go through all three characters, but let's have a look at some of the things we might have written for Brod, and then we can reflect on the other characters independently.

So, for Brod we could have said that he sees Jamaica as a place of intense, natural beauty.

So, land of wood and water, pure rainforest.

He celebrates Jamaican history and he educates Viv about the defiance of warrior tribes to British rule.

"She led the slave rebellions." He feels more connected to his Jamaican identity due to his negative treatment in Britain.

"I make sure me Jamaican passport up to date." Okay, so that's his link.

That passport is a kind of a physical symbol of his link to his Jamaican identity.

And he sees the poverty and struggle in Jamaica as a direct result of British colonial greed.

So, he's not ignoring that poverty and struggle exists, but he is not saying that this is a fault of Jamaica, but this is a a fault of the imperialism, and he actually calls it vampirism.

He almost comparing Britain to a vampire sucking the blood from Jamaica.

So, he's not completely ignoring this idea of poverty and struggle, which we know what Enid associates with Jamaica, but he sees this as a direct result of Britain.

He blames Britain and their colonial greed, that imperialism for this.

Take a moment now to pause the video.

If there's any ideas about Brod that you like on the screen that weren't in your table, you can add them now.

And also take a moment to reread your answers on Enid and Viv.

And if there's anything else you want to add, now is the time to do so.

Press play when you are ready to move on to our second learning cycle.

Okay, you've done some fantastic work so far, some really great discussions.

We were thinking about this text and the importance of Jamaica, the significance in Jamaica.

Some really complex ideas.

So, well done.

But now, it is time to turn these into some bits of analytical writing.

So, Andeep is answering the following question, how does Pinnock use Brod to explore ideas around belonging in "Leave Taking"? He creates the following topic sentence for one of his paragraphs.

This is how he's gonna start his paragraph.

He says, "Pinnock use Scene Two to present Brod as a character who, unlike Enid, voices political and social criticisms of 1980s Britain." He's gonna link this idea of belonging, or maybe a lack of belonging in Brod's case to political and social criticism of Britain.

What I want you to think about is, how could Andeep develop this paragraph? How could he use Brod's perceptions of Jamaica to develop his point further? So, use some of the ideas that we've discussed today.

All right, pause the video, have a quick think with your partner or by yourself, and press play when you've got some ideas.

Welcome back.

I'm sure you had some really great discussions there.

Let's see if you said anything similar to some of the ideas that Andeep, one of our pupils had.

So, this was Andeep's topic sentence.

What might he want to say here? Well, he could contrast Brod's negative view of Britain with a much more positive and idealistic view of Jamaica.

That pure rainforest is a good quote for that.

We could also reference Brod's sense of belonging to Jamaica, that quote about keeping his passport up to date.

And this could be due to his treatment as an alien in Britain.

He could also link Brod's criticism of 1980s Britain to the wider criticism of Britain's role in Jamaica's past.

So, the imperialism and the vampirism, this word that he creates.

So, let's have a look then.

Andeep's taken all of these ideas that we've discussed.

He's gonna turn this into a paragraph.

Let's read this together and see how this flows.

See how this works as an analytical paragraph.

So, "Brod's nostalgic view of Jamaica fuels his political and social criticism of 1980s Britain.

He contrasts Jamaica's natural beauty and history of resistance symbolised by figures like Ashanti warrior queen with the oppression of British colonialism, which he labels as imperialism, vampirism.

This critique stems from his own alienation in Britain, where he feels like an outsider or alien.

His attachment to Jamaica symbolised by keeping his Jamaican passport up to date highlights his rejection of British society, which he views as oppressive and exclusive.

Pinnock uses Brod to voice frustrations with the inequalities and racial injustices of 1980s Britain, positioning Jamaica as a symbol of strength and belonging in contrast to the exclusion he faces in the UK." I really, really like that final sentence.

Obviously, it's all good.

There's some really great analysis there, thinking about the arguments we want to make using quotation from the text, but that final sentence, "Pinnock uses Brod," okay? It's, again, always thinking about those very deliberate decisions that a playwright uses.

They've created this character for a purpose.

And what is the purpose? To voice frustration with the racial injustices, with the inequalities faced by migrants in a 1980s Britain.

All right, before we get writing our own, let's do a quick check that we're understanding what words does Brod use to describe British rule in Jamaica? A, imperialism, B, colonialism, C, vampirism, D, expansionism.

Pause video, have a think, and press play when you've got the answer or answers.

Yes, of course, you should have said A and C there.

Well done if you've got that correct.

Okay, Izzy is answering a different question.

She's been tasked with answering this question.

How does Pinnock use Enid to explore ideas around belonging in "Leave Taking"? She creates the following topic sentence.

"Pinnock uses Enid to explore how a migrant sense of belonging can be divided, as Enid is torn between the hardship of her Jamaican past and the challenges of building a life in Britain." Okay, over to you.

How could Izzy develop this idea with links to Enid's perceptions of Jamaica? So, again, we're focusing on Jamaica today.

What could we say? Think of all the discussions we've had.

What evidence could we use to develop Izzy's point further? Pause the video, think independently or with a partner, and press play when you've got some ideas.

Welcome back.

Let's have a look at some of the things that you might have said.

So, you might have said, "She could link Enid's sense of belonging to the hardships she experienced in Jamaica and the harsh poverty that she grew up with." That's why she probably sees Britain kind of more positively.

"She could also represents the emotional hardship she experienced in Jamaica with a mother who never say a word to her." So, kind of this really difficult relationship she has with family and how that can cause inner conflict as well with her relationship with Jamaica.

"And she could also link Enid's relative successes compared to characters like Mai and Del, to her more pragmatic, practical, and cynical view of Jamaica." So, we have got a very different character, Enid here, and I think we are going to want to say different things to what we would've said in a paragraph about Brod.

Right, over to you for our final task in today's lesson.

You are going to write a paragraph to answer this question.

How does Pinnock use Enid to explore ideas around belonging in "Leave Taking"? And I want you to, if you wish, you can use Izzy's topic sentence, which says this.

Of course, if you would rather, you may write your own.

Remember, I want you to include some of the key content and ideas from the previous discussion that you have just had.

All right, best of luck.

Time for you to capture lots of the things that we've discussed today.

I know you can do this.

Good luck.

Pause the video and press play when you are done.

Welcome back.

Really well done there, and a massive congratulations to anyone who checked their spelling, punctuation, and grammar before they put their pen down.

That is what we like to see.

All right, I'm gonna show you, easy to answer, and you can, as we read it together, you can compare it to the work that you have done.

So, Izzy said, "Enid's sense of belonging is shaped by her practical view of Jamaica, which she recalls as a place of hardship marked by poverty and long days of work.

She contrasts this with her life in Britain, where she's achieved some success, but still feels the pull of her Jamaican roots.

Enid's memory of her mother who never said a word to her deepens her sense of emotional distance, making her feel disconnected from both her past and her present.

While she seeks stability in Britain, her feelings of guilt and obligation towards Jamaica creates an unresolved tension.

Through Enid, Pinnock highlights the complex nature of belonging for migrants torn between the hardship of their origins and the challenges of integration into a new society." All right, we're gonna finish the lesson with a moment of reflection.

So you're gonna pause the video.

There is a question for you to think about on the screen, but I also want you to think about your own writing.

What were the strengths of it? Is there anything from Izzy's model answer that you would like to use to improve your answer? So, think about improving your answer and then think about the question on the screen.

Where else in the play does Enid express views towards Jamaica that could strengthen this point? All right, over to you, pause the video, take some moments to reflect, and press play when you are ready to finish the lesson.

Well, well done.

Some absolutely fantastic work today, everybody.

I am really proud of you.

You've done a fantastic job.

On the screen, you can see a summary of all the learning that we've covered so far.

Let's quickly go through this together.

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

We've learned that Jamaica influences characters' identities, even though it's not physically present on stage.

We know that Brod Idealises Jamaica, seeing as a symbol of resistance and beauty.

Enid views Jamaica much more pragmatically, which is shaped by poverty and hardship.

Viv is curious about Jamaica.

She's really influenced by other characters' conflicting views.

And we know that character's perceptions of Jamaica really do shape their sense of belonging in the United Kingdom.

Great work today.

I really hope to see you all soon in one of our lessons in the future.

Have a good day.

Bye-bye now.