Diane Samuels · Edexcel International GCSE English Literature · Coursework
Everything you need to study Kindertransport, and write about it with authority.
A complete companion to Diane Samuels’ play: every scene explained, the staging and symbolism untangled, a quotation bank organised around the coursework questions, and a clear guide to writing the assignment itself.
The play, scene by scene
Two acts. Two time-frames. One room.
Samuels stages past and present simultaneously: an attic in 1980s London where 1938 Hamburg keeps breaking through. Each guide below tells you what happens, shows you how the play works on stage, and ends with a task that builds towards your coursework. Page numbers follow the Nick Hern edition used in class.
Act One, Scene One
A London attic that is also Hamburg, 1938. A button sewn, a case packed, a train boarded: the parting the whole play remembers.
pp. 21–46Act One, Scene Two
Eva arrives in England and begins, letter by letter, to become someone else. In the present, Faith finds the box.
pp. 47–77Act Two, Scene One
War, waiting, the newsreel, and the rejection at the heart of the play: a mother returns, and her child cannot come back.
pp. 78–87Act Two, Scene Two
‘I wish you had died.’ ‘I wish you had lived.’ The final parting, and a daughter left holding the truth.
Revision essentials
Untangle the play
- The key themes: memory, identity, mothers and children, generational trauma, conflict
- The characters, including the Ratcatcher and the play’s doubling
- Context: the real Kindertransport, Kristallnacht, propaganda and the Pied Piper
- A quotation bank organised by coursework focus, with methods spotted
The assignment
Coursework, not an exam
Your Kindertransport essay is the coursework component: written over weeks, open book, 650–800 words, marked on AO1 (knowledge, critical style, personal engagement) and AO2 (language, form and structure). The coursework guide takes you through the set questions, planning, structure, drafting and the integrity rules, including why this work must be entirely your own.
How to use this site
Three ways in
- Studying the play? Read each scene in your copy first, then its guide page. Keep your annotation habits: the guides tell you what to mark and why.
- Planning your coursework? Choose your question on the Coursework page, then work through the quotation bank for your focus and the theme page that matches it.
- Catching up? Missed lessons? Each scene guide covers what the class covered, and the Context page holds the background research.
Teaching the play? The teacher area has the scheme of work, lesson sequences and assessment guidance.