During the latter part of June and early July, Year 10 geography students completed the human geography fieldwork requirement of their GCSE course. For this part of the course students have been learning about how urban deprivation can affect some areas of cities, and how regeneration developments can help to reverse or address some of the challenges in these areas.

One area students have learned about is the regeneration of Stratford in East London as a result of the London Olympic Games in 2012, where a large area was redeveloped.

Students travelled to Stratford looking to investigate if the regeneration in Stratford has improved the lives of people over the last ten years since the games. After a walk down the hill to Sutton Common station, we travelled up to Farringdon, where we were lucky enough to be able to experience the brand new Elizabeth line into Liverpool Street station, then after a small change onwards to Stratford. All students were fantastically behaved, approaching members of the public politely and engaging them in discussion about their perceptions of the Stratford area. In the morning, students completed their questionnaires and environmental quality surveys in two sites. The first was The Carpenters Estate. An area of Stratford that has famously not seen any regeneration, yet is situated next to areas that have, providing a stark comparison on how urban areas can differ even across short distances like one side of the road to another. Site two was outside Stratford station, very busy, and lies right on the line of newly regenerated Westfield shopping centre on one side and the older Stratford shopping centre on the other.

Students also got the opportunity to explore the Westfield shopping centre, which accompanied the regeneration of the area, for lunch and some brief shopping after which they visited the final site of full regeneration in the East Village, which was formerly the Olympic village, built to house the competitors originally 2012, but converted to housing after the games.

Despite some train delays, all trips returned safely and students completed their work impeccably, representing themselves and the school excellently and providing themselves with the necessary information to achieve well in their upcoming Geography exams next year.

Thank you to all the staff who led and assisted on the trips also, we couldn’t have done it without you.

Mr McMillan, Head of Geography