How I teach the Carpenters Estate

Written April 2025
When I was putting pen to paper to share how I teach the Olympic Park, I struggled to decide whether or not to discuss the Carpenters Estate within the same blog post or not. As I wrote here, when teaching the Olympic Park regeneration, the Carpenters Estate first comes up when teaching about the Focus E15 group to consider the tensions that exist between different stakeholders. The estate is an incredibly important part of the story of Stratford’s change in recent decades and an area that I think we’ll find ourselves teaching about more in the future. With the huge regeneration planned for the estate in the coming years I can see my own fieldwork focus shifting away from the Olympic Park and more towards the Carpenters Estate; particularly at A-Level and particularly for those who wish to do their NEA on the area. So, a separate blog was warranted!

I’ve written about using the Carpenters Estate for urban fieldwork here and many of the points made in that blog should be applied to teaching about the estate too. If done carefully this is an excellent case study of the complexity of defining (and achieving) ‘successful’ regeneration.

First, let me share the resources I currently use for teaching about the estate. These largely focus on the long road to the regeneration of the estate that is now underway.

For teaching about the long journey to today’s regeneration:
This video shows the Focus E15 group fighting for ‘Social Housing not Social Cleansing’ in Stratford with a focus on the Carpenters Estate.
This video shows the controversy around regenerating the estate and shares lots of different opinions about regeneration. It also talks about the 2022 vote for regeneration and the controversy around this vote.
In my opinion, this is the best article about the estate and the complex story to date.
I would then use this article to look at the effects of ‘placemaking’.

Those who have visited the estate recently will know that the first stages of regeneration are underway. To date, these have been small-scale projects termed ‘meanwhile projects’ that have concentrated on improving the green spaces and living environment of the estate for current residents. I’ve shared my own personal photos of this work from February 2025 and March 2025- you’re welcome to use these in your teaching.

For teaching about the current regeneration and estate masterplan:
This video shows the masterplan for the estate.
This video does this same but with more of the history and context of the estate.
This handout accompanies this video and asks students to work through a series of questions as they watch the clip.

The Populo Living website is awash with useful resources for teaching about the estate. This page is specifically written with GCSE and A-Level students in mind and shares information about the masterplan, history of the estate and much more. Some of the specific graphics I’ve used from the website in my resources are shared here. There is a video embedded that discusses what (selected) residents think of the masterplan with is definitely worth unpacking with student (particularly in light of the controversies they will have learnt about above).

If you’ve visited this bog before, you’ll know that I love using text and referring to different books in my teaching. If you want to improve your own subject knowledge about the Carpenters Estate, this book is useful. I haven’t reviewed it here because there’s not too much directly related to the classroom but it was a nice and informative read nonetheless. You can buy the book here.