Students of GCSE Computer Science and A-Level Business spent an absorbing three days in Disneyland Paris at the end of February.

The Computer Science students attended lectures by industry experts, including:

• Anne-Marie Imafidon, founder STEMettes. She is an MBE and spoke about programming, robotics, artificial intelligence, virtual reality and the ethics of technology.
• Tom Nelson, The Walt Disney Company Digital Commerce Manager. He spoke about the development of the Disney website and its user interface design. He also spoke about how they use website data from Google Analytics to help remodel and develop the user experience of the site. 
• Charlie McMurdie, Former Head of Law Enforcement National Cyber Capability, Met police. She spoke about cyber-security and cyber-crime. She covered the political hacking groups, phishers etc. and the consequences of cyber-crime for organisations.

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Jess Hurley (Upper Sixth) writes:

We were fortunate to spend three magical days in Disneyland Paris in February. While this might sound like a three-day holiday, it was in fact an extremely inspiring and motivational trip, and it helped us to realise how to link our work in Business lessons to real-life businesses.

For example, we listened to Mark Palmer, Marketing Director of Pret a Manger and former Marketing Director of Green & Black’s. He talked about how he developed Veggie Pret, using pop-up shops as a trial, before committing to opening ‘veggie only’ Pret’s.

Louise Fowler, who had been Marketing Director for British Airways, talked about how important it was to put yourself in the shoes and mind-set of the customer, rather than the business itself. We viewed Disney from a business perspective; the weather was extremely cold which changed our experience, but we were able to analyse the services offered and compare it to other theme park competitors. Overall, we feel that the staff could improve their interaction and communication with customers, to give them the best experience possible.

As Year 13s with final exams just around the corner, this trip has provided us with a vast amount of very useful information.