In January, 54 students and 5 teachers travelled to London for a trip combining computing and commerce with a hint of Harry Potter magic.
They set off from school early on Friday morning, arriving at The Making of Harry Potter studios at lunchtime. There, they participated in a workshop exploring the wide range of roles and skills required to produce a film or television show. As part of the workshop, students learnt about the process of creating a film from idea to screen with a focus on the Harry Potter film franchise. They explored set design, props, special effects and filming locations as well as camera work and sound recording. They then had the chance to explore the Harry Potter studios, where they could catch the Hogwarts Express, try a butterbeer and ride on a broomstick.
As they continued into central London, students enjoyed a guided bus tour from ‘Hartwell’s Tours’, with Mr Hartwell entertaining everyone with fun facts about London and the landmarks we passed. On Saturday morning, the group continued their tour with a walking tour of the City of London where they found out more about the financial institutions which are housed there, including the Bank of England and the London Stock Exchange, and the history of the city from its Roman origins as ‘Londinium’ to its present role as a centre of commerce and trade.
After this, they explored the Natural History Museum where they learnt more about dinosaurs and mammals and were inspired to be good stewards of our shared home by the ‘Fixing Our Broken Planet’ exhibition, which showed the impact of human behaviour on the earth and its resources and explored ways in which we can reduce our negative impact on the planet. They then had some time to explore Trafalgar Square and Leicester Square before going to the Lyceum Theatre to enjoy the evening performance of The Lion King. Students were impressed by the music, drama and puppetry in the show.
On Sunday, the group visited Bletchley Park on their way back to Leeds, where they found out about the amazing code breaking work that happened there during the Second World War, and saw historical artefacts including the Turing-Welchman Bombe (which was used to decipher Enigma encoded messages during the war) and Colossus (the world’s first large-scale, electronic, digital, programmable computer which was used to decipher high level Lorenz ciphers). They also explored an exhibit on the future of Artificial Intelligence and tested their ability to distinguish between genuine images and those generated by AI, as well as programming AI to recreate their own voices. All students represented our school with pride throughout the trip and were commended by guides and members of the public for their excellent behaviour and keen interest in the places they visited. Well done everyone!
