Boys are better at physics then girls ...

I liked the way things were run in DD1's US high school. If you were on the selective college track you did all the sciences at the highest honours level for three years (one each year) and then repeated one at AP level (first year of university standard) for your final year. No questions asked about class makeup, no eyebrows raised at the presence of girls, no self selection out of physics (or AP calculus) unless you were a complete idiot or unless you were prepared to apply to less selective colleges (which the advisors would try to talk you out of if you had the potential to aim higher). The criteria for admission into selective colleges in the US mean that able students and schools just get on with it.

An appropriate xkcd strip

and one other scientists might find amusing

There are plenty of talented female physicists.

See this for a list.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_female_scientists_before_the_21st_century

In the past women often had problems with men taking credit for their work.

I used to work as a physicst before I had children. It is hard to combine a career in science with children.

Also - I was always better at Physics and chemistry than Biology, and Physcis was my best subject out of the three.

I did Materials Science as my degree, and I found the polymers part quite a struggle, because it's more chemistry than physics and a lot of it didn't really seem to follow basic rules of physics!

Good on you for taking it up with the Head.

I was one of only 2 girls in my whole year to do Design and Realization (woodwork/metalwork) for GCSEs, and noone tried to discourage us, and we were treated the same way as the boys (althought I don't think they would have dared treat us any different! )

Also ,my A-Level Physics teacher (a man) told me that girls generally do better at physics, especially at higher levels.

Himalaya, I'm pretty sure they have actually tried girls-only science and math classes in schools in North America. I have mixed feelings about it.

(Chanting, a similar phenomenon was identified in NI, but with a twist -- working class Protestant boys and girls did significantly worse than working class Catholic boys and girls. Will try to find the article...)

Himalaya, Mammalamoo's ideas sound really interesting and it makes sense to review teaching to make sure that we don't just keep doing the same things, especially if there is evidence that it is not working for all pupils.

It sometimes seems that a lot of education focuses on the underachievement of boys by trying to appeal to their interests at the expense of the girls - we've certainly seen it in the subject matter in the English exams. When I have analysed results, for many of those who don't do well, the main issues are external to the lessons.

In school, I try to target intervention for those in most need of support regardless of gender - it seems to be working as there is almost no gender difference in achievement over the last couple of years.

I was thinking more about the nationally identified groups and the money, research and resources that seemed to go into that. A few years ago I went on a local authority course that showed various underachieving groups (I can't remember if it was just for English) - the bottom two were white, working class boys and white, working class girls. Even though there was only 1% difference between the groups there were no support materials for raising girls' achievement. That really struck me as wrong.

Bue - I thought you meant 'taught seperately' girls and boys and then realised you meant biology, chemistry and physics taught seperately.

This is timely - DH is a physics teacher at a co-ed public school where all the sciences are taught separately from the get-go. Today was parents' day and apparently he had several girls' parents say that they hated physics until they had him as a teacher, and could they please be taught by him again next year. I know the A-level class makeup is fairly dismal at the school (think about 20% of them are girls) and I tend to badger him quite a bit about what the department is doing to turn girls onto the subject. So the wife and the feminist in me are both quite proud today and pleased today :)

Absolute snarl at this...

Chanting - what do you think of Mamalamoo's approach to making Physics more girl friendly in their teaching styles, examples and subject matter? Seems like a good idea to me.

Equally it seems like a good idea to teach a mix of English Lit books with male and female lead characters in English, since kids tend to be drawn more easily to characters they relate to. Same reason I suppose they tend to focus on the books with young protagonists.

If your data showed that any group of kids were underachieving isn't it what a school should do to think about it's teaching methods in relation to that group and target interventions?

I think you were totally right to complain. There is far too much of this type of daft sexist comment in schools.

It always annoys me when intervention is put in place to support underachieving boys while girls in the same situation are written off, as bimbos or because some deluded male thinks they will just leave and get pregnant.

Equally, I refuse to make my (English) lessons 'boy friendly' - I try to make sure I cover a wide range of texts, whether or not they are deemed by some to be 'suitable' for boys - it's patronising to all involved. An interesting text or good book is just that - why should gender make a difference. The exam boards often skew their exams towards boys anyway. I firmly believe that almost all gender differences between pupils in subjects is down to the teacher, past or present.

not an over-reaction

What Suchprospects said.

The fact that most boys find it hard to aim their pee into the toilet bowl suggests they may not be as good at physics as is thought

This won't stand up statistically, but we started the Cambridge degree course with roughly equal proportions of the sexes. By the final year, the physics group had 10 girls to 120 boys*. Of those 10, 5 of us were from the same all-women's college, with women tutors (usually dauntingly intellectual types working at CERN and peering at the world through curtains of hair).

Are the girls in a minority in the sciences at your DD's school? It makes a big difference.

*I don't think any of us were mature enough to be called men and women...

SybilBeddows, you're quite right, I read the table the wrong way around. I suppose that means we ought to adjust teaching to appeal to boys now ;-)

Chezenbread - It is sexist to expect or accept worse performance of an individual simply because they happen to share a characteristic with a group that on average does not perform so well (even were it true that girls do worse at A level).

But Cheeznbread, boys don't do better at A level Physics, girls do.

so yes of course it is sexist to say boys do better!!!!!!!

Without wishing to get flamed, perhaps it's possible that the teacher was taking his lead from A-level results, which show precisely the pattern he mentioned. Is it 'sexist' to point that out?

The key to physics is maths- if your child is good at maths they will potentially do well at physics, but otherwise they will always struggle with it. Biology is completely different, much more qualitative.

SLTS One thing I think you should mention either in your follow up conversation or in some other way is that your original question about why your daughter isn't doing as well in some modules as others has not actually been addressed.

Helping the school be less sexist in its physics teaching over all is a great goal that I think is well worth pursuing but you also still have the issue of your daughter maximising her potential. Please don't drop that side of it while you encourage them to look at things more broadly. Also, requiring the science teacher to actually think about your daughter in individual terms might be the start of him thinking about the potential of other girls in a more individual manner.

I was shit at physics but great at biology (and chemistry), but I think that's just me rather than my gender.

DD is starting an all-girls' secondary in September, will be interedting to see how that works out on the science front - and she is really interested in science (though particularly chemistry).

OP, best of luck and well done for standing up to the teacher. (That sounds patronising and I don't mean it that way.)

I did write a post but was ranting about non-physicist's teaching physics. Not that I would ever become a teacher too much hard work. Although... I am thinking of getting out of academia.