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AIBU?

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Original poster

Boys left behind at school while girls get trip

514 replies

Quickchat1 · 05/03/2019 23:42

Recently my sons class went on an educational trip to a local university. But only the girls. The boys were left behind with a cover teacher listening to music and generally doing very little. My son is GCSE year and would have benefited from a computing and science event. No it was only for the girls with no mention of anything for the boys. I understand this was a STEM event for girls only but if there was a STEM event for boys only there would be uproar! AIBU?

OP posts:
snowbear66 · 06/03/2019 09:30

thankssomuchforthat

There are now lower grade boundaries for pupils from less affluent areas.
Private school pupils generally have to acheive better A level results to gain access into courses at Uni. A level grades in more deprived areas are often dropped quite significantly to try to even out educational disadvantages.
I think we need to encourage girls in Stem. Just look at the reports of study bias recently, of the tests always being done by default on the male body and how harmful that has been to women's health.

ThunderStorms · 06/03/2019 09:30

Google is your friend.

Why be so awkward? Maybe the girls and their families could just Google as well. Why bother trying to ask people who know? Hmm

SleepDeprivedCabbageBrain · 06/03/2019 09:31

Give your head a wobble

ThunderStorms · 06/03/2019 09:33

No

olderthanyouthink · 06/03/2019 09:34

Katterina when I did GCSEs in 2010-2012 the gov introduced "The Diploma" (I was cut soon after I'd finished it) and my school did it in 3 subjects ICT, Business, and Hair & Beauty. H&B was a level 2 qualification and ICT &Business were level 3.

PickAChew it's a bit better if you're younger but the lack of women in my field is unnerving, especially as I've just had a baby

HalfBloodPrincess · 06/03/2019 09:36

Why should encouraging girls into STEM be at the detriment to the boys

It’s not to the detriment of boys. Boys are encouraged into stem from an early age through toys and play whilst girls are given a dolls head and a hairbrush

lottiegarbanzo · 06/03/2019 09:39

OP, why was your son messing about in school time? Why wasn't he doing homework or revising?

Yes the school could have provided something better for the boys to do but free time, to get their own work done, is valuable too.

Katterinaballerina · 06/03/2019 09:40

Thanks Olderthanyouthink.

thankssomuchforthat · 06/03/2019 09:41

Interesting point....I didn't know that about tests being always being done by default on mens bodies.

SilviaSalmon · 06/03/2019 09:45

I think girls can be encouraged without actively excluding boys.

Fine if they had organised another male specific targeted event, but leaving the boys kicking their heels with a supply teacher in the run up to GCSEs was definitely not to their advantage.

nutellalove · 06/03/2019 09:46

YABU.

lottiegarbanzo · 06/03/2019 09:49

Well actually the boys had an extra day to prepare for their GCSEs which the girls lost, in favour of a (compulsory?) careers event. In an immediate sense, that's to the girls' disadvantage.

Longer term, it might be to the advantage of some of those girls. For many it won't have been very relevant.

SheeshazAZ09 · 06/03/2019 09:51

Agree that it's important for girls to be encouraged into a field where women are seriously under-represented and that an all-girls STEM event was thus appropriate. I believe there's also evidence that girls are more likely to 'come forward', ask questions, make comments etc in an all-girls environment than if there are boys present and this is another reason why it makes sense to have a special girls' event.

CostanzaG · 06/03/2019 09:51

I think girls can be encouraged without actively excluding boys.

Fine if they had organised another male specific targeted event, but leaving the boys kicking their heels with a supply teacher in the run up to GCSEs was definitely not to their advantage

Have you any idea how time consuming and costly these events are to organise...both for the schools and universities?

TheOrigFV45 · 06/03/2019 09:52

Boys left behind at school while girls get trip

Yeah....well it's going a very, very, very small way to counter the years and years where girls have been left behind.

grinningcheshirecat · 06/03/2019 09:55

If women don't want to do computing or science or engineering, are you going to force them just to up the numbers? It's gotten highly sexist now, my company actually offers more money to you if you put forward a female for a job than a male. That's sexism. But it's OK because it's against men.

You seriously don't know if women don't want to do that. At my secondary (not in UK) I had to choose the subjects to do exams in. I wanted Maths and Physics but I wasn't allowed to (by both parents and the school!) because I was a girl. I wanted to learn about computers but I wasn't allowed to because I was a girl. I wanted to do martial arts but I wasn't allowed to because I was a girl, I had to do ballet and tennis and look cute. My dad had an IT job, I asked him to teach me about computers, he gave me a program to learn typing while he then taught my brother about computers because of course my DB would have inherited his talents. Ironically I'm the talented one in that respect...

noblegiraffe · 06/03/2019 09:57

They need to be coding in primary and have actually picked computer science at GCSE.

This is bollocks. Coding is easy to pick up if you have a decent background in maths. In fact if you apply to study comp sci at uni you don’t even always need computer science A-level, let alone GCSE, they generally care more about your maths A-level result.

People worrying about girls being encouraged into STEM putting off boys going into STEM can stop being so concerned as it’s unlikely to happen. Girls outperform boys at every GCSE except maths (and last year physics) where boys have a slight advantage. Girls are more likely than boys to choose English A-level, for example, because they are way more likely to get a good grade at GCSE (boys’ pass rate at English GCSE is abysmal). Boys choosing STEM A-levels are generally picking their best subjects and so are unlikely to be discouraged from this by there being a few more girls in the group.

Sexnotgender · 06/03/2019 09:57

That’s appalling grinningcheshirecat

Can I ask how old you are? Roughly...

noblegiraffe · 06/03/2019 09:59

Incidentally, I remember a few threads on MN moaning about how their DDs weren’t invited to a primary school event encouraging boys to read.

It has also ofsten been the case in secondary school that English texts are chosen with the idea that they shouldn’t be off-putting to boys. More war, less Austen. Ask your DDs how many books they’ve studied in English where the main character is a girl.

ThunderStorms · 06/03/2019 10:02

The problem is, I don’t think it’s usually the boys or the girls that are the problem. I and most women I know love maths and science (self selecting grouping, I’m sure).

The problem is with the parents who choose non stem toys for girls (I know no one who does that - most shun 'girls' toys). The problem is also with recruiters. I was not allowed (!!!) to go on to study science by the institution in spite of my good grades. Nothing to do with me not wanting or being aware of STEM (even all those years ago), EVERYTHING about the institutions that stopped me.

PrismGuile · 06/03/2019 10:04

Equity not equality 🙌🙌

echt · 06/03/2019 10:04

but leaving the boys kicking their heels with a supply teacher in the run up to GCSEs was definitely not to their advantage

Up to the teachers to leave them meaningful work. And for them to do it.

TatianaLarina · 06/03/2019 10:04

If a cover teacher allows a GCSE class to listen to music instead of working you have much bigger problems with the school than a girls’ trip to uni.

Frecklesonmyarm · 06/03/2019 10:05

I had to go into my daughters school because she swore at a boy.

The school thought her language was uncalled for. The actual conversation was a bout my daughter chosen career path. She wanted to work in aviation engineering . The boy (14 years old) told her that wasnt a job girls could do. My daughter turned round and asked him which part of an A380 was put together using a penis.

That's why i had to go. The head and deputy head seemed genuinely baffled when I pointed out she hadn't swore, she used the word penis which is the correct word and wanted to know how they were going to tackle the sexist attitude towards women in engineering.

I actually had to explain that boys comments were the problem and the fact they could understand it was also a huge problem.

This is why we need to encourage girls into STEM and other Male dominated fields. Many girls want to aim for that. But are steered away from a young age.

echt · 06/03/2019 10:06

It has also ofsten been the case in secondary school that English texts are chosen with the idea that they shouldn’t be off-putting to boys. More war, less Austen. Ask your DDs how many books they’ve studied in English where the main character is a girl

Fucking A.

40+ years in teaching in UK and Au.