Latymer Upper STEM subject split for boys and girls

[tootiredtoday5]

Hello. Is there an information on this available?

Keen to understand the girls' take up of STEM subjects at A level and STEM degrees for university.

On the website, the A level and uni destination data I can find is only mixed for boys and girls.

@tootiredtoday5 , I think even if you worked at a school you would struggle to get this data, it's not something mixed schools focus on (GDPR etc).

I'm sure if you asked teachers etc at Open Days they'd give you a rough idea.
Whenever they have pictures of science/maths award winners etc there's always a pretty even mix of girls and boys!

I think it's absolutely something mixed schools focus on.

Thank you.

At their open day, we were told something along the lines of "girls also take up lots of stem subjects," but no data or any more detailed information.

They seem to acknowledge that some parents of girls prefer single sex for the reasons related to the STEM take up rate of the girls, but we can't find helpful information to prove that the girls embrace and pursue STEM subject there vs other girls only schools around..

I wouldn't over think it. I'm always a bit sceptical of the whole single sex/ STEM / girls thing etc. I have a DD at an all girls and a DS at LU- they are both entirely uninterested in STEM A levels and I don't think another school would have made any difference!

It's true though - percentage of girls taking up science A levels in single sex schools (both maintained and independent) are much higher than in mixed schools.

Slightly old 2011 data, Institute of Physics had a good report on this trend here https://www.iop.org/sites/default/files/2019-04/its-different-for-girls.pdf

the difference in Physics and Chemistry A level take up is more than double

Those figures show that Science A level uptake for both boys and girls increase by about the same amount in single sex school over mixed sex schools. Although girls and physics is notably low at both single and mixed schools. It appears to be a mixed sex /single sex school issue rather than girls at mixed schools issue.

it's an interesting way of looking at it, and I didn't think of that; thanks!

the single-sex schoool effect is stronger for girls though.

Physics, Chem and Bio take up increases by more than 135%, 87% and 50% between mixed and girls schools.

While for boys the same numbers are about 50%, 65% and 56%

I believe the Good Schools Guide shows this information (without having to subscribe) - I don’t know how accurate it is though

Hang on & I’ll find a link

https://www.goodschoolsguide.co.uk/reviews/latymer-upper-school-london

Link above. In fact it seems to show more girls than boys taking the 3 sciences at A level. As I say I don’t know how accurate this is or where they get their data.

Sorry that link doesn’t take you to the right data set, you have to click the Data tab at the top of the page, then under Subject Results select from the 3 menus: A levels, GCE A level and Relative popularity percentage.

Thanks for that, I didn't know GSG publishes this

Bit confused about how to interpret the charts though. Looking at the 3rd chart showing subect wise breakdown, what do the percentages for each subject mean? (they are calling it 'relative popularity percentage')

For example, for Chemistry, it shows Female 81% and Male 41%.

As these are not adding to 100, I am guessing the percentage does not mean percentage of all students who did Chemistry A level. What is it then, I wonder?

Computer Studies (probably Computer Science) has no chart for Female at all. While CS is not very popular with girls, zero still seems a bit suspect

Also, some traditionally gendered subjects seem to have reversed - more girls seem to be taking physics while many more boys in history of art.

I’ll readily admit I don’t fully understand it either 😆

And yes the LU splits were a surprise.

Sorry I was just looking at the one chart that is showing in the PP (fig 4)- I was reading around a kitten bundle and hadn't realised there was a clickable link! I hadn't clicked through to the full article. Fig 4 shows and increase of about 5% for boys and girls for everything apart from girls in physics in maintained single sex v maintained mixed sex. I'll have a look at the other stats later.