GCSE computer science: Daughter was refused a place

[iloveteddies]

Hello, my daughter was refused a place, and the excuse is the course is oversubscribed. I know that very few girls applied and lots of boys, and the class is going to be mainly boys and potential 2-3 girls from what I know (not official school communication). The school is saying that a computer program selects and they cannot be biased towards the girls because that would not be fair for boys. Also to add they all have an assessment that they have to pass to be considered. My daughter passed that exam. I don't think there is a chance she is going to be given a place now,but I feel this is still unfair for girls. So many people are saying we don't have enough girls in STEM but yet schools are not enabling even the ones willing to do STEM subjects. Does anyone know if the school has to tell you what is the class composition. Does anyone have any adivce/comment. I know is not going to change it for us but I can't stay passive about it.
thanks.

I actually wonder if women might find teaching STEM a nicer option post children for the lack of sexism and school holidays.

Certainly some of DDs teachers had taken that route. Some STEM jobs are particularly family-unfriendly, unfortunately- though some software roles should be among the most flexible forms of work possible. It'll be interesting to see how things develop.

ds2 is doing computer science for his degree - he has neither GCSE or A level in the subject and has managed absolutely fine so it is not a disaster if that is her long-term goal.

Honestly, I wouldn't be that fussed. If she is headed towards a career in IT, a GCSE in CS simply doesn't matter. She can do coding in her own time, and focus on maths, languages and music (a family member had a very senior IT career and said that languages and music graduates were always the strongest coders in his field!) and other, less vocational subjects.

Of all subjects, there is abundant material online for self-driven coding practice available to her.

Yes, it will. I quite like the idea of teaching STEM as a back up for DD. Her comp sci teacher did his PhD at Cambridge and is very enthusiastic, so I am very grateful he has chosen to teach, but it can't be common!

The reality is you don't even need computer science A level to do A computer science degree skills she isn't being prevented from doing it in the future as long as her maths is good.

I would push to make sure she does Additional Maths gcse instead.

Eh? The process doesn’t benefit anyone over anyone else. Each individual has the same chance as each other individual. A boy is not more advantaged than a girl. I don’t think you understand how probability works!

I am sorry, but this does not really make sense. The OP’s DD has evidently been given a fair chance to study computer science. The barrier was not enough teachers and too many students. This was one faced by the boys and the girls equally. Random is the only fair way of dealing with this. Choosing someone on the basis of their sex is wrong.

Honestly you had a lucky escape. It's a really hard boring GCSE in our experience.