1/2 of all state schools have no girls sitting physics A level

[Himalaya]

Just listening on the radio.

Thoughts? Experience? Ideas?

I could almost be Lizzy - did A-levels in 1993. There were two girls in our class of about 15. I went on to do an engineering degree (which has served me well). I'm a relatively high earner working part time with my own business.

I think you need to do maths to find physics easy.

My perception is that at A-level, bright boys who didn't really know what to do choose physics. Bright girls who didn't really know what to do choose English.

The number of girls doing physics doesn't seem to have increased since I did Physics A-levels 20 years ago.

I would love more women to do Physics and go into Engineering etc. because I would love some female company in my working life!

A lot of people (boys and girls) struggle with certain concepts with physics and I think girls might give up more easily - possibly girls have to be more confident to feel able to continue with a subject. Who knows?

I am an engineer who loves crocheting and cooking. (actually, I'm obsessed my crocheting). However, I pay someone to do the cleaning. Does that mean I like home economics or not?

Anyway, everyone should choose what they do, but their choices need to be informed. (Career options, salary possibilities etc.)

Engineering requires many soft skills (which apparently girls are good at) and the ability to plan and programme and I think the profession misses out by not having enough women in it.

Oh, and because there are so few women, my maternity pay was great!

I'm a scientist that loves crochet and cooking . I like the logic and orderliness that goes with all three. I would say that I'm not creative though, i love following recipes and patterns but very limited in the designing department.

Working at one of the few all-girls schools left, I see a huge interest in science subjects here. The girls aren't infulenced over what is seen as a traditional boy/girl subject. Everyone is encouraged to have a go. Check us out: Knighton House School.

Anyway, everyone should choose what they do, but their choices need to be informed. (Career options, salary possibilities etc.)

up to a point... I think we also should encourage following a subject because its so fascinating, without necessarily knowing where it will lead. When I went into my chemistry degree, I honestly had very little idea what chemists did in the real world, and I knew I didn't want to teach. I might have been put off by the career options for chemists available then... what I ended up doing really hadn't been invented at that point, and that's one of the fantastic things about science and engineering, isn't it!

Single sex schools I think can help. My daughter did physics here www.nlcs.org.uk/Science/Physic.php

I am absolutely fed up talking to men who want their daughters to go into fashion or unpaid roles because presumably they expect they will marry and who are encouraging their sons into well paid jobs. I know that's anecdotal but there still seems to be so much of it about and it needs to be challenged.

I recall back in the late 70s and early 80s in a state secondary school in Ireland a Leaving Class honours physics class fairly well balanced among boys and girls. Everyone there was doing honours maths. There wasn't enough interest to offer a general level physics class. Despite the fairly equal interest, it seemed therefore to interest the more hardcore maths/sciencey group, people who knew their future might lie in engineering or science, or at the least, bright students who wanted to keep their options open, which they could because of the broad based Irish Leaving Cert curriculum. From that class came a doctor, a professor of astrophysics, and about a dozen graduates in various sciences and engineering. Plus a couple of humanities people.

I honestly don't know how you would study physics without maths. Due to the way students in the British system are forced to study only a selective number of courses, choosing physics and maths means you are effectively choosing the engineering/maths/science path for yourself. Girls are not falling over each other in droves trying to get into these areas, which is a shame, but perhaps it is because you necessarily foreclose other areas that might be equally attractive when you plump for physics that girls won't give it a whirl?

The DCs in American HS did physics in junior year after biology in freshman year and chemistry in sophomore year. For their final year none of them opted to take physics at AP level. They went for AP biology instead. Physics was considered hard enough to avoid because at that stage there were too many other hard/time consuming subjects to tackle. Nevertheless they all had to do it/will have to do it in university (the beauty of the American system is that even if you are doing a degree in a humanities subject you will probably still end up doing calculus 3 and advanced physics)

I did physics AS (alongside biology and chemistry) and hated it as it is basically designed as an add-on to the maths a-level which wasn't really made sufficiently clear to me. I wasn't doing maths a-level but the rest of the class was (a class that was nearly half girls btw) and really struggled with that aspect of it as the teacher chose to "skim" over it.

One of the probs with physics and maths a-levels is you kind of need to take them all together (physics, maths, further maths etc) to get the most out of them and you get such limited options post 16 this is hard.

Plus, the syllabus was dull. I enjoyed the physical chemistry I did much more. A lot of the a-level was electronics which I still HATE and don't really feel is that beneficial to the study of science as a whole. More engineering tbh but you don't do that at a-level.

maybe people should be able to do engineering a-levels and keep the pure science separate.

btw I am considering doing a maths a-level and then have another go at the physics a-level

also trying to get some advanced html training at work so it wasn't all downhill. I got a biology degree in the end, sepcialising in genetics which involves LOADS of forces type stuff.

sepcialising in genetics which involves LOADS of forces type stuff
does it? how fascinating, wouldn't have thought it. (now wants to know more... )

@grimma yes as when you study genetics and biological chemistry you are basically looking at a complex molecular soup with stuff banging into each other, reacting, sticking together and making stuff and the rate at which all this happens (and makes the world we live in today) is governed by forces.

And of course there's stuff like the molecular clock which sort of dictates the rate of evolution...

I had no idea prior to starting my degree in chemistry what the career possibilities really were, it was simply my favourite and best subject. It was sold to me as a degree that had great potential across the board (Mrs Thatcher was in power at the time as an example). I did a sandwich degree and was extremely lucky with my industrial placement, it was brilliant and I went straight into similar work on graduation and took it from there. A lot of luck was involved, that's not generally enough, but I do think schemes for getting scientists into school, or better still pupils on visits to scientific employers can make a big difference.

I find the assertions that there is no point in studying a degree in sciences unless you want to be a science teacher. FFS you could say the same about an english lit degree!

I'm a health journo btw.

I just read this recent article about how the numbers of women in science and engineering are 'alarmingly low'

www.alphagalileo.org/ViewItem.aspx?ItemId=124562&CultureCode=en

I agree that physics and maths are very related at a-level. When I did them, they'd tried to teach us physics without the maths. That meant that those of us doing maths a-levels found some of the physics a-level really simple, while those without the mathematical framework were often a bit confused.

ethel - ah - I'd thought genetics types did more sequence analysis type stuff (I write life science software that does some of that and molecular mechanics type stuff, not so much kinetics though).

When I was at school the girls sat at the back of the physics class and the teacher ignored us completely. It was expected that we would be crap at it so of course we were. One day I moved to the front in feminist protest and the teacher was very dismissive. Of course I didn't understand it because I had missed too much. It just reinforced to me the idea that I couldn't as a girl be any good, so I ended up convincing myself it was boring and that I didn't have any interest in physics as a subject.

Now I have begun to be interested in it and I see how much I could have loved it if I'd had a teacher who had tried to engage us girls. I feel quite angry about it tbh.

Either I went to an exceptional school don't think so - or maybe just the broader nature of Scottish education encourages it, but it never occured to me not to do Physics. This was over 30 years ago.

Iirc, I was swithering between Physics and History or Geography for (Scottish) Highers and I was encouraged by my careers advisor to Physics, so as to to keep my options open. Ended up doing Maths, Physics, Chemistry, English, French, Latin, ie half "Arts" and half "Sciences".

At a co-ed, comprehensive (state) school but all my female friends did the same subjects. Don't remember any discrimination in class.

Went to Uni after 5th year (equivalent of Lower 6th) to study French and Russian (ended up doing French and Economics), so don't know what it was like in 6th year. Many of my friends (most of whom did stay on for 6th Year) went on to do medicine - suspect my careers advisor thought I might want to too (high achieving school) but I never did (even though my dad was a doctor).

BTW - even though I got an A grade for my Physics Higher, I absolutely hated it. Realised later, when I studied maths for a year at Uni that it was because I couldn't do hated Applied Maths, although I was good at Pure Maths.

I don't know how you would even study biology properly without maths, let alone physics.

Interesting point about introducing physics early on - I now wonder if this is why I got into it as we did some basic stuff at primary school with a marvellous teacher called Mr Inkpen. Though the main thing I remember from that time is the boys using ring-shaped magnets to pick up iron filings & saying they looked like fanjos...

I did a physics a level, I was the only girl in the class and when we were picking our subjects for a level lots of girls were interested until we were told our physics teacher was sexist and wouldnt like girls in his class. He did try and get me to drop it but I persisted and I'm glad I did. The trouble was he wouldnt help me at all, I ended up getting a C in it and not really understanding much until I got to uni and had a fantastic physics tutor. Now I am only 28 and this teacher is still teaching and probably still has the same attitude so it only takes a few dinasours like this to lower the number of girls taking physics. Although I can't say I minded too much, there were probably about 15 lads in the class and most of them were in the schools rugby team...

mathanxiety its true. the problem is the narrowness of options post 16.

I did english lit, biology and chemistry with physics as. Though i would have liked to have done, english lit, bio, chem, physics, maths and art. But it just wasn't going to happen!

Plus, careers advice wasn't great. I was a clever student and all the teachers said I should do their subject at a-level (not trying show off, tis true) and so when the maths and physics tutors said that their subject was valuable, I thought "that's what my history teacher said".

waves back at moonbells. The 'feminine' and 'masculine' subjects thing really gets my goat, it's purely culturally determined. I have an Iranian friend who is an engineer, as are her other 3 sisters, their dad is a physicist. On her degree course in Iran, it was 50/50 men and women. It's because they're taught separately so there's no notion of boys doing physics and girls not, otherwise they wouldn't have anyone doing physics in the girls schools. And that's Iran where they force women to wear headscarves and stone them to death for adultery. For the love of god, people, we are doing worse than Iran in sex equality in sciences degrees!!!

I took maths, physics and chemistry A levels. One of 3-4 girls in the physics class, slightly more in maths and chem. Frankly, I chose them because I was good at maths, and an all rounder in everything else, wanted to be an architect then so figured if I chose 'tough' subjects, I could go back and do something 'softer' later. And because it was a matter of principle NOT to do something 'girly' for me back then

Stupid decision. Despite being interested in science, and pretty numerate, my posturing was pointless. If I'd have taken Art, English and Politics (as I should have done) I'd have a much smaller chip on my shoulder now about my disastrous A levels.

Anyhow. It is still bloody shocking and crap for girls now. I think science and maths should be taught single sex in all schools, meself, and be compulsory up to 16 (or at least two out of three sciences).