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

[Himalaya]

Just listening on the radio.

Thoughts? Experience? Ideas?

DD is studying Astro-physics at Uni as she want's to be an astronomer. However the only other female studying is from Latvia the rest are boys.

She has been very inspired with the documentary's involving NASA as the scientists being interviewed have been 40% female especially in how the universe works.

She has had problems even in a single sex school as she has been determined to be an astronomer for quite some time but the school struggled to engage her interest. A lot of home study got her through the A level but the fact we had to spend a lot of time with her. Just glad XH has a big interest in astronomy as my A levels were Eng Lit and History.

I went to the open day of a girls school a few years ago with DD1. The physics teacher we spoke to was waxing lyrical about how great it was that the girls discovered the science was something girls could "do".

DD1 was nonplussed. As she went to a single sex primary school, the idea that science was for boys was just foreign to her.

I loved being the only girl in my a level physics and in my a level maths (there was a girl in the other maths class who was cleverer than me) Made me feel determined! However, one of my physics teachers (had two) was very discouraging and disparaging to me, unlike the other teacher. Served me well in my career before dd where there was only one other woman in my dept. most of my colleagues were great but I did have issues with one or two....

I do wonder whether this cartoon has nailed it. Just go to your local Boots store and look at the shelf labelled 'Girls Toys' with its paint your own teasets and make your own bracelet kits alongside princess dolls, then look at the shelf labelled 'Boys Toys' with chemistry sets and microscopes and build a volcano kits. Seriously a problem.

aaargh!

all I have to say is have a look at this cartoon, then read www.cordeliafine.com/delusions_of_gender.html

Hadn't read your post noblegiraffe - your cartoon is better! (fellow geek, I wonder?)

Everyone still needs to read Cordelia Fine though....

Hah! Ellenjane - I did physics O-level because I had a horribly sexist teacher in 3rd year who said girls were useless at physics. I had to go prove him wrong :o I wanted to do medicine at the time, so was going to take Chemistry and Biology anyhow. I ended up keeping up all 3 sciences, plus maths with mechanics at A-level. I did start off at med school, but realised I didn't actually want to be a doctor, so transferred to a Chemistry degree, which I really loved, especially the analytical and organic stuff. Those of us who already had a decent grade at maths A-level had to spend a year doing further maths with the joys of differential equations and iterative methods and all sorts of stuff I can't remember how to do.

DH is a geek - he did Physics, maths, some further maths and computing science at A level and is a software geek. Both of our boys have ASD, so yes, breeding was very dangerous for us!

noblegiraffe - that sums it up so well. Had to tweet that one!

One word in the headline that doesn't seem to have received much focus is "state". I wonder what the comparative figure for co-ed public schools is, and if it is less alarming whether any lessons can be learned from this.

Going back to the part of the discussion regarding introducing physics earlier in schools, DS now aged 7, had been doing physics from reception. What I don't understand, though, is that his school has one "Science Week" a term. They do not look at things scientific throughout the school year - or so it seemed to me.

That all starts in primary school in my experience with the expectations of the teachers themselves.

When said (good!) teacher is telling me 'Oh it's normal dc1 is struggling a bit more with english, that's because he is a boy. Girls usually find that easier' or 'Oh yes boys will always find maths/science easier' and then look at me as if I don't know what I am talking about if I am saying that I disagree with it... then there is no surprise that 'girls don't do physics'.

I have pointed out that if girls were so bad at maths or physics then I would never have become an engineer but apparently I should have known that there IS a difference and it's harder for girls

Just for a reference point: at the local private girls' school to me (in London) 22% of the 6th form girls did Physics (21 students/95) and the only subjects with a higher level of entry were biology, english, history, french and maths. Chemistry was equal to Physics.

I went to an all girls (grammar) school and there were 3 classes in my year doing physics.
It was really hard and i didn't do math a-level either

I find it quite worrying that DD2 and her friend at University both took part in a very good engineering competition about 3 years ago in the lower 6th and neither of them has gone into engineering. This competition required teams of four. I'm pretty sure that DD and her friend (didn't even know each other) would have been the only girls around. At the presentation it was 99% male.
Oh, she did maths,physics,chem.for A level and AS pure?maths.
I came a cropper doing A level physics because I didn't have the maths. It's a bit odd but I did 'O' level at 14 as an experiment,then add maths the next year. I had a year of no maths and then I moved schools.
You really need maths and physics.
Don't drop the maths.

My niece just did physics A-level. She considered it a bonus that there were more boys than girls in the class, just as my ds does that he is in a considerable minority of boys in his Drama A-level.

Surely all youngsters should be encouraged to do what they enjoy / are good at.
I donn't think any teenager I know, who is capable of doing A-levels, would honestly think any subject is a 'boys' or 'girls' subject. Seems a pretty outdated notion to me.
My Mum was the only girl in her A-level classes back in the 1940s, but she still did the subjects she enjoyed, because they were her best subjects. Surely the world has moved on ?

The shortage of physics teachers who actually have physics degrees is a longstanding problem, but I think physics education is the poorer for the retirement a few years ago of Brenda Jennison, who for many years trained physics teachers (at Cambridge).
iopscience.iop.org/0031-9120/37/4/603/pdf/pe24m3.pdf

I was a physics PGCE student of hers and though I didn't go in to teaching in the end, she remains one of the best educationalists I have encountered. Brenda was very keen on the "wonder and delight" of the natural world as encountered and studied through physics. In fact, I'm sure she still is!

I did physics A-level, a physics degree and though I don't now use the subject knowledge in my work, every day I use the intellectual skills I started to develop in studying physics.

You really need maths and physics.
Don't drop the maths.

ITA - so FGS let all bright science-type kids do both of those and chem and biol (or chem and geog if they're earthscience types). 3 is not enough

I did A Level physics - was one of 3 girls in a class with 25 boys in a co-ed state school. All 3 girls got grade A, and none of the boys did... which was interesting...

I hate to say it but physics just wasn't popular amongst the girls in my school. The teaching was fine, no bias towards boys. There was no stigma attached to taking it - I was not thought of as weird. The lessons were all fair as well, if anything the teachers were marginally more accessible to the girls, who were (in my class anyway) more focussed and better students.

I would probably have avoided physics like the plague if I'd had to go to a special single sex class. I mean wtf is that about? I can see it now - 'the weirdy weird lesbo class for nerds'. Yup, how to fit in.... not.

Sometimes society should just accept that certain subjects have a greater appeal to each sex. It doesn't mean there aren't many very talented women scientists out there, but it does mean that fewer women are drawn to physics as a career choice.

I was one of 4 girls who did A Level Physics in 1992 in a class of about 18, normal state secondary school. Our teacher was a very glamourous woman in her 50s - she was probably even more in the minority as she would have studied in the 60s?

I now work in a science based career where the preferred degree is physics, although mine is chemistry. My profession probably has about twice as many men as women but we still get plenty of female physics graduates applying and being employed.

It would be nice if more girls considered science as a career, but I fear that any attempts to encourage women and girls into scientific careers will be of the patronising and stereotypical 'its a girl thing type'

Btw - I've had this thread open for a bit and the tab says 1/2 of all stat...

My brain is automatically finishing off ...istics are made up :o

Panic I will push for society to accept that some subjects just appeal more to one sex than the other when, for example, M&S stops marketing a giant magnet solely under its "Boys' Stuff" label.

I am still PMSL at the assertion that geeky boys don't want girlfriends. They may not be very good at getting girlfriends but, er, the Urge is there. (Apart from the ones who want boyfriends, obviously.)

Yeah, my experience of lovely geeky lads as a teen was, erm, not exactly that their minds were on higher things!

panic if there is no bias pushing girls one way or the other, and boys and girls are only choosing the subjects they like and are good at with no social pressure, why are girls at single sex schools more likely to do physics than girls at co-ed schools?

Looking at the results for dd's single sex grammar school, 16 studied Physics last year - all passed, majority with A or A. At the local boys grammar they had 53 students, again majority A/A.

At the nearest non-selective there were just 6 students, the highest grade achieved was B. Neither of the other two local upper schools list the individual subject results but very few male or female study any of the sciences past GCSE. Whether or not that's down to the fact that none of them offer single sciences, instead opting for combined, I don't know.

Certainly round here it would seem your gender has less to with advanced level study than whether the school is selective or not.