News and Events

Pupils challenge gender stereotypes in science

Our Science Department has been working with the Institute of Physics on a fascinating project about gender balance. The project aims to challenge pupils’ perceptions about gender and stereotypes in society.

Before the project, Year 11s and Year 9s received a questionnaire to gauge their opinions about gender and to see how these views might affect what they choose to do when they leave school. Over the next few weeks, we will see if the project helps them to think differently and whether it changes their ideas about what boys and girls can achieve. Will it influence the Year 11’s post-16 choices? Will the Year 9s choose different GCSE Options? Watch this space!

The Institute of Physics will be giving pupils a virtual presentation entitled “Careers Choices” which will look at how gender stereotypes can play a part in these decisions. As part of the project, pupils will also watch a thought-provoking BBC video, “No more boys and girls: Can our kids go gender free?”. This looks at how our views about gender are shaped from a very early age and investigates where stereotypes come from. Pupils will be thinking about whether these ideas are based on biology or whether society influences our views about what boys and girls can achieve. It is proving to be an interesting subject and has provoked some great debate around school.

It has been good to work with Saša Harper, our Improving Gender Balance Coach at the Institute of Physics. She said “There has been a gender imbalance in a number of subjects for many years - including physics. I have been working with the whole school to help remove barriers to pupil subject choice”.

Here is our wonderful science teacher, Mrs Corbridge, who has been organising the project, with her Institute of Physics mug.