Spotlight On: Girls in Physics

Highgate’s partnership project, Girls in Physics, is an essential part of our vision to make STEM pathways more accessible to young women. By creating a forum to showcase inspiring female role models and meet other like-minded enthusiasts, we hope to celebrate the wonders of physics and encourage girls to pursue the subject further.

Statistics show that girls make up 23% of students studying A-level physics in the UK. While this represents a slight increase from previous years, physics remains one of the less popular STEM subjects for female students compared to fields like biology or chemistry, where there is a more even gender balance. Despite growing participation, physics still trails significantly behind in attracting female students, largely due to factors like confidence issues and societal stereotypes about the subject being male-dominated.

Celebrating its tenth anniversary this year, Highgate’s Girls in Physics programme features two events per term for pupils in Year 10 and above, with guest speakers who are female physicists working in research, tech, or industry. We reach out to 15 nearby schools to recruit participants and are delighted that the project continues to generate such enthusiastic engagement, acting as a springboard, in many cases, for pupils to continue their physics studies beyond school. 

We’ve had speakers from multiple branches of physics to show how widely it can be applied, so the topics can be very varied. Last term, we were joined by Dr Charlotte Simmonds, who is unveiling the origins of our universe using data from the James Webb Space Telescope. Before that, Dr Camilla Tossi, who specialises in semiconductor physics, explained how she and her colleagues are using a freefall tower to simulate the experiments that can be done on the International Space Station. We had a speaker in the field of medical physics, who was working on cancer imaging, and another who is using supercomputers to simulate quantum physics phenomena, as just a few examples.

Pupils enthuse about the opportunity to meet industry and research specialists face-to-face and the chance to engage directly and ask questions, saying: “It gives a great insight into what a career in physics can look like and it’s inspiring to see other women working in physics.” Another student added, “I am taking physics currently, but I have only male teachers, so knowing other inspirational women also are involved in physics encourages me to pursue a career in STEM.”

While we ensure that pupils have secure points of reference within the topics that are covered, the content goes well beyond what they are exposed to in their studies, both at GCSE and A level. “I really enjoyed getting insight into things I’ve seen in physics/chemistry A level but in more detail and hearing about the journeys the speakers took into physics and research,” shared one student. It also enhances their collaboration skills and encourages interdisciplinary work, ready for a world where subjects interact. “There is lots of crossover between the three sciences, and the fields of study you can take in physics are so broad,” one pupil noted. 

There is wide agreement amongst participants that the project has helped demystify the route ahead and provide clarity on what they might study at university and beyond. One pupil said, “I would recommend to girls in Year 11 or 12, as the talks helped me decide what degree I wanted to study.” Another girl added, “I really enjoyed hearing about their paths in the industry and learning from them, so I can decide what exactly I want to do after university.” 

I try to make everyone feel at ease, so they feel comfortable contributing to the session. At the beginning of course they’re shy, but with some encouragement, everyone starts to relax and chat. We are all in the same situation, we all love physics, and it doesn’t matter where we come from. Pupils end up talking about university aspirations, summer school opportunities and generally sharing ideas about a subject that inspires us. “One of the reasons I enjoyed the evenings so much is it felt like a community, and I enjoyed meeting other girls similar to myself,” one participant told us. Another added, “I found the sessions so inspiring, so informative and found it to be a special and supportive community that I think would be beneficial to so many girls.” 

A teacher at Alexandra Park School explained how the project “has supported girls considering their A-level choices to make the choice to study post-16 physics. It has also been influential in university choices with at least two regular attendees going on to study physics or engineering at university.”

It's great to see pupils coming back year after year and witnessing the tangible impact that it has on them. For our next session, I’m thrilled that one of my former LAET (London Academy of Excellence, Tottenham) students is coming back as a presenter at the event, to talk about her experience of studying physics at Lancaster. 

From my own experience, I know how important it is to normalise what physics is about and encourage girls that this is a subject for them. I hope this project will open doors for many more young women to explore and marvel at the wonders of physics and the universe.