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Overcoming subject stereotypes in school

Curriculum
We must get to students earlier and inspire a lifelong love of their favourite subjectsbefore the masculine and feminine stereotypes set in, says Karen Sullivan.

Before half-term, Rebecca Dougall, head of the independent, all-girls Royal High School in Bath, said that teenaged girls in mixed-sex schools often face pressure from friends to study more conventionally “feminine” subjects, such as the arts.

It came as figures from the Institute of Physics revealed that almost half of co-educational state schools do not have even one girl studying physics at A level. Ms Dougall said: “Teenage girls – and boys for that matter – are often desperate to fit in with their peer group, and can be concerned at the prospect of doing anything that might make them stand out from the crowd.”

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