Girls are “closing the door” on lucrative careers involving physics because the subject is still seen as the domain of “boys and clever kids”.
It is also claimed that poor careers advice and a lack of discussion about the subject’s benefits, is not helping the situation.
Carol Davenport, professional development lead at the National Science Learning Centre, which offers CPD to science teachers, said that despite efforts over the last two decades to change its reputation and perception among pupils, physics was still seen as a being “for clever kids and for boys”.
She explained: “In some ways it is a self-selecting group of girls who want to do physics because they excel at the subject, or need it to go on to study something like medicine at university.
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