 Maen nhw Jessica Raeson wrth dod o wahanol yno a llwyddo i gwybod welwch chi ddatblygu gyda ffordd yn gallu gydweithio. Dyma dyma'r problemau? Fydd y gallwn yn gwneud i gydweithio? Y gallwn y ffordd yn gallu gydweithio y byddau a'r adnod, barth gydweithio, ac yn gallu gydweithio llwyddo i gydweithio gyda'r pestaeth? Rwy'n gweithio i gydweithio. I cael ei ffordd o'i ei hoffi, is that nationwide girls are doing pretty good in physics, in fact they're probably last year they were sort of modally out doing the boys so at GCSE level. However about 20% of A level physics students are girls which is quite low and not only that it's been about 20% for the last 20 years so we've really seen this as quite a stagnant issue. Physics is the second most popular subject with boys but it's about the 17th with girls so you can see that there is something going on now why are girls succeeding at GCSE and then just opting out when it comes to A level. Some recent research found out that about 49% of mixed state schools aren't sending any girls on to do physics A level so they're sending on boys but there's just no no take-up in those schools of girls going on to do physics. The problems most acute state maintained mixed scores so there's a little bit of an issue there. Some people might just say well girls girls girls don't like physics. We would disagree there we think that there's something else going on so recent research has shown that some of the main influences on girls or on students' attitudes to physics are found to be self-concepts, how people feel in relation to the subjects, how students experience their physics at school and their teacher-student relationships so as budding NQTs kind of I'm sure you're going to be doing a great job of encouraging everyone that physics is brilliant yeah so you're going in there next year enthusiastic ready to take them all by storm so I think that's probably going to be fine you're also going to be brilliant in those teacher-student relationships aren't you you're going to be you know how to relate to students you've been learning all about that this year um what obviously students need good strong teacher-student relationships they also need their teachers to be open-minded to make sure that their teachers don't have any unconscious bias about whether they think girls or boys are better at physics and so on so I'll talk a little bit more about that later. A thorny issue self-concept what is going on there no quick fixes with this I'm afraid let's look at this one in a little bit more detail okay so self-concept when we talk about the self-concept we kind of see do people and do girls think physics is something that they can get interested in if you do a google search for biologists you come up with this this looks exciting doesn't it look at all these people they're doing stuff girls boys all kinds of people doing this uh chemists similar kind of thing white coats explosions yeah I could get into that physicist there is something going on there isn't it everyone looks about white pale and stale don't they there is there is if you're a young 15 year old girl looking at this you'd be like that's that's not for me would you really um so yeah so we need to be making sure that physics is taught uh that it's relevant to girls and that they can see themselves kind of um you know getting excited about physics as they're growing up um another thing with girls again there's no sort of uh short answer to this but girls and boys possibly treated well let's let's go one step back so what you will find is that girls tend to be a lot less confident in boys particularly kind of um you'll find sort of in physics and maths you're you're there there are a lot more kind of uh almost too self aware boys will be very confident they'll go forth they'll kind of they'll just have a go whereas girls will hold back a little bit um this could be a little bit to do with kind of how they're treated as they're growing up um so they're a little bit more risk averse kind of if you sit if a boy goes and kind of does something crazy a little bit scary they're like oh yeah good for you but it's kind of with girls people are a little bit more serve are you sure you know take care you know they're taught and maybe a little bit to be right that's that's a theory is that nothing's we've got no evidence about that yet but it's something we're looking at so um as to what the institute is doing we are doing research in this area there is no hard and fast rules um at the moment what we are looking at is going back and trying to improve um self confidence um we are working with a number of schools um we are working with four schools working with girls trying to improve their self confidence um we are working with four schools trying to work with teachers improve how they teach physics and we're working with four schools looking at improving the overall um environment to make sure that there's an overall set of gender balance that there's no set of stereotyping going on there so we're doing lots of activities a number of different schools trying to get some evidence to why we think that girls are selecting themselves out of physics why why you know why are they opting out um what we have found so far is parents play a key role um so when you go in next year do make sure you know engage with parents um they this graph up here is quite horrifying what this is is parents responses to the question what type of job would you like your child to pursue when they finish their education so the red is the sons and the grey is the daughters you can see there quite clearly there's quite a bias sons engineering daughters teaching uh nursing fashion design hair that kind of thing so education of parents is just as important as education of students and careers education as well we find is sadly looking in a lot of schools at the moment and they are very thirsty for anything you can do to help with sort of careers education um so what we're finding with the schools that we've been working so far we are finding we're we're succeeding in some of our things where girls are becoming more confident teach the change in their practice they're but they're becoming more engaging staff and students are reporting a reduction in gendered language and improved careers provision but what we are finding we are working a lot with year nine and ten students at the moment and a lot of the feedback we're getting is actually kind of we're not making a big difference in them turning on to physics what we need to be doing is addressing the issues lower down the schools what people find the problem is this issue crops up year nine and ten so we've tried to fix it year nine and ten we need to be working with year seven and eight going then into year nine year ten and so on so it's very still quite early days with this project but it do you kind of watch this space um it is mentioned in the classroom of physics there's some copies you can pick up on your way out and there's uh some more sort of details um in this article um on page five so anyway this conference is all about what you can do going into your classrooms next year so a key thing is be aware do you have any unconscious bias have you kind of um put your hands up has anyone heard of the term unconscious bias okay excellent that's really good to see quite a few of you quite a lot of you putting your hands up so have you you know unconscious bias is a lot about kind of just picking up references from tv from society at large and making that kind of connection in your subconscious kind of do you think girls are less able in particular subjects and so on so be aware it's not bad to have an unconscious bias but it's all about how you manage your unconscious bias monitor your classroom all your lessons engage in everyone is your environment inclusive engage with the teachers they may not be as aware as you so if they are kind of having gender set of bias conversations in the classroom about people making comments to sort of stop them go oh you know hang on there engage with them engage with parents and link to careers as much as possible so that's what you can be doing initially september straight away as you kind of you'll become more established in your schools there's a lot more you can be doing so there is a there is going to be a lot of emphasis coming in off-steads kind of in um future years I think about in terms of gender balance do audit your school in terms of gender balance if you're looking to readjust redress gender imbalance let people know stop the debate going you know try and get those unconscious biases coming out so people know and get them discussing it there's your school policy it's I'm pretty sure every school's got a policy on racism racism and racist language do they have one on sort of gender equality consider the impact of one off events versus a larger well not a larger regular more regular smaller manageable chunks so it's great Senegal your girls off once a year to kind of do some activity at university but actually just drip feeding it into your lessons into schemes of work will have a much longer and more lasting change group activities really sort of lend themselves to kind of for girls making the most out of your lessons explore unconscious bias there's a lot of links in this newsletter and do try and embed it into your school practice wherever possible okay I do appreciate that kind of the whole day is running over a little bit so I will step down now um I will be around at the end if anyone's got any questions but I think we're keen to sort of wrap up the whole sessions congratulations on finishing your PGCE you've got a whole year of exciting things going on is will be challenging but you'll find yourself growing a lot of the next year as well and with that I will hand over to Chris hello Chris