International Women’s Day at Cornelius Vermuyden School

Carol Skewes - Headteacher
March 8, 2017

Today is International Women’s Day and as such this week’s tutor time numeracy task is based on women in mathematics. This is especially poignant because so few women (who often achieve higher than men at GCSE) go on to study maths and STEM based subjects higher on in their education or go on to careers in this sector. We are so lucky to have gender balanced staffing in the STEM areas and it would be wonderful to think that our students might help to even out the gender imbalance in their futures.

This week for tutor time numeracy, we are celebrating International Women’s Day which is on the 8th March. Many of us can name famous mathematicians, Leonardo Da Vinci, Einstein, Rene Descartes, and Alan Turin; but somehow we often don’t know the names of some of the women who have worked alongside them through history forming the mathematical curriculum such as:

Mary Somerville

Augusta Ada Byron

Emmy Noether

Maryam Mirzakhani

Albert Einstein, Isaac Newton, Charles Darwin, all household names and some of the most recognisable scientists in the world. All great men but when was the last time we spoke about Marie Curie, Rosalind Franklin, Jane Goodall, Lise Meitner and Shirley Jackson with the same amount of passion. These truly inspirational women are sadly forgotten about by the world despite their huge contributions to Science.

Here at Cornelius Vermuyden School, the Science department has begun a campaign to promote Women in Science. Speaking to a group of our own highly talented young female scientists, we discussed some of the reasons why fewer women go into science than men. The overwhelming response was that they see the scientific community as male dominated and that men are more likely to be taken seriously than women.

One year 9 student commented “When was the last time you saw a female scientist on the TV, it’s always men. I would love to be a scientist, but it’s a career that I know so little about, I wouldn’t know where to begin.”

This is where our campaign begins, to raise the profile of female scientists and show that anyone can achieve a career in Science whether you are male or female. As a scientist myself, I overcame a lot to pursue my own path from being the only girl to study Electronics in my school and being told “it probably won’t suit you”, to sitting in a lecture hall with over one hundred men and only five women studying Physics. It always felt like the odds of succeeding were against me, but at the heart of every female scientist is resilience and determination, making us some of the most remarkable inventors and researchers in the world.

Watch out world, the girls at Cornelius Vermuyden School are on the brink of a scientific revolution!