Theresa Conlon
Through the development of clubs such as an engineering society and a space society, managed by sixth-form students themselves and structured to hand over responsibility to the next year-group an appropriate time before the A-level exams, girls throughout this school are encouraged to take an interest in physics and physics-related topics. One secret of success is to avoid high-level or high-intensity physics, but instead make sure that the meetings remain quite informal and can be seen as social occasions. Hence the students can ‘live and think’ physics without feeling under pressure; in this way, curiosity is developed that enables students to think further – and eventually take their turns as leaders of the groups.