Hello World

How can we empower girls in computing?

• Hello World • Season 7 • Episode 3

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In this insightful conversation, we examine the current landscape of girls' participation in computing, from school classrooms to university lecture halls and beyond into their professional careers. Discover the key factors that enable girls to thrive in this field and learn actionable strategies to foster their success. 

Hello World, and welcome to the podcast for educators passionate about computing and digital making. I'm Meg Wang, the editor of the Hello World magazine, and this is the second of our three podcast episodes released to accompany the recent issue of the Hello World magazine exploring digital literacy, asking what we actually mean by that term and how we can best teach the skills young people need to use digital technologies effectively, safely, and responsibly in the classroom. A key part of digital literacy is ensuring that all learners, regardless of their background or gender, have equal opportunities to develop computing skills and confidence in using technology. And for this episode, the Raspberry Pi Foundation's Chief Learning Officer, Rachel Arthur, sits down with two guests to discuss how to empower and encourage girls in computing. Rachel is joined by Becky Patel from Tech She Can, a UK-based charity dedicated to increasing the representation of women in technology, and Doctor Jessica Hammer, a research associate at King's College London School of Education and author of the Subject Choice, Attainment and Representation and Computing Project, AKA The Scary Report. I hope you enjoy this conversation and as always, please do let us know your thoughts on email. We’re podcast@helloworld.cc. Let's just jump straight into this conversation. We know that there is a big issue with a number of girls studying computer science in England. When we look at the data around GCSE uptake, only 22% of entrants are from female students. What do you think contributes most to the gender gap in computer science? Oh, that's a really tough question. I don't think it's a one-solution issue. There are so many factors that influence the choices and the decision-making that young people make when it comes to subject choice. But I think particularly in computing, there's some think around the curriculum and how appealing it is to young people. So, I think that's one important factor, but also things like the understanding around what doors it can open for the young person, The role of the parents and carers and families, and the role models that exist out there for young people, there are so many different factors. And if it were simple, we’d have fixed it by now, right?

JESSICA:

Yeah, exactly, yeah. RACHEL: So— (inaudible due to

RACHEL:

We won't be where we are. So, no, I think it's definitely a multi-faceted problem. And I know that your research has echoed that as well. Becky, what for you is the biggest contributor to the perception and gender gap? So, I definitely agree with Jess that it's not a singular thing, but in particular for girls — girls tend to gravitate towards roles which do good for the world or help people. So statistically, girls, when they're looking at what my next step is after school will want to be things like doctors, nurses, teachers, childcare, vets, work with animals, generally work in sustainability. The issue with the younger students as they move their way through school is they don't see how technology relates to that. So, they see technology as computers and coding, and they don't see how tech relates to them and their individual passions and hobbies. So, you'd have people, boys and girls, that love sports, that love animals, that love helping people, that love art, that love dance, that love ballet, whatever it is that they love, there will almost certainly be a connection between that and the future world of technology. And what we need to do is bridge that gap and show them that. So, you're not saying that in order to work in tech, you've got to be what the children say to me, a geeky hacker in someone's basement stealing money, and this is what they, they draw. This is what they see from the movies, from Marvel movies, etc., what they think people are like, that work in technology, but actually, there's people saving the planet, there's people helping doctors, there's people helping in education. So, a huge part for me, especially for girls, is showing them the breadth of tech careers that they could go into, but most importantly, how it relates to them as individuals and their own hobbies and passions that they currently have, rather than thinking they have to change. I completely agree, and I think, you know, talking to the, the young people in our, in our study, what we found was that actually girls, one of the, you know, the big factors that influence their decision was how useful they thought computing would be for their job in the future. And those girls that we interviewed that had chosen computer science, some of them wanted to go into jobs like theatre and set design and they could explain the relevance of doing GCSE computer science to that future career. And they could see that, which says there's something around how we showcase the opportunities in a range of different sectors and job areas for young people. That's so interesting. Jess, how early do you feel this gender gap starts from? So, I think it does start young, and we know that young people have already formed their sort of stereotyped views around what jobs are for them or not for them by the time they're sort of five, six years old. And that's not to say that things can't be changed as they go through the education system, and views be shifted slightly, but it also means that we need to make sure that we are engaging young people, you know, at a younger age, definitely. Yeah. I have a four year old and she told me the other day that girls can't be doctors. So, you can imagine how—

JESSICA:

Oh my goodness— RACHEL: —that, that went down But you wonder where it comes from. Where are these perceptions and these, you know, ideas about being a hacker in the basement. When it comes to career aspiration and career advice, I see them as very different. So lots of people, when we say we're going to go into a school to talk about careers and they'll say, Right are you going into sixth form in GCSE? Are you going to talk to the older students? And I'll say, well, I see that more as career advice because older students are looking for what's my next step. Where should I go now? What is an apprenticeship? What could I do at university? What am I qualified to go on and do? How much will that cost me? When we're talking about challenging stereotypes, particularly around gender, that's what's got to be done much earlier. Because when you ask a young child in reception, what do you want to be when you grow up? And I've done this, they'll say anything from the moon, as one boy told me, to Santa to a unicorn. They have limitless ideas of what they can be, and then they grow through school and it drastically narrows. And they get to around age 16, 17. They have a very small opinion, if not, no idea what they can be. And we come in with careers advice and we try and broaden that out. So what the aim should be with career aspiration, particularly in the world of tech, is if you start early and you continuously talk to those students, show them relatable, Role models, show them how broad tech is, they'll grow through school and their career aspirations will naturally narrow because they're all individuals with their own hobbies and passions. I always joke with the children and say, I can never be an astronaut because I'm travel sick driving. So, like, there's there's things that just won't be for you, but you want them to get to 16, 17 and think, what's next for me and their, their race, their gender, their socioeconomic background, their accent, all of that, their sexuality does not affect that decision in any way. It should just be, what am I great at? And where should I go next? We did a big piece of research at Raspberry Pi Foundation between 2019 and 2022, and in that we found that girls’ interest in computing sees a decline when they move from primary to secondary. Now Becky, I know you've worked across both phases. Is there anything that you could suggest that we could do to help sustain that interest, so it's not lost in that transition? I think what I would put it down to is when a child is at primary school, they have usually one or a couple of teachers that have to teach multiple subjects. But what's great about that is they very easily see cross-curricular links. So primary teachers, because of flexibility in the timetable, can very easily do a computing and history lesson or we can…it's raining, so we're going to do, instead of PE outside, we're going to do the iPads and we're going to use the iPad to do physical movement. And so it's much easier for a primary teacher to do those cross-curricular links. Then they move to secondary school, and they have the absolute privilege of having subjects specialists teach them, which is amazing because those people obviously have so much knowledge in that area, but it is much harder for many reasons, timetabling, resources, for secondary school teachers to make cross-curricular links as easy because a history teacher can't go to computing and say, do you mind if I borrow the computing suite for a bit? Or, and they have so much content to cover, too, that it's very hard to go off-piste and cover something different. We do a lot of resources at Tech She Can that history, geography teachers can use. You can still spend five minutes at the end of the day saying, we've talked about global warming today. Let's look at some people working in really cool jobs doing global warming. Just spend the last five minutes highlighting a couple of really cool Role models, and these clips and resources exist for you. So, doing things like that have a transformational difference on the students saying, hold on like…that, that looks great. That…this is my geography teachers talking to me about computing. You can make a huge difference doing that. It's so interesting, isn't it, because we know from the research that you've done Jess, that actually predominantly it isn't, computer science specialists always teaching computer science, especially at Key Stage three. What's interesting about that is why do we feel like teachers that, aren’t, you know, it might be a geography teacher teaching computer science—

BECKY:

Can teach computing—

RACHEL:

Why…why are teachers not then confident to make those links? And I think, you know, when you're nervous about… I've been very nervous at different points about topics I've had to teach maybe teaching outside your subject specialism, you cling to your curriculum, and you don't want to let it go. Jess, you've done work about what students perceive when you say the phrase‘computer scientist’. Can you tell us a little bit more about that? As part of our survey of around 5000 young people in secondary school, which is a huge, huge number of young people, we found, that actually young people are likely to see people working in computer science as smart, as clever, and as academic. And if they themselves have taken GCSE computer science, they are more likely to consider themselves academic as well and put themselves into that bracket. We also, as part of our research, asked them to name three famous faces in computing, and it was so interesting, their response. The top ten people, five of which were all tech entrepreneurs, all white men—

JESSICA:

—all very frequently in the news and so on. Yeah. And sort of those alternative, those, role models, those famous faces that are doing interesting, important work around things like climate change, social justice; they, they didn't feature. We found that girls were three times more likely to suggest a female famous face.

RACHEL:

Wow. JESSICA: Yeah. Which says that, then, perhaps, they're picking up on that sort of messaging, which is, which is great. These old, you know, other role models, the non-tech bros. Yeah. JESSICA: They're all they're They’re all, you know, deceased. And so we need contemporary role models in this space, you know, for young people. BECKY: And relatable role models.

JESSICA:

And relatable. BECKY: Quite close in age to them. So yeah, we find when…even when you show them incredibly successful women, which is amazing, but they might be later in their career, the students feel like that's too far away to be achievable and attainable. So, when we bring in young, role models that, like, just started apprenticeships or only around five to six years away from where they are, the impact on them and how they feel related to them and can follow in their footsteps is far greater. So, show them incredibly successful people. You think that's really inspirational, but actually, for many students that are suffering with, could that be me? I'm not very confident that puts them off. So, we have to find that middle ground. I completely agree. RACHEL: I am…I taught for a long time in Oldham, that it was, role models from that area to that they felt like, well, I can't do that. They live in London. They've got access…there's this perception of access to these kinds of things. And I wonder with that, what kind of role families have to play, in this conversation. Is so important, because, you know, young people ultimately spend most of their time at home. I think it's around sort of 80% of their time awake, you know, before the age of 16 is spent at home. So we try and change everything in the classroom, by having those, you know, conversations with young people about the opportunities, which is, which is really, really important. But we also need to be communicating that… those opportunities and countering those stereotypes with the families of the young people as well. You definitely hear that around options evening, the conversation with parents like, oh, no, I don't think that's for for my young person. And yeah, that's because they've grown up with those same stereotypes. I think actually what's interesting about computing is that it's not just the parents and carers, but it's the wider family. And I think there needs to be more research in this. But one of the things we found through interviews are interviews with the parents and carers and what actually, a lot of the advice around computing was coming from older siblings rather than the parents and carers themselves. And I guess it goes back to that sort of relatable, relatable role model. There were comments from, the girls that we interviewed saying, you know, my, my older brother says that it would be really good for my future job, that I should do computer science at GCSE or my older brother helps me with this and I think as well, sometimes the parents and carers that we interviewed feel quite removed from tech and the workplace of today, and the jobs that their children might go into in the future. They can't provide advice because they don't properly understand it, so they're more likely to suggest traditional routes, which they understand more and they have gone through themselves, maybe. Most parents obviously want children, their own children, to be happy, but followed by that, they'll want them to be financially stable. So they probably come, like, hand in hand and tech in the public perception is not seen as like a really well-paid role in many cultures. So, like when you go to a wedding and they say, what do you do? And you say, I'm a teacher, a doctor, a nurse or an engineer. People say, oh, that's brilliant. Say, I'm a software developer. People say, oh, like, good for you. I guess— RACHEL: An unknown. And they don't understand that it's actually could be an incredible job role for their students with so many prospects. So, until we encourage and help and support parents to understand that, they're not going to suggest it to the children. Yeah, yeah. And I think there's also a perception from parents about the level of… or older siblings, about the level of attainment that you need to, you know, this idea that you have to be clever, that you were talking about earlier to be a computer scientist. But we know from research studies that, girls often have a lower self-efficacy, than boys in computing. So a lower belief that they can succeed at tasks and achieve their…their goals. However, their attainment in computing is usually, I think, from the study you did, Jess, it was equal to, well, or actually better than. I know you can cut data in different ways, but, but girls definitely are achieving at least the same as, if not better than boys. So what role do teachers have in that conversation? You know, we talked about parents, but teachers beliefs about what, what girls can achieve. The role of the teacher is so important. And, so as part of the Scary study, we found, which ironic name, given we're talking about confidence and the scary. But, yeah, as part of the scary study, we found that, teacher support—

RACHEL:

Yes. JESSICA: And a feeling of were predicters of confidence in coding. And also, we found they were almost, twice as likely to be doing GCSE computer science if they felt they had teacher support. Yeah.

JESSICA:

And interestingly, this association, it was for all young people. So not just girls. And I think that's really important. So, good classroom practice, inclusive classroom practice is good for every child, student if you want them to carry on in computing. Certainly, we're not talking about pink textbooks. And like a different substitute for girls schools. But no, I was training to be a teacher and we had to do different things for different groups in the classroom. We know from the research and the work we've done in say, culturally relevant pedagogy that these are strategies that work for everyone, and everyone deserves to find a place. And we know, you know, it's not just girls that struggle to see their role in computing. It is lots of different subsections of young people. So, it's really important that we support them all. Becky, just thinking about that, I know, you've done a lot of work in this space. How do you think teacher professional development plays into this conversation that we know that, the strategies are so important, but do teachers have the knowledge and are trained to, to do those things and to have those conversations? So I trained, I’m gonna feel old now, Over 20 years ago, I trained, and my coding training because coding was just sort of starting in primary school.— because I trained as a primary teacher — was like an afternoon.

RACHEL:

Yeah.

BECKY:

And obviously, then I'm expected to be able to teach from reception to year six in coding.

RACHEL:

Oh, is that not enough?

BECKY:

No, no! (Laughter). Like, so obviously a lot of it then had to be self-taught. But the issue was with tech, which is a good thing, is that it moves so quickly. So training comes out of date so quickly, and brand new devices come in that then we need to train on. And teachers that are fantastic, teachers have excellent pedagogy, are brilliant just…you give them a strange new device and they get scared of it and it will go in the cupboard or they won't use it. So initial teacher training and integrating tech across the curriculum, too. So, if I go to a secondary school and say, I want to deliver CPD to help your teachers understand the kinds of futures you're preparing the children for, they'll say, oh, here's the computer in a science department, the first thing I always say is no, no, no. Can we do a whole staff training? Because I have a tech for maths lesson, a tech for history lesson, a tech for geography lesson, and the leadership always, say“Sorry, what?” We’re like, “Yes!” Because all of those students that are passionate about geography and teachers, all of those teachers that are passionate art, the vast majority of jobs those children will go into will be tech enabled or be tech roles.

JESSICA:

100%. BECKY: So we need to get away from it just being in the STEM department and it being everyone involved in this. So, when we talk about teacher training, the biggest point for me when you relate it to computing is that it needs to not be just the computing in every now and then add on science. It needs to be everybody that has this training, and also that we don't turn to teachers and say, you're not teaching them the right thing. They are so overwhelmed and overloaded with the curriculum and everything they've got to remember. Whatever we provide for them needs to be relevant to them, easy to use, you've thought about all of the barriers that would be in their way. So yes, it's so important. But there's a couple of nuances I don't see happening as often, especially in the world of computing and tech. Yes, go wider. I—Yeah. I completely agree, Becky. We interviewed senior leaders and computing teachers in, in our study. And, we found that schools that did particularly well in terms of uptake of girls at GCSE tended to have a lot of senior leadership support for computing and in particular around professional development, in computing. So where there is that whole school, but particularly where there is a supportive senior leadership interestingly, it has an impact on, on the diversity of uptake at GCSE.

BECKY::

Absolutely.

JESSICA:

It seems to, yeah.

RACHEL:

I think it's so interesting because, I was an assistant head teacher and I was…there weren't many of us that were computer science teachers that had become assistant head teachers. And I do wonder about the impact that having a lack of subject representation at that level has. And, people used to walk into my classroom like, “oh, computing is not for me.” And like if other teachers are saying that, then how do we get, the young people to see it as a place for them? And especially, like, a maths teacher, saying “computer science is not for me.” I was like, “it’s literally teaching binary, this is our thing!” Yeah, it’s maths! There isn't a subject, I've challenged people, there isn't a subject you can name that isn't very closely related to a tech role. Well, I had a whole group tech. They were like, what about this? What about that? What about music? There are so many relationships between those subjects, and not only the use of tech, but very clear career pathways that the students can go on to in each one of those areas. I often speak to PE teachers because we have, like, a tech for sport lesson and I'm like, PE and computing are so closely related. There's not only the use of technology in PE and I've seen some amazing examples of teachers doing this. So, using apps on the iPad for physical movement. So there's that use of technology MP but also there's the plethora of different jobs, what showing students that are particularly passionate about PE, which they can go into in technology. So, for example, if they want to be. So, when you ask year 5 and 6, it's happens a lot:“What do you want to be when you're older?” The vast majority of them would say“professional footballers, miss,” and every primary teacher will be nodding at this. They'll have definitely 20 plus professional footballers, in their classes of, 60 to 90. Obviously, a very small percentage of those students will make it into being a professional sportsman or sportswoman. But actually what we can show them is you don't need to give up on that dream. And if you love sport, you love football or soccer or you love gymnastics, and you're not going to actually compete and be paid in that sport, there are so many tech roles which you can do working behind the scenes, training the athlete, helping them with health and physiotherapy, working on goal line technology, working on Hawkeye. There's so many cool things and when you show children this, you see the attention. You see them sit up like, hold on, she's talking about me and the thing I love, and she's also talking about computing. It's a really powerful thing that I've witnessed a number of times. And it comes back to speak to the children themselves first, find out their hobbies and passions, show them how that links into technology, and it really does make a difference. It's so interesting hearing about, the cross-curricular links. And I know that, when I was teaching with, with the young people that I was working with, they were so interested in the AI influence in sport, particularly in football or soccer for our international colleagues. And just thinking internationally about this, we, I know that we're focusing very much on England in this conversation. It's where your research has been done and where you predominantly work. But we know that this is an international problem. The data suggests that there are some countries that are getting it right, but I'm not 100% confident in those numbers and in those figures. I'd be super interested to hear from any listeners in the comments if there are, if anyone is getting it really right in their country, please leave us a comment. We'd love to speak to you. And we did film another podcast episode a few months back with my wonderful colleagues that are based in India and Kenya, and hearing more about their context and what it meant for them when they were echoing the same issues. But yeah, it is an interesting one to go back in and give a listen to. We know this work is really important. Both of your careers are dedicated to it. It is something I a’ super passionate about. We know that gender balance teams perform really well. We see that across sectors, not just in tech. But what do you think are the benefits to making these changes that we've discussed today? We interviewed some young students recently. Girls, and asked them that question, which is really nice. But why should more women work in tech? Why should we have more? It was for a public perception campaign we were doing with IBM. And one of the girls said, and I love this quote. She was like, everybody should work in tech because everybody uses tech. That's exactly what she said, it was sp, she was only nine. It was really like, and she was obviously saying that, well, and if only men or only a certain type of person designs all the technology we use, it's only going to work as well. Like there's always gender bias that people have, or unconscious bias of all sorts that people have. And when we're talking about especially artificial intelligence and technology like that, and the nuances and design of AI is going to start making maybe judgments on people, if we don't have a diverse range of people designing and implementing that tech, then we are going to come across issues. So, she said it better than me. And I think there's something around the sort of the social justice of all young people having the digital skills for their future.

JESSICA:

One of the teachers that we interviewed, said that some young people don't even know how to construct an email.

RACHEL:

Yeah.

JESSICA:

And so when we're talking about digital skills, yes, there's coding, programming and so on, but there's also a whole bunch of other digital skills. The ethical use of AI, for example, these things that all young people need to know about in order to be able to go into the workforce, and to just be, you know, digitally, digitally literate citizens. But at the moment, effectively, we've got almost half the workforce is missing.

RACHEL:

Yeah.

JESSICA:

And that's something that needs to change.

RACHEL:

Yeah. And it’s…it’s about access, isn't it? Fair access for everyone.

JESSICA:

Yes. RACHEL: And we think a lot about participation. We just want to get these girls over the line.“Please study GCSE computer science!” or the equivalent, like, please go on to the next level. But is that enough? Like, I don't think we should draw the line there, we don't want girls to just participate in computer science. We want to see girls thriving in computer science and seeing their role in it. Supporting the next generation being those near role models, how do we move this conversation from being about just numbers of girls doing GCSE to them really thriving, and shining in these roles? So, that point is a key reason why at Tech She Can the resources that we deliver to the younger students are called ‘Tech We Can’.

RACHEL:

Yes. BECKY: And the reason is, is because we say they're female-friendly but delivered to all. And the background of where that came from is when they first formed as a charter and they'd done their research and found out that there was very few women wanting to go into the tech roles at many of the large professional and financial firms. They talked about teaching girls to code, they talked about, just teaching girls career aspirations. And when they approached me, I was teaching at a secondary school at the time, in the eighth most deprived area of the country, in Coventry, where I'm from. And they said, can we just do this for girls? And I remember saying, that doesn't feel right to me. And they said, why? And I said, you need to come up to my year eight class and I need to show you why. And I asked all of the students what they want to be when they grow up. And none of them mentioned a future career in tech, including the boys. None of them mentioned STEM, actually, in general. Many of them didn't have role models in work or they just weren't sure what they wanted to be. But, then I asked the boys quite an interesting question. I said, boys,“what can the girls be when they grow up?” And they said, quote, “housewives, mums. Aren't most of them going to leave school anyway?” So, in order for yes, in order for women and girls to thrive in the workplace, male allies are just as important. So I want to both inspire the boys that we're teaching, but also show them how amazing the girls can be. So, it's about taking them all on that journey together, so that when we send girls out into this world of work, they're actually going into inclusive environments where men know how amazing they could be. They have equal respect. So, that, that to me, it’s… we can send them out into the workplace, but the workplace needs to be a welcoming place. And if we teach the girls separately and always keep them separate until they go into the workplace, it's just not the way that I wanted to work. And I actually wanted to do it together. Yeah, it’s something, we've got to keep the boys, keep all young people in that conversation. And as we said earlier, they’re benefiting from— BECKY: Of course, yeah. done loads of research about this, is there any research particularly about Thrive…getting young girls, well, all young people to thrive in a computer science setting? So, I think something to really think about is around sort of the digital making at home. One of our findings was that those young people that do digital making in their own time, that, it's like using, creating apps or doing digital art or some, some animation or something, creating a website, developing these skills that, that was associated with an increased likelihood of taking GCSE computer science. But at the same time, we know that access to digital making at home requires broadband, requires a quiet—

JESSICA:

place, requires a laptop or computer, and not all young people have that. And so there's sort of inequity more broadly in terms of the spaces, and being able to do that kind of creation at home has long-term implications. Thinking about, you know, extracurricular activities at school, but that ensuring that they're inclusive and they're not just sort of, you know, in it for a few privileged young people in a particular school which has lots of resource and multiple computing teachers, to ensure that there is sort of, that broader access so that all young people can thrive. I would be in a lot of trouble if I did not mention the Raspberry Pi Foundation's work to run Code Clubs in, in England, and internationally, we see that the participation in Code Clubs is about 35, 40% female In that non-formal space. I really think there is something about engaging girls in a non-classroom setting, to make that choice to do some digital making and they're free. So, if you are looking for something to signpost your young people to, do you go check out our Code Clubs projects site. We also run it in England and it's run internationally Bebras, which is a computational thinking. But, and that is about 50/50. We're not seeing the same gender divide there at all. And I think that is because it comes via maths, often.

BECKY:

Cross-curricular again.

RACHEL:

Yeah. That’s, and yeah. And, and I think maybe the teacher as well like that expectation that all young people do that subject. So it’s something that I need to have a place in.

BECKY:

Yeah.

RACHEL:

You don't see those same, same perceptions and Great. So, finally, to finish up, you guys have got so much experience in this area is an absolute honour to, get to talk to you both about this in this setting. But what I see happen often in these conversations is there's a lot of talking about the problem, but what are we actually going to do about it, and what advice would you give? You know, we have loads of teachers listening today. Senior leaders in school, maybe even some policymakers out there. What, what practical tips would you give to take forward following this? Just that there are a lot of fantastic free.

BECKY:

Raspberry Pi, we have our own at Tech She Can. They're all free resources. And often people equate free with lesser quality. And it's not. It's just there's so many people out there that really want your students to go into all of these roles. We did an event last week and we had 240 girls, and one of the girls said, I didn't realise so many people cared about us. There are so many people in industry that care about your students, and that they have all of these exciting roles, and they are reaching down to try and get to you as teachers, as school leaders, our job is to prepare children to be happy and successful in the future. That future is now more unknown than it ever has been because of advancements in tech. So, what you're preparing your year 5s or 6s or 7s or 8s for now, in terms of the world of work, is going to look very different when they're actually out in the world of work. So, keep an eye on it. Engage with all these people that are trying to engage with schools, and put it across the curriculum and really do try and show, big-up computing. Show how important it is and how how relevant it is, no matter what the children want to do. Great. Thank you. Jess. Yeah. So I would say and it doesn't matter whether you're a policymaker, a senior leader, a computing teacher or a teacher in another subject, do not underestimate your ability to change, and for the better, the opportunities for the young people, that either you work with directly or that you influence in some way. I mean, whether you're a classroom teacher, you can look at your classroom practice and, you know, finding ways of engaging with the parents and carers, there is so much you can do. If you're a senior leader, advocate for your computing department. Look at it across the whole school. Do all young people have access to computing? How can you make afterschool clubs more equitable? How can you support your computing teachers to access that subject-specific CPD? Roles for senior leaders and then policymakers? Think about what is the curriculum going to look like in the future?

RACHEL:

Yeah.

JESSICA:

What do we need young people to know? And yes, skills for jobs, but also skills like digital skills for life, for their, you know, for their futures. So, I think there's a role for everyone. And we can't just leave it up to young people themselves to figure out. The last thing that we want to do is give teachers more work to do. We know that there is a workload crisis, but we know that supporting young people to access the jobs of tomorrow, be that a career in tech or a career using tech, is going to make a big difference in their lives. And we know that this is multifaceted. It's not just going to be a one perfect solution. I wish that there was. I wish we could walk away from this conversation and be like, well, okay, we’ll do that. But this is a long-term thing, isn't it? The studies that you've done, Jess, they're not short term, they’re long-term studies. But I do believe that we all have the power to make this change. And I do think that if there are some small things that people can take away from this conversation today, small changes that we can make, it will influence young people's decision-making and the things that they believe that they can do in the future. This isn't just about girls. This is about all young people having fair access to computer science education and digital making. And I hope that some of the things that we've talked about today, you'll be able to take forward into your practice.

MEG:

I hope you enjoyed that conversation! So much food for thought. Please do let us know your thoughts on this topic. What strategies have you found effective in encouraging girls to engage with computing? How can digital-learning tools and resources be designed to be more inclusive and inspiring for all students?

You can get in touch with us on email:

We’re podcast@helloworld.cc and helloworld.cc is where to go to meet the new issue of the Hello World magazine. You can read the digital version there for free, and if you'd like a physical copy and are based in the UK, you can subscribe to have a print copy delivered directly to your door for free, too. Next week, in the final episode of this mini series, we'll be discussing the term ‘digital natives’, asking whether we should ditch the term and whether young people who grow up with technology around them are truly tech savvy, or are they dependent on digital tools without understanding how they work? Bye!