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An all-female group of students at Glyncoed Comprehensive near Ebbw Vale reached the stars this summer, after picking up stellar results for GCSE Astronomy.

Glyncoed was the first school in Blaenau Gwent to offer this subject, and entered 32 students, all female, for the GCSE Astronomy exam. Their results included 4A's, 16B's and 7C's, despite starting the course several months late.

Teacher Mark Harris said, "The GCSE course was aimed at developing science subjects for girls. We teamed up with University of Glamorgan staff to deliver the course and it has been a huge success. The pupils have shown a remarkable commitment as it was completed within a year, as a result of weekly after school clubs and a number of weekend sessions."

The course was made a reality through assistance from ESERO-UK Wales, Dark Sky Wales, and the PreVent Programme. This programme, funded by the European Union Social fund, provides £10m in subsidies to run educational projects within five boroughs of South Wales. The project is part of a much wider endeavour which promotes science to young women.

Dr Sarah Roberts, Director of Education for the Faulkes Telescope Project, ran all of the weekly sessions. She commented, “Hopefully the project will encourage more women towards not only careers in astronomy, but to a greater interest in science in general.”

"I really enjoyed teaching this group and I'm very impressed with the results that the girls achieved in the final exam. We started the course late, in December, ready for the exam in June, and the girls worked so hard every week - they deserve their great results!"

“It’s great to see a programme like this having such a positive effect on engaging girls in science and engineering subjects at school”, said Dr. Paul Roche of ESERO-UK Wales, “This is a great example of a local partnership between a school, a university and the educators from Dark Sky Wales and Faulkes. The enthusiasm of the students, and the effort that Sarah and Mark put into the course, made a huge difference to the final results”.

Students at Glyncoed will be continuing their star-gazing studies when the next group of GCSE Astronomy girls begin the course later this month.