By Sarah Jessica Morgan

A Guinness World Record attempt of the biggest multi-venue science lesson was held at Brighton and Hove High School on Tuesday, November 13.

Pupils at the school measured the Earth’s gravitational pull in the lesson and they were among 21 schools in the Girl’s Day School Trust who celebrated physics during the world record attempt.

The event was organised by the trust, as part of their 140th celebrations, and the experiment involved 2,300 girls at 21 schools across the country, all taking part at the same time, linked via webcam.

The 76 year eight pupils at the school measured the value of acceleration due to gravity, calculating the time taken for a bean bag to drop a set distance, by the time of a swinging pendulum.

Jennifer Smith, head teacher at Brighton and Hove High School, said: ‘The numbers of girls doing science, particularity physics, are dropping on a national scale, but in our girls-only environment that is not the case, they are thriving, hence this huge science lesson. Its heartening and there is a genuine enthusiasm for it here.’

She said, research had shown girls could easily become passive learners, and tended to take a step back, but, in an all girls environment there was no place to hide, and they had to take some responsibility.

Nicola Scotcher, head of physics, and collaborator of the event, said: ‘The girls were fantastic, they all got fully behind the event and were all fully engaged and we got some of the best results we’ve ever seen for this kind of experiment, so I think it was a great success.