AN EALING schoolgirl has taken on an exam board and persuaded them to change their music syllabus to include women.

Jessy McCabe, 17, secured the representation of female composers on the Edexcel A-Level music syllabus after an e-petition she started gathered nearly 3,500 signatures and attracted national media attention.

Jessy, who attends Twyford CoE High School in Acton and is an accomplished flute and piano player, was outraged to notice that out of the 63 set works on her A-Level music syllabus, not one was composed by a woman.

Jessy said: “Excluding women from the syllabus is portraying a skewed view of history.

“It is important to learn why there were fewer women, but that shouldn’t still be the case – we should learn from history.”

She wrote to Edexcel back in March but when her efforts to incite change went unheard, Jessy took her cause to the internet, where she was quickly backed by thousands including British composer Judith Weir.

Following this enormous show of support, Pearson, the publishing company that provides Edexcel qualifications, contacted her to arrange a private meeting earlier this month at Pearson's London office with their UK managing director Mark Anderson.

He issued a personal apology and guaranteed the representation of women on the autumn 2016 syllabus. 

Mr Anderson said they were fully committed to ensuring diversity was better reflected through their revised music A-level.

Now Jessy has contacted education secretary Nicky Morgan in the hope of a governmental initiative to effect this change across all exam boards.

The schoolgirl's campaign has been lauded by Dr Rupa Huq, Ealing Central and Acton MP, who has also written to the minister.

Dr Huq said: “Jessy's a great advocate for women's rights, righting injustices and an inspiration to us all, at just 17 years old.”

Jessy is awaiting a response from Nicky Morgan but said she is hopeful her campaign will make others recognize and confront normalised sexism.

“If we all had our eyes open and realised inequality was around us, anyone could do this,” she said.

“I’m a normal 17-year-old.”