Hi everyone! Thank you for continuing to share my petition! Yesterday,Thursday 3rd September, I attended a meeting with Mark Anderson, Managing Director of Pearson UK, and Emma Whale, Product Management Director, General Qualifications at Pearson. The meeting was very productive and the key points were: • Pearson UK is on the same page as us with regard to there being a significant problem with the exclusion of women on the syllabus. Mark apologised personally for this, thanked me for starting the petition and assured me that this will change for the 2016 syllabus. • The next steps to be taken include meetings and conversations with senior examiners, leading academics and composers in the industry, including Judith Weir. This will be to collate a list of female composers that fit with the Department for Education regulations. I have been assured that I will be kept informed at every stage of the process • I raised the issue of including pieces by women of ethnic minorities and this too will be looked into to ensure the widest and most inclusive range of composers are on the syllabus • Conversations should take place with Pearson and the regulator with regard to the core criteria to which all examining bodies must abide by, hopefully to ensure that diversity is a key point made in these guidelines. • Mark also made it clear that due to this petition, qualifications from all other subjects will additionally be looked into to ensure that they are diverse and inclusive – so thank you all for making this happen! I have collated all of the #just1woman suggestions from Twitter, Facebook and in the change.org comments - thanks to you guys there were a staggering 157 different suggestions! I passed these directly onto Pearson who will look at them during meetings with senior examiners and professionals to decide on the composers to include. As this issue is not just with Edexcel, I will be looking to make contact with Education Secretary Nicky Morgan to see how the inclusion of women (of all ethnicities) in syllabi can be rolled out to all exam boards. Thank you again for all of your support in this and helping this issue gain public and media attention (featured in The Sunday Times, The Evening Standard and on BBC Radio 4 since the last update!). Jessy