Engaging with STEM Ambassadors at Ysgol Uwchradd Tywyn

Ysgol Uwchradd Tywyn have been going from strength to strength engaging in as many STEM outreach opportunities as possible during the academic year. They have also reached out to the STEM Ambassador Programme to support their enrichment activities and benefitied hugely from the expereince . Below is some feedback from Amy Spencer
"Our pupils have benefited so much from engaging with the STEM Ambassador Programme to bring their learning to life. Pupils at Ysgol Uwchradd Tywyn follow a careers-based curriculum in Science and we have engaged with a range of Ambassadors this year including Forensic Scientists and Marine Engineers who have shared their experiences with our pupils and led hands-on activities. We have also used the programme to support our STEM enrichment programme by having a Global Security Operations Manager from a Microsoft Partner talk to our winning team as part of the Cyberfirst Competition and an Automotive Project Manager to support our teams in the F1 in Schools Competition. The STEM Ambassador Programme has helped us to develop 'Science Capital' by showing our pupils that Science is relevant to them and to help change the perspective that 'all scientists wear white coats'. Pupils have left the sessions enthused, engaged and intrigued to find out more. Another benefit from the Programme is that many of the Ambassadors are local to Wales so they can talk about their own childhoods,  study choices and work-based experiences that have shaped their journey in STEM.

We would like to thank the team at the STEM Ambassador Programme for their ongoing enthusiasm and support in helping us to bring our Science lessons to life!"

Amy Spencer, STEM Co-ordinator & Physics, Ysgol Uwchradd Tywyn

International Day of Women and Girls in Science February 11th 2025

The International Day of Women and Girls in Science, celebrated on 11 February every year, is an opportunity to promote full access and equal participation for women and girls in science and related fields. Around the world, women and girls are contributing to the scientific and technological advancements that are rapidly impacting our lives. From medical breakthroughs to new space discoveries, from advanced quantum computing research to new scientific methods to understand the natural world around us, women and girls are shattering glass ceilings. Although science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) fields are regarded as critical to national economies, most countries have not achieved gender equality in STEM.

For this celebratory day we wanted to highlight and showcase a few of our female STEM Ambassadors, which make up a little under 50% of our cohort, so throughout the day we posted STEM Ambassador biopics on X & LinkedIn (@SeeScience) to reach a wide audience across the UK. Please take a look, as role models like these are available to visit school to inspire your students.

National Careers Week 3-8 March 2025

National Careers Week (NCW) is a one-week celebration of careers guidance and free resources in education across the UK. Our aim is to provide a focus for careers guidance activity at an important stage in the academic calendar to help support young people develop awareness and excitement about their future pathways.

NCW is a dedicated week every year allowing schools, colleges, universities, alternative provision settings and organisations to work towards. It’s backed-up with free high-quality printable, downloadable, digital and video resources for educators to support planning and delivery.

The resources and activities are available all year round so you can make any of your CEIAG / Careers activities come to life – whenever you do them. More information here

World Engineering Day for Sustainable Development 4th March 2025

The World Engineering Day for Sustainable Development was proclaimed by UNESCO at its 40th General Conference in 2019. It is celebrated worldwide on March 4 each year since 2020 as a UNESCO International Day of celebration of engineers and engineering.

The day offers an opportunity to highlight engineers and engineering’s achievements and improve public understanding of how engineering and technology are central to modern life and for sustainable development. More information here 

Find out about  CREST Awards 27th March 12:30 pm - 1:00 pm  online

Join this 30-minute session to find out how to use free CREST activities with primary aged children.

These hands-on, low resource STEM activities, including planning guides, can be used in classrooms, homes, and STEM clubs, and make a real impact on children’s STEM learning! We’ll also give you top tips for using CREST to engage with British Science Week.

Booking and more information here

The CREST Award Scheme has been running for over 35 years and is managed by the British Science Association (BSA)

Science and Health Live 12 March 2025 9:00 AM - 4:00 PM

School of Medicine, Cardiff University, BLS Education Suite, main Hospital build, Heath Park, Cardiff, Cardiff CF14 4XN

Science in Health Live! annual event is organised by the School of Medicine. Up to 400 year 12 pupils from across Wales and the border counties visit the School for this event every year to gain insight into our ongoing biomedical research and explore the many careers available in science and medicine.

The day is designed to inspire and excite, offering an overview of the diverse basic science and clinical trials research undertaken at Cardiff University and the University Hospital of Wales showing how ongoing work is leading to new insights that may both prevent and cure disease. Importantly, we hope many who attend the day will feel sufficiently inspired to consider following a career path in science and medicine. More information here

embeds learning about energy sources and energy transfer, and sees students put themselves in the shoes of engineers to design a solution to power a mobile phone.They’re challenged to save the day as they meet real engineers and are supported to explore their own skills sets as they learn to use the engineering design process.

 RSB Biology Challenge 2025. 28th April - 7th May

This Challange us suitable for Y9/Y10 students in England and Wales

The competition consists of two, twenty-five-minute multiple choice papers to be taken online under staff supervised exam conditions.

Questions will be set on the school curriculum, but the competition will also reward those students whose knowledge of the subject has been increased by reading books and magazines, watching natural history programmes, taking notice of the news media for items of biological interest, and are generally aware of our natural flora and fauna.

Schools will be able to conduct Biology Challenge in whatever way best suits their pupils, ensuring that they enjoy participating and have a reasonable expectation of recognition for their achievements.

As well as being able to submit their pupils’ scores to the national competition, schools will be encouraged to award their own prizes and to make use of e-certificates provided for them. More details here

The Royal Society Partnership Grants

Do you have a great idea for bringing research alive in school?

Partnership Grants of up to £3,000 are available to schools to enable students, aged 5 – 18, to carry out science, technology, engineering, mathematics, computing or data science projects. Additionally, introduced in 2020, there is a new extension to the scheme called Tomorrow's climate scientists. This extension will fund schools to research specifically into climate change and biodiversity issues. The application process for Tomorrow's climate scientists is the same as for the main scheme.

Whilst the initial application must be started by the school partner so that they are the primary applicant, there needs to be two project partners on the same application form. The partnership needs to be established before starting the application. The two partners are: 

• School partner (the primary applicant): any teacher or support staff at the main school, such as a computing teacher or a science technician; and a
• STEM partner: an individual that is currently working in a STEM related profession, such as a researcher or analyst. 

The 2025 application round will open in February 2025 with three possible submission deadlines across the year. Details here.