STEM Ambassadors newsletter November 2026
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Welcome back! We hope you had a fantastic, well-deserved half-term break and are ready for an exciting run-up to the festive season.
To kick off this new term, we have a brilliant lineup of STEM competitions, grants, and events designed to spark curiosity in classrooms and local hubs. Notably, applications are now open for the
British Science Week Community Grant
—a fantastic initiative providing financial support for community groups and eligible organisations to run engaging, hands-on activities that connect underrepresented audiences with the skills and researchers behind innovation.
As STEM Ambassadors, your real-world experience is exactly what brings these opportunities to life. We also have
Tomorrow’s Engineers Week
coming up quickly from
9th to 13th November 2026
! This year's theme is
'Shape our future'
, highlighting how engineering and technology tackle the real-world challenges young people care about. Teachers and groups are actively looking for passionate volunteers like you to support these initiatives, and you can accept these requests directly via the official STEM Learning platform.
Read on to discover how you can get involved with Tomorrow's Engineers Week, full details on the Community Grant, information on the upcoming ASE Annual Conference in January, and how we
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can support you over the coming weeks!
Best wishes
Hayley
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Wales STEM Awards
This year's Wales STEM Awards took place on 1st October at Techniquest. The awards celebrate organisations and individuals driving innovation, excellence and real impact making a significant impact across Wales’s STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) sectors.
With the awards event in its sixth year, finalists were welcomed from across Wales at Techniquest to recognise all the hard work carried out to shape the future of STEM in Wales and to celebrate projects improving diversity, inclusivity and awareness in STEM.
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This year saw 2 of our STEM Ambassadors awarded for the amazing work they carry out.
Start up of the Year: Nova Outreach, founded by Tony O'Sullivan
Woman of the Year: Emma Wride
"I’m so proud to win the STEM Woman of the Year award. This will prove to all the children who come from deprived communities that with hard work and determination you can achieve anything you set your mind to. Coming from a council estate myself, my passion to follow my dream into a career in Astronomy and science communication has been an incredible journey and I’ve met amazing inspirational people. Winning this award will hopefully inspire the future generations of space scientists and engineers."
We're sure you will join us in congratulating Emma and Tony on their awards. It's wonderful to see STEM outreach being recognised and celebrated.
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FameLab UK winner heads to International finals
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FameLab UK supports researchers from across the UK through a science communication competition and sees the best new voices in science from around the country compete against one another to be crowned the UK's greatest science communicator and go on to represent the UK. FameLab International sees researchers from across the globe gather online or live to vie for the title of world’s best science communicator. Participants have 3-minutes to 'wow' the judges and the audience and leave them wanting more using only the props they are able to carry onto the stage.
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Alongside winning Start up of the Year at this years Wales STEM Awards, Tony O'Sullivan has also been named as winner of FameLab UK with a poem inspired by the recent Artemis mission which captured the wonder of many of us.
Tony is a full-time PhD researcher at Cardiff University’s School of Physics and Astronomy, so quite fitting that he used the Artemis mission as his inspiration. You can access an animated version of Tony's poem via this link
Youtube: Artemis poem
I'm sure you'll join us in wishing him luck at FameLab International being held in Poland 2nd December.
Are you feeling inspired by Tony, then the applications for FameLab 2027 are now open.
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Science Festivals in Wales - Swansea Science Festival
Celebrating its milestone 10th anniversary, the
Swansea Science Festival
took over the
National Waterfront Museum
on Saturday 31st October 2026 for its flagship day of family fun and mind- boggling discoveries. Hosted by
Swansea University
, Wales' largest science festival promises a jam-packed Saturday lineup. Thank you to all the STEM Ambassadors who volunteered for the event - please remember to log your hours on your profile.
Visitors participated in free drop-in interactive exhibits alongside highly anticipated. shows, featuring CBeebies and YouTube favourite Maddie Moate, explosive live physics demonstrations from the Royal Institution, and wildlife filmmaker Lizzie Daly. Because Saturday coincides with the eve of Halloween, special themed events like
The Science of Harry Potter
and a unique
Confessions of a Traitor
session—exploring the psychology of deception with stars from BBC's
The Traitors
—it was an unmissable weekend designed to inspire curious minds of all ages.
Beyond the grand Saturday finale, the festival kicked off the half-term week with interactive Exploding Water Science shows and the immersive CSI Swansea forensic mystery night on Wednesday. The excitement builds directly into Friday, 30th October, with high-energy Wonderstruck Halloween live shows, hands-on medical science workshops, and an evening session exploring the psychology of deception. Local cultural hubs such as the Dylan Thomas Centre and Swansea Libraries supported the week-long festivities with parallel autumn craft workshops, making it a fully packed week of discovery leading up to the main weekend event.
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Super Science Saturday - thank you to all the volunteers
Super Science Saturday recently returned to
Brecon High School
, drawing local families and regional educators for an action-packed, free community festival of science. Organized by the
Institute of Physics (IOP) Wales
and the Royal Society of Chemistry, the collaborative event brought STEM learning to life through incredible interactive workshops and spectacles. Alongside the popular Giant Bubble Show, which explored surface tension and fluid dynamics, the event featured the sub-zero physics of Frozen! and an eye-opening feature on viewing space from a different direction. Visitors marvelled at the theatrical experiments before diving into hands-on exhibits—ranging from cosmic exploration to the science of ice cream. The festival proved to be a vibrant, memorable day out that perfectly demonstrated just how much fun science can be.
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This is a reminder section:
F
rom 1 September 2026, the law about regulated activity with children in England and Wales is changing. The current rule about the supervision of paid staff and volunteers carrying out specific activities with children will be removed from the legal definition. The law is also changing in Northern Ireland, refer to
the Department of Justice website
for more information.
This means some people will be in regulated activity with children from 1 September 2026 when they were not before, because they were sufficiently supervised by someone else. This will apply if they do the work often enough, or overnight.
Regulated activity is work that a barred person must not do. It is against the law for:
a barred person to engage in regulated activity; someone to allow a barred person to do regulated activity
Who this affects
This change affects any organisation in England, Wales and Northern Ireland with paid staff or volunteers who teach, train, instruct, care for, or supervise children. It affects people who were not in regulated activity with children specifically because someone else carrying out regulated activity with children supervised them to a sufficient level. This includes, but is not restricted to circumstances involving: people who volunteer in schools, such as reading helpers who are supervised by a teacherpeople who coach children’s sports clubs, such as assistant coaches who are supervised by a head coachpeople who work or volunteer with children in outdoor activity centres, youth groups, charities or community groups, and are supervised by someone else who is in regulated activity with children
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SheCan (Cymru): She Can. So I Can.
What happens when a girl can see herself in STEM?
SheCan (Cymru) is expanding across Wales to deliver interactive, virtual STEM sessions for girls aged 13–18. Founded by STEM Ambassador Isabelle Utley, the initiative is built on a simple idea:
"She Can... So I Can."
Rather than telling every girl she must become a scientist, the programme aims to open doors and show young women that these career paths are fully open to them, inspiring them to think,
"Maybe I could do that too."
Isabelle works directly with schools to design fully customised, interactive sessions tailored to your students' specific needs and interests. Depending on what would benefit your students most, schools can choose from a range of flexible virtual options
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Interactive STEM Workshops: Focused sessions exploring specific scientific topics, career pathways, and university options.Q&A & Open Discussions: Casual, supportive spaces giving students the opportunity to ask questions they might not otherwise get to raise.A-Level Support: Small group sessions dedicated to exploring higher education opportunities and developing university personal statements.
Whether you want to reach girls who are completely new to STEM or support those who already love science but can't yet picture themselves pursuing it as a career, SheCan (Cymru) is here to help. To collaborate and bring a tailored session to your school, please visit Isabelle’s LinkedIn profile to learn more about her career in science and STEM journey.
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Local volunteering opportunities
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Biodiversity talk
Rogiet Primary
Caldicot
Flexible dates
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Our Year 6 class have taken the plunge and entered the Bioglow First Lego League Challenge for the first time this year. An important part of the challenge is the Innovation project. For this, each team needs to research and select a specific, focused problem related to the season's theme (ecosystem biodiversity) and to design an original solution, build a prototype, and share it with others.
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Weather detectives
Gilfach Fargoed Primary
Bargoed
16th November
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We are seeking a STEM Ambassador to deliver an engaging, hands-on workshop on weather, measurement, and simple atmospheric science to our Year 2/3 class and our Y1/2 class.
Our current class topic is called Weather Detectives and it is about how weather works, as well as seasonal changes in Wales. We would love an expert to share what they do and lead a simple, interactive activity to bring the topic to life for young learners.
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STEAM event
Blaenau Gwent Learning Zone
Ebbw Vale
3rd December
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Year 9 & 10 students from across the LA, each school will have around 1-hour to explore the businesses attending.
This is a STEAM Inspiration event to showcase businesses, STEAM skills, careers and their pathways, providing pupils with sufficient information to make informed choices regarding their future careers and the pathways they can take to reach them. To fill skill shortages and secure future talent pipelines in STEAM areas.
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Safeguarding Refresher for Ambassadors 12pm
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Come to this session to refresh and develop your knowledge and understanding of safeguarding. This session is for STEM Ambassadors to refresh and develop their knowledge and understanding of safeguarding. We will discuss what safeguarding is, professional boundaries, managing disclosures, reporting concerns, and Health & Safety. There will be the opportunity to ask questions too.
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Blaenau Gwent/Rhondda Cynon Taf
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I have a couple of events coming up and wondered (hoped) that some may be of interest?
All of these are morning events.
As always, your time and efforts are much appreciated and we couldn't run these events without volunteers such as yourself
sharon.clarke@careerswales.gov.wales
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We are particularly keen to add various sectors to the Denbigh High event and would welcome support from further organisations if you have availability.
These events make such a difference to informing pupils of their career options and are invaluable opportunities to meet local employers and ask questions.
lisa.connolly@careerswales.gov.wales
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Presentation skills
7th November 10am - 11am
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Learn how to prepare for online presentations and discover easy techniques for making online delivery more interactive.
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Tips and tricks for engaging learners
12th November
4pm - 5pm
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Explore tips and techniques to help prepare for volunteering with primary students in the classroom.
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This is Me!!
19th November
10am - 10:45am
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Discover how to create a short, personalised presentation to use when volunteering.
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Explain your job to an 8yr old
25th November
11am - 12pm
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Explore techniques to help explain complicated job titles and concepts for young people to understand.
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Volunteer with I'm a Scientist - online
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Through live, text-based Chats, students engage in authentic conversations with scientists.
Students connect with real scientists in fast-paced, online Chats. They ask their own questions, building interest and creating a real buzz around STEM as the new term gets underway.
By taking part, you can:Inspire the next generation in STEM through rewarding public engagementHelp students apply their learning to real-world challenges and careers. Share your work and experiences to help school students relate. Support students to break down stereotypes of what a scientist is ‘supposed’ to be
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Swansea Library - flexible dates
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We are looking for a STEM Ambassador to support a family Storytime session at our library by reading the Leo and Luna space adventure storybook from ESERO-UK.
The session will involve reading
Leo and Luna
to children and their families, sharing a little about your STEM background or career, and answering questions about space, science. engineering or technology.
If you would like to, there is also the opportunity to include a simple space-themed activity or demonstration, although this is optional.
The audience will be children aged 5-10 and their families.
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Share with your friends and colleagues
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Do you have someone in mind who would make a fantastic STEM Ambassador? Share the link below!
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Share with your employer or STEM organisation
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Think your employer would benefit from making an impact as a STEM Ambassadors Partner? Share this link with them!
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