All About STEM NEWS
The Prince’s Trust and STEM Ambassadors National Partnership
The Prince’s Trust help 13 to 30 year-olds who are unemployed or struggling at school to transform their lives. STEM Learning have developed a national relationship with them to provide support through the STEM Ambassadors programme.
Their 2017 Youth Index that was released last month speaks about the challenges young people face. The Prince’s Trust has returned £1.4 billion in value through their help for disadvantaged young people over the last ten years alone. Their programmes give young people the practical and financial support they need to stabilise their lives and help them develop key skills while boosting their confidence and motivation. Today, three in four young people on their programmes move into work, education or training.
STEM at The Prince’s Trust
At The Prince’s Trust, STEM is a strategic focus and a key area of development for their young people. Through their programmes, they aim to equip all Prince’s Trust young people with the STEM skills needed for employment. They have introduced STEM opportunities across all their programmes.
From app design to stargazing, and animation to kitchen science, they make sure their STEM activities are engaging and relevant, and help young people progress into education, employment or training opportunities. They have worked with many fantastic partners such as those in the Technology Leadership Group and in the Internet and Media Leadership Group, providing STEM sector work experience and employment opportunities to young people.
Over the next three years, they are planning to scale up and pilot even more STEM opportunities such as new courses, traineeships, online workshops, and specialist STEM delivery staff in our regions.
In order to enhance their STEM offering and support to young people, STEM Learning have been developing a national relationship with them to provide support through the STEM Ambassadors programme.
The Prince’s Trust Programmes
Here is a breakdown of what each of their programmes includes and how STEM Ambassadors could potentially support each programme.
Please see links to all the information about The Prince’s Trust programmes here.
Achieve Overview: Achieve, is a personal development course for 13 to 19-year-olds who are at risk of underachievement or exclusion. This course offers a practical approach to learning to help young people fulfil their potential. The Achieve programme provides an opportunity for young people to try out new activities, boost their confidence and gain a recognised Prince’s Trust qualification.
Where: Achieve can be delivered in a variety of settings such as youth centres, pupil referral units, youth offender institutions and, in some locations, at a Prince’s Trust centre.
What’s involved:
As part of the programme, young people explore the following:
Personal and social development: By working in small groups, they’ll be able to meet new people and make new friends.
Life skills: Through fun and interactive sessions, they’ll learn how to manage money, be healthy and stay safe.
Active citizenship: They’ll work as part of a team to make a difference to their local community.
Enterprise project: This is a Dragons’ Den style challenge.
Preparation for work: Create a tip-top CV, practice for future interviews and explore their skills and talents.
How can STEM Ambassadors support: STEM Ambassadors already have experience working in schools. They could be used as support on sessions, for inspirational talks or to deliver certain sessions or enrichments.
Get Started Overview: Get Started are short courses run by professional tutors in sport, music and creative arts for 16 to 25-year-olds who are out of work, education or training.
What’s involved: Working with partners including the Premier League, ASOS and Sony, young people work towards a group challenge while developing their skills and confidence. They benefit from one-to-one support to help them think about what they’d like to do after the course finishes. There is also a group reunion shortly after the programme to help young people think about their next steps and how to progress into something positive.
How can STEM Ambassadors support: The most natural link for STEM Ambassadors would be supporting on employability and reunion days to talk about the industry and pathways into STEM. This could easily be extended to support on programme or for particular parts of delivery.
Team Overview: Team is a 12-week personal development course for 16 to 25-year-olds, offering work experience, qualifications, practical skills, community projects and a residential week.
What’s involved:
Young people will be challenged to:
Take on their own group community project, making a positive difference to the place where they live.
Take part in an action packed residential trip.
Get two weeks’ work experience in something they’re interested in.
Develop their English and Maths skills.
As part of the course, they also spend some time developing their interview and CV skills.
Get into Overview: Get into is a short vocational course that develops young people’s skills in a specific sector for 16 to 25-year-olds not in work, education or training and live in the UK.
What’s involved: The Get into programme will give young people the chance to gain work experience and receive training in a specific sector.
With programmes running in a number of sectors – including retail, construction, logistics and hospitality – young people will spend time training on the job and gain valuable work experience in their chosen sector. During the programme, young people will also benefit from one-to-one support to help them develop their employability skills and think about what they’d like to do after the course finishes, and after the programme they have the option of support either from Prince’s Trust staff or a volunteer mentor for up to six months.
How can STEM Ambassadors support: The most natural link for STEM Ambassadors would be supporting on employability and reunion days to talk about the industry and pathways into STEM. This could easily be extended to support on programme or for particular parts of delivery.
Enterprise Overview: The Enterprise programme helps unemployed young people aged 18 to 30 with support and funding to work out if their business ideas are viable and whether self-employment is right for them.
What’s involved: Young people go on a four-day interactive workshop, where they get to meet other like-minded people and have the chance to tap into a business expert, covering everything from business planning and marketing to sales, budgeting and tax.
After this, it’s time for them to start building their business. Young people get support to plan and test their ideas and have the opportunity to apply for funding. Once they’ve launched your business, they get an experienced business mentor who will be on hand to share advice every step of the way – for up to two years.
Fairbridge Overview: The Fairbridge programme works with young people aged 16 to 25, giving them the motivation, self-confidence and skills they need to change their lives.
What’s involved: The Fairbridge programme offers young people a mix of group activities and one-to-one support to develop the skills and confidence they need to move forward. Starting with a five-day Access course, young people get the chance to do outdoor adventurous activities, as well as take part in a residential trip. Once the Access course is complete, young people can choose from lots of different activities from sports to drama and photography to cooking.
How can STEM Ambassadors support: STEM Ambassadors could support delivery of sessions. There is also scope for STEM Ambassadors to support other programmes and other areas, such as mentoring.
Process for Prince’s Trust project staff to request STEM Ambassadors
STEM Ambassador requests will be directed to the relevant STEM Ambassador Hub. Their work can be delivered in a variety of settings such as schools, youth centres, pupil referral units, youth offender institutions and, at a Prince’s Trust centres.
For more information please find a list of their Prince’s Trust centres here.
Prince’s Trust guidelines for requesting STEM Ambassadors:
- A STEM Ambassador could be deployed for various different functions across teams but there is some general guidance to facilitate the process.
- Prince’s Trust requests for a STEM Ambassador should clearly state this is for a Prince’s Trust Programme. Best practice would be to state in the subject line of the email that it is a Prince’s Trust request.
- Give 4 weeks’ notice before any event.
- Please provide a brief or discuss with the STEM Ambassador Hub how you could see the support of an Ambassador being beneficial or to structure the request.
- Feel free to request specifics for the Ambassador (background, gender, etc.). The STEM Ambassador Hub where possible will try to facilitate.
- Be prepared to brief STEM Ambassadors prior to the event.
Prince’s Trust STEM Ambassador Request Form
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