Online Mentoring Programme: Explore Your STEM Future!

The STEM Learning  free national online mentoring scheme, in partnership with The Brightside Trust, is designed to help 13-19-year-olds explore their future career options. By chatting with trained and experienced STEM professionals, young people can:

• Ask for careers advice
• Learn more about potential careers
• Consider life after school, including education at university, apprenticeships, or preparing for employment

The programme is fully funded so participation is free for UK students.

Sign ups for the next cycle close on the 4th of February 2026 at 4pm.

The cohort will start on Monday 9th February.

Key Dates

26 January 2026 – School cohort registration deadline
4 February 2026 – Individual student registration deadline
9 February 2026 – Programme launches

Here at The STEM Hub, we are working in partnership with STEM Learning to support recruitment and provide ongoing support throughout the programme.

How to get involved

There are two ways to get your students involved

Either:

Direct students to the programme and encourage them to sign up independently.

1. Individual Student Registration
   

     Provide students with this Sign Up link 

     2. School Cohort Registration

As a school/college staff member, recruit a cohort of students and work with them to support their engagement with the programme.

• Choose your cohort – this might be a form group, a year group, a subject class group, a targeted group – it’s totally up to you, they just need to be aged 13-19.

• Complete this Microsoft Form to express your interest

• The STEM Hub team will then follow up with you to request provision of student information, via a secure spreadsheet, to enable accounts to be created on the Brightside online mentoring platform

• Support students along their journey, by periodically checking in with them to help them get the most out of their experience

• The central STEM Learning/The STEM Hub teams will be able to share information about how actively your students engaged with the programme so you can monitor impact.

---

What support will students get?

Students receive one-to-one personalised support over a 6-week period from a STEM Ambassador mentor, with an enhanced safeguarding certificate, who has volunteered to be part of the programme. They will also gain access to resources to help them make informed decisions about their future and cover topics such as:

• Mental health and wellbeing
• Job hunting, applications and interviews
• Study skills
• Money, housing and independent living

---

How does the mentoring work?

Students can message their mentor at any time during the 6-week mentoring period and mentors will reply as soon as they can. Conversations take place via text-based messaging, a bit like email, so mentors and mentees do not need to be online at the same time.

From Spring 2026, video calls will be an exciting new optional feature.

To keep mentees safe, messages and video calls can only be exchanged via the secure and moderated mentoring platform.

Mentors are all fully trained and DBS checked.

---

Who can apply?

All young people aged between 13-19 from across the UK are invited to apply.

Teachers can also apply sign-up for their students. There is no limit on the number of mentees able to access the programme from any one school or college.

---

Feedback from previous students

• "I would definitely recommend to others especially with those who have no clue about what they want to do in the future"

• "I was unsure about my future career and my mentor gave me invaluable and first-hand information about how it is working in research, which helped me decide the right path to take. "

• "[My mentor] provided me with so much information that I wouldn't have been able to find elsewhere. I also sent my personal statement and CV to my mentor, both of which he examined thoroughly and gave a lot of feedback and advice on!"

• "It was really good, I could chat with my mentor about things related to my chosen field and it let me know that I was on the right track. Which is really great as my family aren’t familiar with what I want to do."

• "Though I'm not 100% certain what my future pathway will be, my [mentor] definitely let me know all my possible options and that was super useful. I'm definitely much more confident in my options now than I was"

FIND OUT MORE

Questions?
If you have any questions, please contact thestemhub@canterbury.ac.uk and our team will be glad to help.