Myers-Insole Local Learning CIC

logo.jpg thumbnail

Myers-Insole Local Learning
Community Interest Company

Myers-Insole Local Learning is a not for profit Community Interest Company (C.I.C.) based in Bristol that was established in 2005. We are a small company consisting of two directors: Peter Insole - Project Manager (archaeological education consultant). Ruth Myers - Project Manager (teaching and learning education consultant).
Our main objectives are to: Promote an understanding and appreciation of Bristol's heritage and culture through easily accessible educational resources. Ensure that these educational resources will benefit children’s learning in accordance with school curricula and education policies. Facilitate teaching by providing relevant resources that focus on the development of key skills and promote an enjoyment in learning. Wherever possible, use a local area’s sites, monuments and relevant digital data as learning resources. Our resource goes beyond the History curriculum and meets with many learning objectives from the National Literacy and Numeracy Strategies. We create cross curricular opportunities wherever appropriate and place particular emphasis on literacy to permit people to access the resource at all levels and become independent learners. As well as complementing the delivery of existing History topics we also develop ideas for local studies and project themes that are differentiated and can be tailored for any year group. We believe that for communities to learn about their local environment people need to; know what resources exist in their local area, have an understanding of those resources, have an idea of the potential for using those resources as effective learning tools. This approach underpins all our learning resources and enables us to develop engaging, innovative and enjoyable tasks. Our company has been working with Bristol City Council’s Children and Young People’s Services, Bristol City Museum and Art Gallery, Bristol Reference Library, Bristol Children’s Library, Archaeological Officers and staff and pupils at St Michael-on-the-Mount Primary School to develop a local history resource based Key Stage 2 (7-11 year olds) history topics (Romans, Tudors and Victorians). We have delivered highly successful in service training to two other Bristol primary schools who are making regular use of our webpages in the classroom and have carried out successful Local Learning themed projects based on our resources. We have designed an interactive guided walk that takes pupils, parents and carers and other members of the public on a route through Tudor Bristol. This has been designed to complement a virtual journey that is featured on our Tudor webpages. We have secured Heritage Lottery funding for these trails, that will run in conjunction with the Bristol Children’s Library. The Lottery grant will also fund a series of Mock Archaeological Excavations in September and October 2007. We have successfully raised funds for the pilot project of the web resource from three local trusts (The John James Trust, Ernest Cook Trust and The Trumark Trust) and a national charity (UnLtd). We have also received an education grant from an international Geographic Information Systems (GIS) software company (Intergraph). We aim to eventually establish a city wide web resource based on this model. We can be contacted by email.