Outreach

“We found a Viking boat. What will YOU discover?”

Outreach and Archaeology at Leicester

The School of Archaeology & Ancient History are keen to support teachers, schools and the wider community in raising awareness of our subject, inspiring people both young and old to learn about their heritage. Our dedicated Outreach team is made up of departmental staff and both undergraduate and postgraduate volunteers, who will help to bring facets of our past alive through objects, materials, images and displays.

Interested? We hope so!

Here's the range we offer. For more details, see below:

Outreach programme	Primary	Y7	Y8	Y9	Y10	Y11	Y12	Y13
Gifted and Talented	√	√	√	√	√	√	√	√
Lectures for schools	√	√	√	√	√	√	√	√
Masterclasses							√
Students in classrooms	√	√	√	√	√	√	√	√
Summer Schools & residentials					√	√
Visits to schools	√	√	√	√	√	√	√	√
Visits to dept. excavation	√	√	√	√	√	√	√	√

Visits to Primary & Secondary Schools

outreach at kibworth We can make a two hour visit to your school to deliver five hands-on activities that discuss some of the techniques that archaeologists use to look at excavated evidence (pottery, seeds, animal bones, recording artefacts and chronology). Visits are made on Wednesday afternoons with two members of staff and volunteer members of our Student Outreach Team.

Our team has been involved in some TV archaeology with pupils - most notably with Michael Wood's BBC series on Kibworth - where we undertook some test-pit excavations to dig up the village's past!

Young Archaeologists Club, Leicester

Leicestershire has a thriving club which was set up in 1995. It meets monthly, mostly in Leicester with occasional meetings around the county and summer field trips and activities. The club is run by a Community Archaeologist and volunteers (mostly graduates from the department).
http://www.leics.gov.uk/index/leisure_tourism/local_history/archaeology/community_archaeology/archaeology_yac.htm

Community Archaeology

borrough hill pic sml.jpg Burrough Hill Iron Age Hillfort Excavations - come and vist the major archaeological fieldschool taking place at a key late prehistoric site int he county: fortifications, houses, pits, bodies and rubbish! A great way to see how archaeology works in the field!

We can help with school visits/community groups for guided tours/handling sessions at Burrough Hill.

Operation Nightingale - Whitewall Brake, Roman Villa, Caerwent

Staff and student volunteers from the department are involved in the latest project, begun in November 2011. The first full week of excavation will take place at the end of March 2012, after which further details will be added. Operation Nightingale is a new Ministry of Defence run project which aims at using archaeology as a means of rehabilitating injured military personnel. It has been founded by Sgt. Diarmaid Walshe of the 1st Battalion the Rifles in Chepstow and Richard Osgood, the Senior Historic Advisor at UK Ministry of Defence. Several of the soldiers have signed up to study for archaeology degrees at the University of Leicester by Distance Learning. At a time when archaeology can struggle to justify its existence to those with little interest, Operation Nightingale is leading the way for other community-based projects to demonstrate how important archaeology is to our future.