• “reflect the diversity of perspectives, values and identities which shape your locality and Wales and develop understanding of the wider world?”
• “build in co-construction with learners, their families and the wider community?”
• “enable your learners to make sense of growing up in contemporary Wales and of issues which will be important in the future, including well-being, sustainable development and citizenship?” ^[2]

^[6]

Maestro can support with many of these elements.

Using the practical tools within Maestro to enhance the mapping and planning of your curriculum

The first stage of building your bespoke curriculum within Maestro is to choose your projects. Within the ‘View and Compare’ tab of your Design and Lead area, you can browse and select your projects. Thinking about the different contexts we mentioned earlier, consider choosing projects relevant to children and local interest – but equally, consider projects which will provide children with an experience they might not usually have access to.

For example, city schools may like to learn about Eryri, choosing Misty Mountain as a project to support this. Maybe a mid-Wales school might opt for Coastline. Your choices can help in creating aspirations and building cultural capital, showing children there is more to the world than they have experienced so far. Children who may have never had the opportunity to visit the seaside with their families may benefit from a school trip providing them with that experience.

Maestro has 15 Welsh History and Culture projects which are spread through all year groups – these can be used alongside other projects to provide more Wales-focused content, or can be the basis of a main focus which schools can further adapt.

While Pupil Voice is a hugely important aspect of the curriculum, it is also important that a school establishes their non-negotiables to provide a broad balanced curriculum, so providing a guided choice rather than complete free rein. After all, children don’t know what they don’t know! For example, choosing to cover aspects of world history that the children would not otherwise have any concept of is important (such as the Emperors and Empires project in the screenshot above).  Exploring projects here in View & Compare will help you make these choices.

Learn more about how to choose and add projects to your curriculum here

Once you have selected some projects and built them into your Cwricwlwm Designer you can check the intended coverage provided by these against the AOLEs and WMS using the Detailed Coverage Analysis.

Here you can identify gaps and see where your coverage is taking place through the school curriculum. You can focus by individual year groups if you wish, and you can also open up the Objectives button to identify the skills and knowledge being covered – and you can also assign further coverage from this point.

Learn more about Checking and Analysing Coverage here

You can also add notes into the individual lessons from this page, by clicking the green circle and selecting the lesson title. Click on ‘Edit adaptation’ and add notes to advise teachers of a non-negotiable element of the project, or to mention an opportunity for local links. Maybe there is an opportunity to include some Welsh language focus, or LNF/DCF skills? In fact, the Adaptation box can be used at any point through the planning of the project, to add notes relating to coverage, additional resources you have created or found, local elements or any other point of interest – and it will stay with that lesson for future reference.

The Progression framework of knowledge and skills will also enable you to see where your coverage is happening and where there may be gaps. While this is non statutory and therefore you do not necessarily need to have coverage of everything in every year group, you can identify where you want to have coverage and assign lessons this way as well.

Learn more about Analysing progression here

Both the coverage and progression tools can be useful to AOLE leaders in helping them identify and add in their non-negotiables.

Adding your own bespoke content and context to your curriculum

Within Maestro, you have the functionality to create your own bespoke content to use alongside the existing projects.

You can create your own school projects - ideal for showing coverage of external programmes you use for LLC, Health & Wellbeing, Mathematics, or Music, for example. You might choose to create a project which focuses on a particularly local interest, or a topic inspired by Pupil Voice.  Your project may stand alone, or may be used to add local elements to a Cornerstones project you have added to your curriculum.

Learn more about School projects here

The Lesson builder tool which is used when creating your own projects is also available in every Cornerstones project in your curriculum. Your title or focus can reflect Pupil Voice and local references.

How to track the integration of the cross-curricular frameworks

When planning each individual lesson, whether via the timetable, My Lessons, or through a project itself, you can add further objectives to make that lesson truly bespoke.  You might wish to add objectives for additional AoLEs – for example, adding literacy objectives for writing to a Humanities-focused lesson. Also at this point of planning, you can choose to include LNF and DCF skills. These are not pre-determined by Cornerstones as they depend on the needs and experience of the children and are therefore entirely bespoke to the teachers’ professional judgement.

You can also add ‘discrete’ lessons – one-off, standalone lessons – into your timetable. These may be ideal for focusing on topical issues which do not necessarily fit with a project but allow for flexibility and the potential to respond to pupil voice.

Learn more about Planning and Teaching here

Evidence of coverage

Once your lesson has been taught, by tracking the coverage you are able to use the Actual Coverage tool to see the specifics of what has been taught from your planned curriculum (as well as any extra coverage you have built in).  As this is a live document you will be able to see how your coverage grows through the year as you adapt and enhance your curriculum.

In summary, there are many ways that Maestro can support the bespoke nature of the Curriculum For Wales.

References

^[1][2][3][4] https://hwb.gov.wales/curriculum-for-wales/designing-your-curriculum/introduction/ 

^[5] https://hwb.gov.wales/curriculum-for-wales/designing-your-curriculum/cross-cutting-themes-for-designing-your-curriculum/#local,-national-and-international-contexts

^[6] https://hwb.gov.wales/curriculum-for-wales/designing-your-curriculum/principles-for-designing-your-curriculum/

• enable learners to make progress towards the four purposes
• be broad and balanced
• be suitable for learners of different ages, abilities and aptitudes
• provide for appropriate learner progression
• include all six Areas
• cover every statement of what matters
• include the mandatory curriculum components of religion, values and ethics, relationships and sexuality education, Welsh and English
• embed the mandatory cross-curricular skills
• incorporate a range of assessment approaches which support learner progression

We’ll begin by looking at the initial mapping and planning – how do you check coverage, and fill in any gaps or look for opportunities for additional coverage?
(will be Cov analysis/prog)

We’ll then look at how to create content of your own, through creating your own projects or adding your own lessons into existing projects.

We will look at how you can make notes in lesson adaptations on your first read through, and then add further objectives, including LNF/DCF into lessons during your final stages of planning.
Finally, we’ll look at how tracking lessons can show you the coverage of all of the above as you work through the year in real-time.

[LIVE MAESTRO]