Maestro updates

Maestro updates

Our Curriculum Team and Product Developers are constantly working hard behind the scenes to ensure that Maestro stays up-to-date. We use the latest research, government and Ofsted updates, and, of course, our much-valued customer feedback to help inform any changes that we make.
 
If you have any questions about the following updates, please do not hesitate to contact us via LiveChat, email or telephone, where one of our helpful and friendly team will be happy to support you.

Customising projects for mixed-age planning

Updated: 30th November 2023

To further support schools with mixed-age classes, Maestro now enables Maestro administrators and SLT users to add the skills framework for a different year group to a project.

This means that if you are a Y4/5 teacher and you are teaching Invasion, you can now add the Y5 skills to each lesson in the project to go alongside the Y4 skills. This functionality will help teachers to plan their lessons with suitable support and/or challenge for the children by showing the corresponding skills for the different year groups.

Please go to Customising projects for mixed-age planning for further details.

Distortion and Abstraction

Updated: 30th August 2023
 
To enhance the content in the Y6 art and design project, Distortion and Abstraction, an additional lesson has been added to the Develop stage. The new lesson is called Abstract perspective and complements the preceding lessons about abstraction by line, colour and shape.

The Skills and Knowledge Progression Framework

Updated: September 2023 
 
The Cornerstones Curriculum is a concept-led primary curriculum informed by the latest evidence from cognitive science and the requirements of the Education inspection framework (Ofsted, updated 2022). Our team has been reviewing and refining the framework and updating the content. We have made the built-in core knowledge more explicit to help you identify the core knowledge for each lesson. Now, when you view core knowledge for your lessons on Maestro:  
  1. Skills and core knowledge are mapped across each year group. You can see this on the Intended progression page. 
  2. The information you see against each lesson is slimmed down to only include concepts/aspects, skills and core knowledge. 
You can still view other important information, such as hinterland knowledge, broad knowledge and the programmes of study by clicking on the ‘Additional information’ tab. To explain the differences between these types of knowledge, please see the information below.  
  1. Skills, sometimes referred to as procedural knowledge, are the actions taken within a particular subject to gain or use other types of knowledge. This is what children will do in lessons.
  2. Core knowledge is the vital, substantive and disciplinary knowledge that all children should learn from the teaching of your curriculum. This is what children will know by the end of the lesson.
  3. Hinterland is the contextual knowledge, information, examples, illustrations and experiences that enrich and expand the core knowledge, a vital part of primary education.
  4. Broad knowledge is a breakdown of the national curriculum programmes of study to support curriculum design and ensure coverage. 
 
When making lesson attainments, you can do so for the skill/s and core knowledge but will also have the option to ‘show additional skills and knowledge’. This will reveal any optional skills, hinterland and broad knowledge you might want to assess.   
  
We hope these recent improvements will further support you in focusing on core knowledge when teaching the curriculum and save you valuable time in your planning and assessments. 

English Knowledge

Updated: 17th August 2023
 
Knowledge statements have been added to the English skills. They can be seen in the lessons containing English skills and under the Intended progression tab.
 
The skills cover all the programmes of study in the national curriculum for English; the knowledge statements are our interpretation of the content required to deliver those skills.
 
The skills and knowledge progress from Nursery to Year 6 so can help teachers with planning, even for the areas that Cornerstones does not resource, such as handwriting.

Glossaries

Updated: August 2023
 
History, geography and design and technology glossaries are now available, providing age-appropriate definitions for the key design and technology vocabulary contained within the projects.
 
They can be found alongside the knowledge organisers in the Introductory Knowledge stage of all design and technology KRPs.
 
Display words and word mats are also available and are located in the generic section of the resources.

 

Please note: Art and design glossaries are coming soon!

Reception White Rose Maths

Updated: 8th August 2023
 
The White Rose Maths projects for Reception have been uploaded to Maestro. However, our Curriculum Team are just in the process of adding the latest versions of these.
 
Autumn is now available, with the spring and summer projects being available soon.

New Nursery Pre-literacy Packs

Updated: 7th August 2023
 
We have now uploaded the Nursery Pre-literacy Packs for the autumn term. This fully resourced, pre-literacy scheme for Nursery introduces children to the early phonic skills they need to develop before they start Reception. Each pack is split into four strands:
  1. Rhyme time
  2. Sounds all around
  3. Sound it out
  4. Make a mark.

Select the activities from each strand that suit the needs and interests of your children. Each activity provides ideas for enhanced provision and guidance to give additional support to children at risk of falling behind. Maestro admins and SLT users will need to add the Nursery Pre-literacy Pack to their live curriculum via the Curriculum Sequence page.
Marvellous Machines 
Updated: 24th July 2023
 
Several changes have been made to this EYFS project due to a key text going out of print.
 
Key changes include:
  1. The activity and resources in lesson 1 Develop 1 ‘What do machines do all day?’ have been changed.
  2. The resources in lesson 3 Develop 1 ‘Machine poems for Reception’ have been changed.
  3. A new lesson has been added as the fourth lesson in Develop 1 ‘The Most Magnificent Thing’, this lesson is about the new key text.

The changes we have made to Marvellous Machines will appear automatically in your curriculum.

Maafa 

Updated: 23rd May 2023
 
Due to customer feedback asking for more content about a non-European society that provides contrast with British history, we have reviewed the Maafa project for Year 6 and revised and added lessons to the Engage stage to deliver more content about the Kingdom of Benin. If you are teaching this topic now, the extra lessons are a bonus, so you can either choose to teach them or not.

 

Key changes include:
  1. The activity in lesson 1 in the Engage stage has been replaced by a new activity that explores all the African kingdoms and empires mentioned in the presentation.
  2. The Engage stage includes two new lessons: the Kingdom of Benin AD 900–1897 and Benin Bronzes.
  3. The knowledge organiser has been updated to reflect the additional Benin content.
  4. The Maafa question sheet in the Express stage has two additional questions to cover the content in the new lessons.

The changes we have made to Maafa will appear automatically in your curriculum.

Bright Lights, Big City

Following the death of Elizabeth II on 8th September 2022, we have updated Bright Lights, Big City for Year 1.
 
Key changes to Year 1 Bright Lights, Big City include:
  1. The Introductory Knowledge lesson now introduces the children to different types of landmarks in the United Kingdom.
  2. The Memorable Experience now focuses on studying a local landmark.
  3. The Engage stage English pack now focuses on writing postcards about local landmarks.
  4. Lesson resources throughout the project have been updated.

 These updates are part of a new Bright Lights, Big City project. SLT/Maestro Administrators will need to remove the old version of this project and add the new one to your live curriculum.
To update your curriculum:
  1. Go to Design and Lead > Live curriculum > Class plans tab.
  2. Open the relevant class plan by clicking the number of projects it contains, hover over Bright Lights, Big City and click the Remove button to remove it from your class plans.
  3. Go to the Curriculum sequence tab, hover over Bright Lights, Big City and click the Remove button to remove it from your live curriculum.
  4. Staying on the Curriculum sequence tab, click the 'Add Year 1 project' button, click on the 'Geography' tab, select the new version of Bright Lights, Big City and click Add.
  5. Select the Class plans tab at the top of the page again, open up the relevant class plan to see the list of projects, then click Add projects. 
  6. Select the Geography tab, tick the corner of Bright Lights, Big City and click Add.
  7. Drag the project into the sequence you wish to teach it; we recommend the spring term.
  8. Please remember to click Save at the top of the page after making these changes.

If you have already added detailed content to your Class Plans for Bright Lights, Big City, you may wish to copy and paste this into a Word document before switching out the projects. Then, when you have added the new project, you can add the content back in and edit it as required.

Magnificent Monarchs

Following the death of Elizabeth II on 8th September 2022, we have updated Bright Lights, Big City for Year 1 and Magnificent Monarchs for Year 2.
 
Key changes to Year 2 Magnificent Monarchs include:
  1. References to Elizabeth II have been updated.
  2. References and images of Charles III and William, Prince of Wales, have been added.
  3. Lesson resources throughout the project have been updated.

The changes we have made to Magnificent Monarchs will appear automatically in your curriculum.


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