The original Cornerstones projects for Nursery and Reception have been included within the project library for schools in Wales. These have been mapped to the What matters statements and each project is written to provide activities for a half term.
However, we’ve recently designed new Early Years projects which provide broad and balanced provision across all AoLEs and a play-based ethos. The new projects for Nursery and Reception also follow the Cornerstones pedagogy. This structure provides a tried and tested, consistent approach to learning and is followed in all Cornerstones projects from Nursery to Year 6.
Introduction
The projects allow practitioners to track children’s progress towards the What Matters Statements through Cornerstones' unique skills and knowledge framework. The framework breaks children’s learning into the small steps they need to progress through and enables schools to track progression from Nursery to Year 6. Children working in the birth to 3 age range will learn through playing and exploring, though teachers are welcome to use our project lessons and enhanced provision ideas and adapt them as required.
The curriculum has been written with an intended progression sequence in mind to help children develop skills and knowledge over time. However, there is flexibility for you to respond to your children’s needs and interests.
Original projects would usually be taught one per half term, in any order of your choice. New projects have a companion mini project, and every half term, there are two main and two mini projects to choose from. All learning is linked to the key skills and knowledge that children need to explore to build strong foundations for learning and prepare them for their next steps as they progress through school.
The main projects immerse children in a cross-curricular topic. Themes include Me and my Community, Once Upon a Time, Dangerous Dinosaurs and Ready, Steady Grow. These exciting projects teach children fundamental skills and knowledge that will support them to understand the world around them and become life long, curious learners.
The mini projects have a specific theme for children to explore linked to the seasons, weather and celebrations. Practitioners can choose the projects that best suit the interests of their children or run a two-year cycle with mixed-age classes.
Child-focused learning
There are lots of ideas for creating ‘enabling environments’ and ‘planned, purposeful play’ for all children in your setting. Every child is unique, so the projects give you the opportunity to adapt, simplify or extend activities to suit the needs of your children. A mixture of child-led and adult-directed activities ensure opportunities for effective learning through playing and exploring, creating, and thinking critically. The activities are flexible and you can adapt the content using Maestro to suit your setting. We understand how busy life in Early Years is, so we’ve designed activities that can run alongside your other day to day routines.
Supporting provision
Each activity includes a linked enhanced continuous provision idea and gives examples of prompts and questions to support, challenge and extend children’s thinking and learning. Every project has a wide range of resources and a list of practical resources, carefully designed to support practitioners bring the projects to life. Each project also comes with a fact sheet, vocabulary list, parent information, display banner, and a book list.
Useful reading
- An exciting new EYFS curriculum from Cornerstones | (cornerstoneseducation.co.uk)
- What is continuous provision and why is it important in the early years? (cornerstoneseducation.co.uk)
- Top 5 tips for managing enhanced provision in EYFS | Cornerstones Education
- The importance of early reading (cornerstoneseducation.co.uk)