Our curriculum progresses from Nursery to Year 6 and encompasses the subjects of history, geography, science, design and technology, art and design, maths and English. Computing is delivered through the Barefoot Computing at School resources. This curriculum helps you to meet requirements set out in the national curriculum and Ofsted Inspection Framework, enabling children to build knowledge and understanding over time, while offering rich, broad and engaging content.

What are the Cornerstones Curriculum models?

The content of our curriculum is broad, varied and engaging and covers the statutory content set out in the subject programmes of study. In Years 1 to 6, curriculum content is organised into a range of main and mini-subject-driven projects. Main projects span a whole term and are focused on geography and history. Mini projects can be taught over a term or half term and are subject-focused for science, art and design, and design technology.

Our Early Years projects are also carefully sequenced into main and mini projects across Nursery and Reception. Each project has differentiated lessons allowing the projects to be used in either Nursery or Reception. This means that schools would be able to choose either of the sequences set out in the Cornerstones Curriculum single or mixed-aged models. 

The models can be found in the Design a new curriculum section of Maestro or in the Library.

Why should we use the Cornerstones Curriculum models?

We've done the hard work for you in developing this curriculum. We've scrutinised research reports, Ofsted guidance, other curriculum packages, and spoken to schools across the country about their needs. Our specialist primary curriculum team have taken great care to build and resource the new projects, resulting in a high quality and well-connected curriculum.

We've also been listening to schools who have already experienced the new inspection framework and have taken their experiences into account, as we continually evolve Maestro.

Because of this, we know what a mammoth task current curriculum design can be for schools, especially in ensuring your curriculum has all the features and characteristics required by the new inspection framework. If you have managed to achieve this, then that’s great news. However, if you are not entirely confident in your current curriculum, particularly in terms of its sequencing, progression and coverage, then the Cornerstones Curriculum models are perfect for you.

Not only can you trust that that work has already been done, but you can begin to implement the curriculum straight away, ensuring you get a head start with your curriculum.

But we want our curriculum to reflect who we are as a school. How can we achieve this if we’re using such a highly structured model?

Adopting a pre-planned curriculum model does not mean you have to lose the unique characteristics of your school or the strengths, talents and interests of your teaching staff or children.

In fact, using a pre-planned model gives teachers more time to use their professional judgment and creativity to adapt the curriculum lessons and resources. In our experience, when schools are confident that the hard work of constructing the curriculum is already done, teachers feel a sense of freedom to edit and adapt content to meet the more specific needs of their children.

Using a pre-planned model still provides flexibility to plan your weekly or termly schedule. How you plan the lessons within your timetable will be different to how another school does this. For example, you may decide to do two geography lessons a week, while another school delivers all the geography lessons within a two-week period. This flexibility works well, as long as everything remains in the correct sequence as set out in the curriculum model.

Finally, don’t forget the power that your locality has to impact your curriculum. Where you go for educational visits, the places you carry out fieldwork or visit for curriculum enrichment activities can all help shape your curriculum to your unique context.

Ready to create your curriculum? Next step: Design a new curriculum