Frequently asked questions
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General
Pricing
We offer tiered pricing based on school size and length of the licence you want. Costs range from £500 to £2,800, with discounts for multi-year licences.
The annual licence includes free expert online support.
Contact us for more information.
Yes. You can purchase a Cornerstones licence for single or multiple year groups, including just EYFS.
Contact our curriculum advisers to discuss the options you have for your school.
Yes. You can purchase a Cornerstones licence for single or multiple subjects including Art and design, Design and Technology, Science, Geography, History and RE.
Contact us to discuss the options available for your school.
Teacher information
Cornerstones will provide support in written, online and, where appropriate, bespoke training to help schools integrate the new Curriculum and Assessment Review requirements.
It's project-based and thematic. When you teach the Cornerstones curriculum, you'll find hundreds of exciting projects or topics to choose from, including popular themes and brand new creative projects.
Each lesson comes with expertly created resources, so teachers can focus on delivering great lessons rather than searching for materials.
At Cornerstones, we believe that teachers should be trusted to bring their professional judgement, creativity and knowledge to the classroom.
That's why our curriculum is fully adaptable, with built-in flexibility and support that allows teachers to make the curriculum their own.
In our projects, we offer suggestions for both out-of-school and in-school memorable experiences.
Our Memorable Experiences Map on Maestro, which is regularly updated, provides a range of destination ideas that you can easily search for near your school.
Time saving
Cornerstones provides a fully sequenced, high-quality curriculum with everything teachers need all in one place.
Instead of spending hours planning or searching for resources, you can focus your time where it matters most: adapting lessons to meet the needs of the children in your class.
Every lesson on Maestro comes with expertly created resources that link directly to what you're teaching, saving you valuable preparation time every week.
As a school leader, Maestro offers you the ability to manage your entire school's curriculum all in one place.
In addition, expert support from our advisers is included in the school's licence, which means you'll have help from the beginning of your licence and throughout.
As a subject leader you'll benefit from a clear and coherent view of the learning journey across the school within your subject area.
A robust progression framework outlines the development of knowledge and skills from EYFS through to Year 6, ensuring both continuity and depth of learning.
As a senior leader, you'll have complete curriculum oversight at your fingertips.
Instantly access a clear view of what has been taught, when, and where across the school, ensuring full curriculum coverage and coherence.
Powerful analytical reporting tools give you meaningful insights at whole-school, class, or individual pupil level.
Curriculum content
General information
The Cornerstones pedagogy is a dynamic four-stage teaching and learning approach that forms the backbone of our curriculum.
Rooted in the child-centred values of the Reggio Emilia approach and enriched by insights from cognitive science, it's designed to create classrooms where curiosity thrives and learning sticks.
Subject knowledge is mapped across our skills and knowledge framework from Nursery to Year 6.
Knowledge statements are also clearly mapped to each lesson.
The Cornerstones curriculum provides a flexible framework that allows staff to personalise learning to the specific needs of children with SEND.
Our curriculum projects and Maestro functionality provide a basis for teachers to plan and deliver a broad range of exciting lessons for children with SEND.
Diversity is thoughtfully woven throughout the curriculum to ensure that all children see themselves represented and valued within their learning.
Across subjects, lessons, topics, and resources, pupils encounter a rich variety of cultures, communities, traditions, and perspectives, both local and global.
Cognitive science plays a central role in shaping the design and delivery of the Cornerstones curriculum.
At Cornerstones, we draw on both current and well-established research to inform the content, sequencing, and resources we develop, helping us make evidence-based decisions about curriculum structure and pedagogy.
At Cornerstones, we source information from verified, reputable organisations, including the BBC Archives, The National Trust, The Historical Association, Britannica and the Science Museum.
Our content is also reviewed and updated by subject specialists on a regular basis.
Yes. At Cornerstones we've been creating curriculum content since 2010. Over the years we've kept our content fresh and updated, developing our curriculum and resources to meet any national curriculum changes and updated Ofsted requirements.
We've also made sure that we fully consider any new educational research and implement findings into our curriculum where we feel it is appropriate.
The curriculum includes integrated Barefoot Computing lessons, all of which are easily accessible through Maestro.
We continually embed evolving technologies within our projects and lessons, ensuring they are used safely, purposefully, and appropriately to enhance learning and digital literacy.
Many projects provide opportunities for children to explore and care for the natural world, encouraging them to become responsible and informed global citizens.
For example, pupils investigate rivers and water systems through fieldwork and local visits, and learn about plant life cycles and sustainable food production in other projects.
Future developments
We are currently developing new, slimmed down history projects. Each of these new projects is designed to:
- be taught in just half a term
- balance knowledge and skills, as recommended by the Curriculum and Assessment Review Interim Report
- offer rich, creative opportunities without sacrificing historical rigour
While our curriculum is shaped by current government requirements to be sequenced, knowledge-rich, and ambitious, we remain committed to championing creativity and innovation in the classroom.
In anticipation of the forthcoming Curriculum and Assessment Review, we are already releasing new content and projects that align with its emerging outcomes.
We are constantly developing new projects. Our recently developed history projects have diversity at the fore, ensuring that pupils engage with a rich variety of voices, cultures, and lived experiences throughout their learning journey.
We want to provide this too. Current Ofsted and DfE requirements pushed us away from the creativity and child engagement we believe in.
However, our thematic projects are cross-curricular and provide a good option for schools wanting more creative freedom in lessons. We are now releasing new, shorter curriculum projects which combine creativity and knowledge to make learning and teaching more fun and engaging.
We understand the difficulty in teaching some of our content. The requirements set by the government for an ambitious curriculum for all requires us to produce ambitious content so schools can meet these requirements.
However, using the functionality of Maestro you can tailor our lessons to your children's needs. If you want support with this, please contact your curriculum adviser and they will be able to help you.
Cornerstones provides enhanced provision boards in the early years and key stage 1, where appropriate.
We are continually reviewing where we can offer ideas for further enhanced provision, as we fully believe in the power of continuous and enhanced provision.
Our curriculum provides you with a rich and varied menu of curriculum content. You do not need to cover everything we have planned, and the functionality of Maestro will help you design and exclude content to meet the restrictions of your timetable.
If you need support in doing this, contact your curriculum adviser who will be able to help you.
We provide curriculum content that is suitable for international learners. Please contact us and one of our curriculum advisers will be happy to show you everything you need to make your curriculum appropriate to your local context wherever you are in the world.
Teacher information
Teachers can be involved in the initial curriculum design. Once decided, teachers can remove, add and re-arrange lessons to suit the needs of their own teaching style.
Schools can also create their own projects and resources and add them to their curriculum.
The Cornerstones curriculum, especially our knowledge-rich sequenced curriculum, is designed to meet the raised expectations by the government for an ambitious curriculum for all.
Our knowledge-rich projects provide strong challenge and depth of learning to suit the needs of high-achieving children.
We are looking into how we can provide even more resources that don't require teachers buying things for their class.
These will be released alongside our developments for the curriculum and assessment review.
Within the library section on Maestro, you can access updated science investigations with additional experiments and hands-on work.
Look out for our new STEAM projects coming in 2026.
We provide a wide range of detailed materials to cover the different SACREs across the country.
Wales
We have created skills and knowledge statements (objectives) to ensure comprehensive curriculum progression.
Where possible, we refer to the Curriculum for Wales 'Progression Steps' for guidance. These objectives are grouped by aspects (key concepts or areas), resulting in a connected and cohesive progression framework.
The 'My Planner' tool provides the opportunity to add discrete lessons, assign skills and knowledge and add LNF/DCF objectives.
You can do this by navigating to My Planner, clicking at a time and date that you wish to plan the session for and selecting to plan a lesson using discrete objectives, rather than an event. You will then be given the choice to add skills and knowledge, as well as LNF/DCF objectives, to your lesson.
Maestro functionality
Help using Maestro
Your resources are linked in the lesson briefs on Maestro. Simply click the blue highlighted text to download the resource directly from Maestro.
The sequencing in our knowledge-rich curriculum projects is clearly thought out and mapped to provide a learning pathway through the curriculum.
Our thematic projects are less formally structured and require schools to decide upon their own learning sequences. To ensure your entire curriculum is sequenced correctly, our expert curriculum advisers can work directly with you to create a bespoke curriculum. Contact us to arrange free online support.
Our expert curriculum advisers are available to help, whether that is a quick 5-minute chat, or a bespoke professional development session. All online training is included in the cost of your licence.
Contact us to arrange free online support to help adapting or editing your curriculum.
This is possible by building your own curriculum, and not making it live. Using the Design a new curriculum functionality, you can copy your existing curriculum, create from a current model or design a completely new curriculum from scratch.
This will be in an unpublished form that you can adjust to meet your needs, without having to make it the live curriculum straight away.
The skills and knowledge are highlighted on the left-hand side of the lesson screen on Maestro. The skills are labelled and are listed underneath “In this lesson children will…”.
With teacher level permissions on Maestro, you can hide lessons from your own view. With higher level permissions, lessons can be excluded from projects altogether.
On each page on Maestro, there is an 'Instructions' button in the top right corner. If you need help navigating or using Maestro, this is the first place to look.
When the curriculum is set up correctly by Maestro users with SLT level access, teachers will only see topics relevant to them. If you or your school requires help in setting this up, contact us and one of our curriculum advisers will be happy to help.
It is always best to chat with one of our curriculum advisers as all mixed-age schools are different. It is important to look at what has come before as well as what is being taught currently, and in the future.
Maestro provides the ability to look at progression, actual coverage and analyse any gaps. Often due to the way the national curriculum is set out, progression is over a key stage rather than year group specific.
This is possible via the intended coverage or progression frameworks in Maestro. Please click here to see how you can do this in the Maestro help centre. Alternatively, please contact us and one of our curriculum advisers will be happy to help.
On the class attainment page, under 'Analyse and report', if you are utilising the 'Lesson taught' functionality, you will have all the information at your fingertips to embed assessment for learning in your class.
Please click here for more information in the Maestro help centre.
Within the more substantial projects, to gain a correct sequence of learning and ensure the retrieval practice and deep learning can be attained, it is advised that all lessons that are not breadth and depth be taught.
We understand that the current requirements for an ambitious curriculum for all force schools to fit lots of content into a short period of time. New content, with a view to a slimmed-down national curriculum, is being created and released over the coming months.
You can do this with a click of a button. Please visit this helpful help centre article which explains everything you need to know about My planner.
If you go to the intended progression framework section of Maestro and look at English, you will see a comprehensive progression of skills in reading and writing.
Click here to view a quick video demo on how to easily attach school resources to your lesson plans on Maestro.
As schools choose to teach different projects in different terms, we have not yet built this feature into Maestro. We will consider this for future development.
'My planner' on Maestro enables teachers to move lessons, and shorten the duration if necessary, so they know they have to cover specific knowledge and skills to ensure coverage and learning takes place.
On 'My planner', if the 'Lesson taught' button is pressed, Maestro records the coverage and shows actual coverage. If assessments are made, a detailed gap analysis is compiled for the child's time in school.
If you are a Maestro administrator, you have the ability to add, edit and remove Maestro user accounts.
Please visit this help centre article for full instructions.
For information on how to invite, edit and remove users, please visit this help centre article.
Every school is given the exact number of licences they require when they are first set up on Maestro.
Over time, the number of invitations schools require changes. If this happens, don't worry. Please contact us and we will add more licences to your school's account at no additional cost.
If you are a Maestro administrator, you have the option to 'Sync school data' from your MIS to Maestro.
Please visit this help centre article for more information on how to do this.
If you have been assigned a class plan, your projects should appear on your homepage.
Please speak to your Maestro administrators in school who have the ability to assign you to the relevant class plan.
If you are a Maestro administrator, you have the ability to assign a teacher to a class.
Please visit this help centre article for more information on how to do this.
To see just your projects on My planner, please ask your Maestro administrators in school to assign you to the relevant class plan so that you only see the relevant projects.
Please visit this help centre article for more information on how your Maestro administrators can do this.
To find any curriculum that you have created, click on your initials in the top right corner and select 'All curriculums' from the drop-down menu.
The list that appears is all the curriculums you have created. To make it the live curriculum, click on the settings button next to the curriculum's name and click 'Activate'.
As a Maestro administrator, you have the ability to change the cycle of your curriculum by going to 'Settings' > 'School settings' > 'Current curriculum'.
You can then change the cycle of your current curriculum and click save to make these changes active. Please visit this help centre article for more information.
We created My planner with the same principles as other online calendars in mind, which use one colour per user. Maestro gives you the ability to view more than one person's planner at the same time, which is useful for schools with job shares or 2/3/4 form entry.
Therefore, having a single colour per user makes the viewing of multiple planners much easier.
General information
We provide PDF slides to meet the needs of all schools, regardless of what technology they are using.
We also want to ensure that the resources are used as teaching aids, rather than a 'Are we on slide 8 yet?' style curriculum.
In our more substantial projects, where there is a lot of content to cover, the lessons not labelled breadth and depth are the ones essential for coverage.
We are continuously investigating how we can implement AI into Maestro.
Please stay tuned to our social media accounts and email updates to be the first to hear about AI within Maestro.
Alongside the release of new, slimmed down curriculum content, we will also then look at how to make assessment as simple, while remaining integrated to the curriculum being taught, as impactful on learning as possible.
Maestro enables teachers to carry out formative assessment and assessment for learning.
Assessment for learning directly linked to the curriculum being taught enables monitoring, analysis and summative assessment to be part of everyday work, rather than a stressful end-of-term task.
Still have questions?
Our team is happy to help. Book a conversation with a curriculum specialist and get the answers you need.