At Prescot Primary School and Nursery, we use the Cornerstones Education approach of themed curriculum projects because we want our children to make as many meaningful connections in their learning as possible. Rather than experiencing knowledge as a series of isolated facts and subjects, carefully planned projects provide a rich context for learning, helping children to connect new knowledge with what they already know and understand how ideas relate across different areas of the curriculum. Where links are purposeful and strengthen learning, subjects are brought together to create memorable experiences, while still maintaining the distinct knowledge, skills and vocabulary of each individual subject.
In Key Stage 1, children experience much of their wider curriculum through an engaging themed approach, allowing them to explore subjects together and begin to recognise the connections between different areas of learning. As children move into Key Stage 2, subjects become increasingly discrete and clearly defined, with children developing a stronger understanding of what it means to think and work as a historian, geographer, scientist, artist or designer. However, these subjects continue to sit beneath the umbrella of a meaningful overarching theme, providing context and opportunities to make purposeful connections. This progression allows us to maintain the excitement and relevance of thematic learning while developing increasingly strong subject-specific knowledge, vocabulary and disciplinary skills.
Through engaging themes, practical experiences, enquiry, visits, fieldwork, high-quality texts and creative outcomes, we aim to bring learning to life, deepen understanding and help children remember more over time. Ultimately, we want our children to CONNECT: connecting new learning to prior knowledge, one subject to another, and their classroom learning to the wider world.
https://cornerstoneseducation.co.uk/
'Deeper Connection' Projects
Alongside our themed curriculum, we have created a number of whole-school ‘Deeper Connections’ projects that children revisit throughout their journey from EYFS to Year 6. We deliberately return to important concepts, themes, people and places because we know that learning becomes stronger when children have opportunities to revisit prior knowledge, build upon it and make new connections. Each encounter adds another layer of understanding, helping children to remember more, know more and connect more.
Our Deeper Connections include Significant Monarchs, through which children build an increasingly rich understanding of monarchy, chronology and change over time; Key Countries, which enables children to repeatedly explore a particular country and develop a stronger sense of place; Our Local Study, ensuring that knowledge of Prescot and the surrounding area grows progressively throughout school; and Rebel Heroes, introducing children to inspiring individuals who challenged ideas, overcame barriers or helped to bring about positive change.
Our fifth Deeper Connection is our annual whole-school Conservation Project. Each year, the school community helps to choose a shared environmental issue that every year group explores at an age-appropriate level. Learning together gives the project a real sense of collective purpose and helps our children understand their responsibility as global custodians of our planet. Most importantly, children learn that their choices and actions matter and that, however young they are, they can help to make a positive difference.
Together, these Deeper Connections create important threads that run through our curriculum. Children don't simply encounter an idea once and move on; they revisit it, retrieve it, question it, connect it and deepen it as they grow. In this way, their primary school journey becomes an increasingly connected body of knowledge rather than a collection of separate learning experiences.