By Dale French
As someone who has worked in education for many years, and as a dad of two, I can’t help but notice what happens when creativity slips out of the curriculum. Learning narrows. Joy diminishes. Instead of being captivated, children start to feel the weight of schooling as if it’s preparation for something far off, rather than something alive and meaningful now.
At Cornerstones, we are determined to bring creativity back into our projects. This isn’t just a nice-to-have. It’s a necessity – for teachers, for schools, and most importantly, for children.
Creativity is not optional
Too often, creativity is treated as the add-on you squeeze in after the “real work” is done. But we know it is the real work. Creativity is the spark that turns knowledge into understanding, and lessons into experiences children remember for life. In our projects, it’s deliberately woven in, not bolted on.
Real learning is connected, not compartmentalised
As a professional, I see the danger of siloed teaching. As a dad, I see how much more deeply my own children learn when their ideas cross subject boundaries. The Cornerstones Curriculum is built on Big Ideas, like creativity, humanity, and significance, which help children make connections across disciplines. This way, their knowledge grows into a meaningful web rather than a disconnected list of facts.
The research backs us up
This isn’t about sentiment. Research on project-based learning is clear: children retain knowledge longer, think more critically, and engage more deeply, which is inherently creative. At Cornerstones, our projects invite this kind of learning, where science, history, geography, art, and design & technology aren’t competing for time but complementing one another in rich, authentic ways.
Teaching needs room to breathe
I’ve spoken with enough teachers to know how stifling “box-check” teaching can be. It drains passion and leaves little space for what drew most of us into education in the first place. Our projects, supported by Maestro, give teachers the tools and freedom to bring lessons alive, to adapt, for children to be innovative, and to make space for creativity, even under pressure.
Childhood deserves protecting
And this, for me as a dad, is the heart of it. Children deserve to be children. They shouldn’t be pushed to work as though they are already in secondary school. They need the chance to explore, imagine, ask questions that don’t have easy answers, and find joy in their discoveries. Of course, they also need the solid foundations of knowledge to help them flourish later in life, but they shouldn’t lose their sense of wonder in the process.
Bringing creativity back is about more than projects
It’s about restoring joy to classrooms, trust to teachers, and dignity to children. It’s about rebalancing the curriculum to be rigorous and humane. And it’s about insisting that education should be lit by curiosity, imagination, and the love of learning. More can be read on this topic from the Are we on slide 8 yet? report from the National Education Union.
That’s why, at Cornerstones, we will continue to put creativity at the heart of our projects—because children deserve nothing less. We have already started this movement with our history projects. Injecting creativity with the sticky knowledge needed is a must from the national curriculum, all while making them adaptable, manageable and engaging. Click below to learn more about our latest curriculum projects and what’s being released next year, ahead of the Curriculum and Assessment review.
Interested in finding out more about how our full curriculum on Maestro can help your school?
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