At Reed First School, Jackson Class covers the period of time the children spend in Nursery and Reception. The class teachers are Mrs Arnott and Mrs George.
We operate a flexible induction programme so that the needs of each individual child can be met.
In our Early Years unit we have created an environment which supports, encourages and stimulates the children to become independent learners. Our learning is planned with a play based focus and is driven by the interests and needs of each individual cohort. We follow The Statutory Framework for the Early Years Foundation Stage and Development Matters (non-statutory Framework for the Early Years Foundation Stage) to ensure our planned activities and opportunities for Child Initiated Learning enable every child to reach their full potential and expected outcomes for end of each stage in Early Years.
We also follow Little Wandle Synthetic Phonics Government validated phonics programme and NCTEM maths mastery programme for both Nursery and Reception pupils.
Each week, we have a clear focus through a theme which is always one which is meaningful and relevant to the cohort and focused areas of learning. These themes are planned specifically for each cohort and so will change year on year but ensure all areas of learning are covered through carefully planned activities and environments.
Below is an example of our curriculum coverage plans for a year.
Please also view the class letter for news from Jackson Class at the bottom of this page.
Autumn Term 2025
We had a super start to the school year with all our new children settling in really well, making friends and becoming familiar with our routines and expectations.
We love sharing stories in Jackson class and have a cosy reading area with three ‘star stories’ each half term selected so children can become really familiar with those books and enjoy sharing with their friends without being dependent on adults.
We based some of our activities around other favourite books including Owl Babies and Wow said the Owl as we were settling in. We then had a couple of weeks where our theme was ‘All about me!’. The children painted self-portraits and drew beautiful pictures of who lives at home with them.
The children loved sharing their ‘All about me’ boxes with their new class. It was so lovely to hear them talk about their favourite people and most special things!
Each week two children are chosen to bring in something from home to share for our Show and Tell sessions, we love hearing all about what is special to them and having the opportunity to ask questions! One child shared her tap shoes and outfit, another child said she also does tap dancing so they gave us a little lesson!
We read The Colour Monster by Anna Llenas which is a wonderful book to help children explore their emotions and give names and colours, to help express their feelings. We introduced our regulation station as a comfortable, quiet place to go if they feel they want some space to be calm.
We also have natural loose parts where they can explore emotions. They often experiment with making the different emotions in the mirror before leaving a face decorated for others to see!
As the temperature dropped, we explored Autumn as our theme, enjoying books such as The Leaf Thief by Alice Hemming and Leaf Man by Lois Ehlert. We learned new songs about autumn too including ‘Autumn leaves are falling’, ‘I go walking in the trees’ and ‘It’s apple time!’. Children enjoyed finding autumn treasures and sharing them with the class. We have them on display and continue to add to these and use them in discussions, art, maths, writing and more.
We enjoyed harvesting and tasting our own delicious produce grown in the nature garden including tomatoes, french beans and raspberries. We had another bumper crop of rhubarb which gives the children an ideal reason to set up a shop, write posters and labels and sell bunches to parents at pick-up and earn us some extra pennies to spend on enriching resources!
We discussed and celebrated harvest time and learned new songs such as ‘Cauliflowers fluffy’ and ‘5 little peas’ – using an enormous stretchy band for fun!
We love apple week! We learned about the different parts of an apple, songs about apples including “It’s Apple Time” and “5 Little Apples”, we compared the colour, size and weight of apples, we practised balancing apples on top of cardboard tubes and the children used pastels to create super observational drawings of apples. We tasted a selection of varying apples and some children were surprised by how different they tasted! Following a vote about different types of apples we found that the most popular in our class were red apples! We learned how to peel and chop apples and made a delicious apple cake!
We love having visitors to our school to learn more about them and what they do! One of our children spoke so fondly of his grandad and what an amazing artist he was, we just had to invite him in and ask him to share some of his art with us! The children were captivated as he showed us how he approaches observational drawing. We used leaves which we had collected from our autumn walk and created some beautiful life like pastel drawings!
PCSO Hannah came into Jackson class to introduce herself before leading an assembly. Children listened with interest about what she did, how her clothes and equipment help her and were able to ask questions and continue to forge strong links with our community.
In Reception maths, we have been subitising 1-3, this means ‘seeing’ the number without the need to count. We have played lots of games including the ladybird game and flower pot game which are great to make ‘seeing’ the number quick and automatic. Please play lots of games at home too as they are so beneficial for all areas of learning from recognising the number of dots on a dice, to taking turns and coping with not always winning! We explore the composition of numbers, the cardinality, ordinality and comparison of number and quantity.
In Nursery maths, we have been practising counting 1-5 learning to line up and touch count each item as they say a number, recognising numerals 1-3, subitising (seeing) numbers 1-3 and representing a number on their fingers. We sing lots of songs to help with their mathematical understanding too.
We love to keep the activities fun and active and think of ways to incorporate our learning objectives into their chosen play! Recently when we visited the nature garden we were delighted to find lots of water snails of all sizes which gave us the opportunity to share known and learn new vocabulary relating to size!
In phonics, we follow the Little Wandle synthetic phonics programme and this term Reception were chomping at the bit to start, having been in Nursery here they were really looking forward to the new routines they had seen their Reception friends follow! In the autumn term they are introduced to a new letter sound each day, review the sounds they have previously covered, learn how the grapheme and phoneme correspond. The correct letter formation is modelled and the children use whiteboards to practise writing the grapheme. We use the sounds previously learned to first orally blend to read words then apply this to write. We first encourage the children to write their name and have name cards to support them with this. As they learn a new letter sound, we also demonstrate how to form the letter correctly and send them home with a sheet so parents can support their children at home too. As they become more confident with their sounds we introduce reading and writing more words all in line with the sounds they know and quickly they are able to start reading and writing applying their knowledge! It’s so exciting to see them surprised by their own achievement!
In Nursery we use the Foundations for Learning – Little Wandle scheme which includes daily phonics sessions, a weekly deep dive into a book for the ‘love of reading’, and a focus on language introducing a new nursery rhyme each week. Children enjoy playing with sounds in active games including sound discrimination listening to environmental sounds and instruments, exploring body percussion and enjoying rhythm and rhymes.
We go to the library to borrow a book each week and the school librarians set exciting challenges each month. The children really enjoyed the challenge to draw the front cover of your favourite book!
Child initiated learning is a big part of our timetable and the adults value time with the children observing first their interests and chosen activities then providing questions, suggestions or prompts to scaffold and extend their learning.
Jackson class children and their parents were invited to come dressed ready for bed for a magical bedtime story! The evening was complete with fairy lights, a roaring fire and hot chocolate with marshmallows as we shared some favourite songs and bedtime stories.
Finally, we ended the year with joyful Christmas celebrations kicking off with decorating day, our advent calendar countdown with Christmas stories, Christmas themed learning, a visit from the main man himself complete with a sack of gifts for all, the toy run (donating gifts to children in hospital), dancing and singing during our wonderful Christmas dinner and performing in our superb Christmas nativity!
Spring Term 2026
In Jackson class we have a theme for each week, usually from a story, poem or based on the current season. We then create an enticing learning environment across the learning areas inside and out.
We had an exciting start to our term with a pantomime performance of Beauty & the Beast in our hall. This then initiated lots of wonderful learning, the children were inspired to dress up and act out the story as well as performing their own acts on our stage. We had some super independent drawing and writing including on our garden blackboard ‘beast’ and ‘castle’.
We took the opportunity to learn about time and created our own clocks which involved writing numbers for a purpose. We learnt how to tell the time on the hour and have two favourite days of the week songs. The children also tested their design and technology skills when trying to create a strap on the back of their shields.
In maths, Reception children were learning to subitise up to six, so we played lots of games involving a dice. We explored counting, the order of numbers and the cardinal (end/stopping) number. We looked at the composition of numbers within 5 with fun games to become really confident with number bonds to 5 e.g. 4 and 1, 3 and 2 etc. then went beyond 5 to understand numbers can be ‘5 and a bit’. We used our fingers a lot to help us see the concepts but also used lots of other manipulatives from natural resources e.g. sticks and conkers to uni-links which they have used to explore the composition of numbers and see that in a sequence ‘one more’ is added each time creating a ‘staircase’.
We have been counting aloud to larger numbers, seeing the difference between teen numbers and ‘ty’ numbers. One more/one less and recognising even and odds using Number-blocks to show when they have a flat top (even) or an odd block!
In Nursery maths, the children have been gaining lots of practice to subitise and count (initially to three but when ready beyond) and exploring comparison and patterns. We play fun games inside and out to help gain these important foundations. We always have resources available inside and out for mathematical exploration and the children create their own challenges in child-initiated learning!
We love to see how the children take what they have been learning and apply it to their play. In the photo below the children have been busy sorting and arranging items into groups and have even put their boots into a repeating pattern! Imagine all the language used in their conversation!
In phonics, Reception children have been learning the Phase 3 sounds this term. Nursery children also have a daily Foundations for Phonics session, which is part of the Little Wandle programme and prepares them for learning to read and write through listening games, identifying and making different sounds, listening to a range of stories, learning nursery rhymes and songs.
We love to read in Jackson class and each half term pick three, ‘Star stories’ that we read regularly with the children so they become so confident they can read the books to themselves or to their friends. We often accompany the book with props so they can act out the story too. Our star stories this term have been The Gruffalo, Pink is for girls and Brown bear, brown bear, what do you see? And tango makes three, Mr Big and Not a box.
We always celebrate world book day and enjoyed seeing how creative people had been putting together wonderful costumes to represent a word.
We love having visitors to our school. This term we have had PCSO Hannah, Bikeability, dance workshop where we explored the story Pinocchio and had fun creating mother’s day gifts across the school where we mix up the classes and have a different crafting activity in each class.
We enjoy learning about festivals celebrated by other faiths, cultures and communities. For the Lunar new year we created a dragon, watched Chinese drumming and had a drumming lesson, then accompanied the dragon dances with drumming music as it danced round our garden! We made decorations for our home corner which became a Chinese restaurant and even made stir fried noodles, peeling and chopping the vegetables before eating them with chopsticks! The children were all brilliant at trying the new food and most agreed they were delicious!
Children also have a dedicated PE lesson and have been learning some new yoga positions, Jigsaw (Personal, social, health and emotional – focusing on Dreams and Goals and Healthy Me) and Forest School session each week.
Playing outside in all weathers is important to us! We have splash suits and wellies available and love getting very wet and muddy from time to time! We also believe in risky play, where we allow them to climb trees and build with large loose parts for example, so they can explore and challenge themselves. But we are always close by for support with some verbal tips and suggestions if things look particularly wobbly!
We regularly visit our nature garden where we use our senses to explore, find insects and worms and were particularly excited to see signs of spring emerge – buds, daffodils, primroses, tulips from the bulbs that we had planted in autumn giving us a beautiful display! We have read books about Spring and have been lucky to observe the transformation of frog spawn to tadpoles.
We have planted cauliflowers, beans, sweet peas and sunflowers. And used various mediums to create beautiful observational drawings of the spring flowers including watercolour, coloured pencils and pastels. The children wrote labels for the plants and we hope to be able to sell our produce in the summer term which involves writing posters, learning about and handling money and using our till!
We finished the term learning about the Easter story, sharing Easter hats made at school and enjoying the annual whole school Easter egg hunt across the school field!
Summer Term 2025
The Summer term is always so exciting with so much to fit in!
We started the term exploring lifecycles using the books The Very Hungry Caterpillar, The Teeny-Weeny Tadpole and Monkey Puzzle as our weekly introductions to a new lifecycle. We create an interactive table where the children have access to related information and fiction books, puzzles, 3D models, props and this year we had frogspawn that we collected from the village pond and marvel as they transform into tadpoles, then froglets in front of our eyes. We took pleasure in releasing them back to nature, some to the original pond, but some in our new pond in our nature garden. We hope next year we may have our own frogs laying frogspawn we can observe from our new jetty.
We carefully plan our resources to ensure there are other resources available for continuous provision. We have lots of children who love challenging themselves mathematically in play. They demonstrate plan, do and review in their play as they talk about what they are going to do, e.g. make two towers the same size. They used fine motor skills to build tall towers, they then counted the cubes to check and compare their towers, then realised they did not have enough in the pot, yet one had reached 21 the other only had 19, they then discussed ways to solve the problem… “ask for more cubes” one child suggests, the other says “if we take one from 21 that will be 20 and add it to 19, they will both be 20!”. They were both delighted and proudly shared their achievement!
What a lot of hot weather we have had! So much so we decided we needed to cool off! We are lucky to have air conditioning in the classroom, but we thought more exciting to create Turtle Bay Foot Spa to present an opportunity to cool down in the shade, have a chat with our friends, taking turns (writing our name on a waiting list) and practice independence and fine motor control taking our shoes and socks on and off and using the rack to ensure they stay dry!
Child initiated learning is a big part of our day as the children have such wonderful ideas of what they want to do and the adults are there to observe, support, scaffold and challenge their play and learning.
We have a wonderful garden and enjoy developing in all areas, however it does present lots of amazing opportunities for physical development. This summer term the children grew in confidence to not only climb the tree, but to hang and drop down too! Being able to support their own weight hanging
is really important to be able to develop the strength required for writing!
The children had been so fascinated by photos shared from a safari holiday that we decided to learn more about wild animals and go to Shepreth Wildlife park for our school trip.
They had opportunities to ask questions and learn all sorts of interesting facts about wild animals. Did you know…a penguin has a white tummy to help it camouflage when swimming and hide from predators lurking in the sea below? However, they are dark on their back to blend in to the colour of the sea from predators above!
We had such a fun packed day there were lots of sleeping children on the coach on the way home! The sign of a great trip!
Last year we held a Europe Day where children with links to Europe were able to take their passport and discover the food, flag, music, language etc of different countries. It was such a success, this year we ventured out of Europe and again had children and some of their parents help to share the customs and cultures from around the world from, such as eating seaweed and learning to say “hello” in Mandarin, when we “visited” China.
In the summer term we love to grow plants and enjoy reading books such as Jasper’s Beanstalk and Sam Plants a Sunflower. We were happy to be able to plant our beans this year in our new raised beds in our nature garden! We also planted sunflower and sweet pea seeds and enjoyed watching the incredible rate of growth and seeing in action what the books had taught us. The children enjoyed the daily task of watering the plants. We had to create the role ‘Watering Monitor’ to give everyone a turn.
At the end of each summer term we perform a whole school show expertly put together by Mrs Wittich. The children are always super stars with the eldest taking on the main roles where it is a joy to see their confidence and characters shine through! This year was The Bee Musical. Jackson Class supports the show with a dance created with the children’s own dance move ideas and sing the catchy songs. We realised we were loving learning lots of new facts in the songs and decided to make it our theme and learn all about bees! The children were fascinated to see a real bumble bee close up, learning the different parts of a bee and about pollination. We even had a bee keeper in to explain how they care for bees and share with the children how bees make honey!
Move up day was an exciting opportunity for the Reception children to go to have a taster day in their new class ready for Year 1 and for Jackson class to meet our new children who will be starting. It was super to see the nursery children who are set to be Reception ready to be the older role models and show the new children how our day flows.
The reception children also had the opportunity to join the year 1 and 2 class on their trip to Stansted Mountfitchet castle and toy museum. Meanwhile, the nursery had a super ‘Teddy Bear’s Picnic’ day. We each brought in our teddies, baked and decorated shortbread bear biscuits and enjoyed a picnic, stories and games on the school field.
We had a wonderful fun-filled end of term, sharing all our best bits of the year and coming together for a very special surprise celebration on the last day of term to celebrate Mrs Wittich’s 50th birthday! We had such fun decorating biscuits in the hall, singing and dancing and presenting her with our cards and gifts.
- Jackson Class newsletter summer 2026 (265.56KB)
- Jackson Class Newsletter Spring term 2026 (271.17KB)
- Jackson Class Newsletter Autumn term 2025 (276.17KB)