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Jackson Class

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 Cawthorn.

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 White Rose Maths 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.

Early Years Curriculum overview example (398.77KB)

Please also view the class letter for news from Jackson Class at the bottom of this page.

Autumn Term 2026

Look out for updates from our first term of the new school year coming soon!

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 2026

The Summer term is always so exciting with so much to fit in!

As the seasons change and the weather warms it’s the perfect time of year to learn about lifecycles. We started the term reading The Teeny Weeny Tadpole and created an interactive table where the children have access to related information and fiction books, puzzles, 3d models, props. We had our own frogspawn to observe closely and marvel at as it transformed into tadpoles, then into froglets in front of our eyes! We took pleasure in releasing them back to nature into our pond in our nature garden. We hope next year we may have our own frogs laying frogspawn that we can observe from our jetty.

We then read the story of The Hungry Caterpillar which presented opportunities to learn the days of the week and sequence parts of the story. In the following weeks we read Pip and Egg, The Tiny Seed, Sam’s Sunflowers and Jasper’s Beanstalk to broaden our understanding of lifecycles. The children got stuck into planting seeds including sweet peas, beans and sunflowers and were very committed caring for them! They also wrote some beautiful plant diaries with diagrams of flowers and a list of what plants need included too!

We bring all areas of learning to each topic or theme so across the classroom there are exciting opportunities to develop new skills and embed learning.

We encourage reading for pleasure and especially enjoy sharing 3 star stories which are on display in our reading area with related props and are changed half termly. This is so the children can become really familiar with the stories and feel confident to read independently to themselves, their teddies or each other. The children were fascinated by all the different fruits in the story ‘Handa’s Surprise’, so we managed to bring the real collection of fruit in to observe and try! The children were great at trying new fruits they had never tried before – even when they made their faces screw up!

We described the colour, texture and taste of the fruits introducing and extending their vocabulary and created a bar chart to identify our favourite and least favourite fruits!

We went on a trip to Royston Library catching a couple of Lynx mini buses from school. The staff at the library were very welcoming and told us lots of interesting facts, then did a mini quiz. The children showed they had done great listening by getting all the answers correct! The children were shown the different types of books they can borrow, and how to do it. Many children had a library card and were able to take their chosen book home! We also share with the children when the library hosts challenges.

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 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 and exploring further what had been introduced in an input.

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!

 

We had a series of weeks of Mystery Music sessions where each week we listened to a new instrument being played, learnt about the instrument and had some hands on fun trying the play the instrument ourselves!

In the second half of the summer term we started our theme with buildings as a children had been on holidays to Paris and seen the Eiffel Tower and the Burj Khalifa in Dubai. When they were sharing the photos, combined with their love of construction we thought they would enjoy exploring this further! We then moved to ‘Off we go!’ as we had lots of children who were fascinated by different types of transport (and were approaching transition to their next class) so we had an exciting few weeks focusing on all types from buses, trains and even hot air balloons and magic carpets to link in with our Summer Show! We looked at the very first cars and planes and how they compare to modern versions now. The children enjoyed watching an episode of wacky races and creating their own imaginative winning vehicle! As we approached the summer show we visited countries from the show including the rainforests of Borneo to discover the differences in homes and animals around the world!

We held another successful Europe Day where children (with the help of their families) with links to Europe were able to share their love and knowledge of that country including the food, flag, music, language with the whole school throughout the day. Children have a ‘passport’ and ‘travel’ across Europe discovering all about countries they may never have heard of before!

We are very fortunate to have a beautiful nature garden and love to go and explore, garden, relax and play!

We love having visitors to our school. We welcomed Megson, a folk duo, came and did a fun and interactive session with the whole school…and continued singing their songs for weeks! We had fun learning how to Maypole Dance and met an award winning athlete!

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 the show was called Sir David Hattenscarf  and the Wonders of the World. Jackson Class supported the show with an Orangutan dance created with the children’s own dance move ideas and they loved to join in and sing the catchy songs.

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 Walton on the Naze and had a wonderful day out!

We hope everyone enjoys their summer break and we look forward to welcoming Jackson class children back in September!