Managers Report AGM 2024
Welcome to all our attendees.
We have had another successful year at Weavering Preschool with a healthy role both at the beginning and end of the academic year. The Government introduced the new working parent entitlement in April of this year and we have had 6 sets of parents of 2 year olds who have been able to claim the new funding. This funding is set at a level of £7.55 per hour (an increase against the figure of £5.46. In addition KCC raised the level of funding for 3 and 4 year olds from £4.85 per hour to £5.68 per hour. Both these amounts take into consideration the fact that we employ a qualified teacher in the setting and this results in a nominal addition to the set level of funding. We continue to offer a maximum of 22 hours per week of the available 30 hours of the working parents entitlement. It is anticipated that in September of next year the Working parents entitlement for 2 year olds will increase in line with the 3 and 4 year old entitlement to 30 hours per week. We have not applied to accommodate 9mth old children. We have had 2 children begin the year as FF2 children and have finished the year with 1 of them still entitled to the FF2 funding.
We continue to operate a 3-pod system with children joining either Red/yellow or blue pods when they commence with us. These pods are managed by 3 staff a piece and children spend an hour in each pod alongside their peers and staff members before moving as a group onto the next pod area. We have found this is a most successful way of managing the volume of children, the smaller pods offer a less overwhelming outlook on the setting for our less confident or anxious children. All the children have the opportunity to spend significant time in the outside areas throughout the academic year and activities can be fashioned to take full advantage of the outdoors. The staff have recorded that their relationships with their keyworker children are incredibly enhanced because of the concentrated time they spend with them in the smaller pods. The children themselves, have formed extremely strong bonds with their peers and their social skills have elevated. We recognised the importance of introducing all the children to larger group sessions once restrictions allowed, and also to ease them into the expectations of extended group play as will be accepted practise in schools, and now they mix freely between pods for a period over the lunch sessions and playground time. Staff take responsibility for resourcing their areas during the course of a session ensuring that every child gets full access to the 7 areas of learning throughout their time at preschool. Play and resources also allow for in the moment planning and every child’s interests can be catered for.
We took on a new staff member in September but sadly she decided the role was not for her and left us in December. Employing a new staff member always results in considerable outlay for the setting, with expenditure on DBS checks, uniform, First Aid and Safeguarding training. We were extremely grateful to Sarah who agreed to increase her hours on a temporary basis to cover the shortfall in staffing levels and maintain our ratios. We took on a new staff member to trial over the last two terms and I am happy to report that Amy will be joining our number as from September in Red pod. Staff have attended a variety of online courses and workshops over the course of the year. Zoe continues to retain responsibility for our SEN co-ordination and Jane is our designated Safeguarding Leader.
Our fundraising over the course of the year was so successful it allowed for some Capital expenditure purchases to further support the children’s opportunity for learning. We purchased 3 ipads for each pod, a new climbing frame and invested in a new mud kitchen. As always much of our fundraising is used to provide the extra throughout the year such as birthday gifts, easter eggs, our Xmas party and our ever popular Fun Day entirely financed by the fundraising efforts over the year.
The fundraising over the year is predominantly reported by our Chair Sharon and will be covered in detail by her in her report and to a lesser extent by me in my financial report which will follow. But all those who organised and arranged our fundraising events are to be applauded for their support and
efforts in raising additional income for the setting over the course of the year. Additionally, of course, we thank all our families for their continued support with these fundraising events.
We form strong relationships with all our children and their families and when it comes to moving onto big school the transition can provide its own set of challenges for the staff and families alike. We pride ourselves on the strong links formed with our feeder schools and the entire transition process is made so much easier by these links. It is a statutory requirement that we support our children in their transition onto school and along with visits to the schools our children are afforded the opportunity to join us when the reception teachers visit the setting to see the children at work and play. We offer them the chance to play at “dressing up” in school uniforms and encourage the closer interactions with their peers once we are given their class information. We are confident that all our children will continue to flourish in their new environments and rise to the challenges the comings months will bring to them and their families and look forward to hearing how they are doing in the future. But at the end of the academic year, it is an opportunity for us to thank you for allowing us to nurture your children, support their development and help educate them along the way.
This annual report is always an ideal opportunity for me to acknowledge the expertise and dedication of our staff members who work tirelessly throughout the year to ensure that your children are afforded every opportunity to make excellent progress along the Foundation stage of their education and support all of them to form strong relationships with their peers
Managers Financial Report July 24
As reported earlier our intake remained steady throughout the year, and intake was up on the previous year –but the highest number of leavers for a long while. Because of this our income was higher than the previous year and higher than the anticipated budget figure and we have finished the year with a surplus of just shy of £2000 which puts us in a comfortable position for the start of the new academic year when numbers will be down on the current level.
We weathered the increases in both National Minimum wage and NI payments, however, the preschool are now contributing more NI members for staff members because of the changes in thresholds. Equally more staff members have joined the pension scheme which has increased the preschool’s contributions – all of these increases impact considerably on our wage bill over the course of the year and the budget for the coming year has had to reflect this. We are anticipating an increase in hall hire fees from September not least because of the increase in cost of living. With these larger outlays anticipated I recommend we increase our 3 hour session fee to £20 a session and increase in the extended lunch session to £9.00 for a two hour extended session.
Our fundraising was outstanding given the continued uncertainties and we raised just shy of £2000 over the year, once the fundraising costs were taken into consideration.. As mentioned previously this amount contributes to all the extras the preschool is able to offer our children.
As always, our accounts for the last year have been independently examined and found to be in excellent order yet again.
And now as ever onto plans for the coming year.
Our predicted intake for the coming year is positive, however fewer children will be eligible for funding for the early months of the financial year, and historically parents tend to pick up fewer sessions until their child has their place funded. With this in mind, we plan on broadly maintaining our overall staffing levels as they are to begin the next academic year. We still maintain our commitment to our staff and will retain our above minimum staff to child ratios – this inspite of the changes to the government recommended ratios which allow for fewer staff for our two year olds. We will continue to apply our own restrictions to the number of 2 year olds in the setting at any one time in accordance with our Admission Policy. The training and development of our team is a continuing foundation stone of the preschool and as such provision is in place within the budget to continue this progression. We do not anticipate any
additional funding such as grants from any sources so our maintenance programme within the group will not plan for any big expenditure, but rather focus on maintaining the resources and equipment currently on our inventory, enhancing and renewing where finance allows.
With regards to fundraising I think a realistic funding raising target is £2000 – this has, in the past, covered the additional extras for which it is intended. However, with some fresh faces on the committee and potentially some new fundraising ideas, it may well be that you easily exceed this amount, which would be marvellous!
We continue to have a superb team with our staff here, and our committee continues to develop and evolve, we are lucky to have such strong members who work hard to incorporate new ideas and make the most of old favourites. It is hoped that we will have new parents join our committee and bring along their own ideas for fundraising! A huge thank you to our outgoing Chair, Sharon who has been a huge support to me and has lead the committee team from the front. Additional thanks to Sam who has done a sterling job as our Vice Chair/Secretary and has agreed to stay on as our Chair for the coming year. We also have a new parent – Chloe – who is keen to hold a trustee role and has put her name forward to hold the position of secretary– as always a huge vote of thanks to those members who have supported Weavering Preschool over the last year and will continue to do so over the coming year.
AGM Chair’s Report 2023-2024
We have had another great year of fundraising. Thank you to all those who have supported in fundraising activities this year. Our overall fundraising income was £3,682 and after deduction for fundraising costs we were able to allocate the income to many events throughout the year
We’ve had a number of half term sponsored events. Our half term challenges are voluntary but we usually have a good uptake on them and we had some very generous parents/Grandparent’s for this.
We’ve continued to raise funds from Amazon Smile.
We’ve also continued to sell our uniform - a range of T-shirts, sweatshirts and baseball caps and although uniform is not compulsory, it is lovely to see more and more children each year wearing it. The profit for the year is £72.
In term 1 the staff put together some lovely Christmas artwork with the children. We once again used the Art Projects for Schools company to make Christmas cards. We offered our annual Christmas baubles and made a great profit of £267.
The Christmas raffle is always one of our biggest fundraisers of the year. We had great support with donations and thank you to Sam for her toy donations. We raised £513 which is a great profit, so thank you.
We also sold Christmas snowy pictures at the Christmas concert.
We held a Xmas grotto/workshop for the children. Thank you to all who were involved, you raised £101.
In March, the children once again loved picking and wrapping gifts for their mums in our Mother’s Day shop. We hope the mums enjoyed their lovely treats and we made a profit of £105.92. We also did the same for Father’s Day and made a profit of £91.06
This year we have also be extremely lucky to have had a donation of toys from Sam which we were able to sell to raise additional funds, thank you so much Sam.
Once again, the parents and families of our children have been extremely generous and we would like to thank them all for their support over the year. All of the money raised goes straight back into the pre-school to benefit the children. One of the biggest spends is on our annual Funday, we love
holding this free event to give back to the families. We have also funded treats like children’s Christmas gifts, Christmas party, Easter eggs, sports day medals and leavers gifts. These special touches are what make our pre-school such a special place for the children to grow and develop in a loving environment.
Finally, I would just like to thank all the families and all the staff for their continued support. All the great work will continue with the support of the committee in what we hope to be another successful year fund raising.
WEAVERING PRE-SCHOOL INCOME AND EXPENDITURE ACCOUNT FOR THE 12 MONTHS ENDED 31 MAY 2024
| 2024/2025 | 2023/2024 | |
|---|---|---|
| INCOME | ||
| FEES RECEIVABLE | £16,908.75 | |
| FUNDRAISING | £3,682.86 | |
| OTHER/GRANTS/DONATIONS | £40.00 | |
| SENIF | £2,565.23 | |
| FF2 INCOME/WORKING PARENT ENTITLEMENT | £4,514.18 | |
| EARLY YEARS | £107,143.97 | |
| REFUNDS FOR COURSES TAKEN | £30.00 | |
| ADJUSTMENT INCOME FROM KCC/EYPP | £2,911.82 | |
| TOTAL INCOME | £137,796.81 | |
| EXPENDITURE | ||
| EYPP | £0.00 | |
| STAFF WAGES | £113,022.01 | |
| HIRE OF HALL | £6,783.75 | |
| MANAGEMENT/ADMIN | £2,421.69 | |
| SENIF/EYPP | £81.13 | |
| OTHER/GIFTS | £90.50 | |
| REFRESHMENTS & CLEANING | £1,789.50 | |
| TREATS/FUNDRAISING ALLOCATION | £1,931.35 | |
| COURSES | £443.45 | |
| FUNDRAISING COSTS | £1,070.92 | |
| FEES & SUBSCRIPTIONS/INSURANCE | £1,887.16 | |
| SUNDRY EXPENDITURE | £0.00 | |
| GUINEA PIGS | £172.71 | |
| STAFF ENTERTAINMENT AND MEETINGS | £1,009.78 | |
| CAPITAL EXPENDITURE | £3,160.23 | |
| STATIONERY,SUPPLIES & POSTAGE | £1,990.87 | |
| TOTAL EXPENDITURE | ||
| £135,855.05 | ||
| SURPLUS/(DEFICIT) FOR PERIOD | £1,941.76 | |
| CARRY OVER FROM LAST YEAR ADJUSTMENT FOR YEAR |
£63,367.99 | |
| NET BALANCE | £65,309.75 |
Independent examiner's report on the accounts
Section A Independent Examiner’s Report
Report to the trustees/ Weavering Pre-school members of On accounts for the year 31[st] May 2024 Charity no 1017421 ended (if any) Set out on pages Pages attached
I report to the trustees on my examination of the accounts of the above charity (“the Trust”) for the year ended 31/05/2024 .
Responsibilities and As the charity trustees of the Trust, you are responsible for the preparation basis of report of the accounts in accordance with the requirements of the Charities Act 2011 (“the Act”).
I report in respect of my examination of the Trust’s accounts carried out under section 145 of the 2011 Act and in carrying out my examination, I have followed the applicable Directions given by the Charity Commission under section 145(5)(b) of the Act.
Independent I have completed my examination. I confirm that no material matters have examiner's statement come to my attention in connection with the examination which gives me cause to believe that in, any material respect:
-
accounting records were not kept in accordance with section 130 of the Act or
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the accounts do not accord with the accounting records
I have no concerns and have come across no other matters in connection with the examination to which attention should be drawn in order to enable a proper understanding of the accounts to be reached.
Signed: Date: 15/7/24 ~~Zod [|~~
Name: Lisa Parish ~~CT~~ Relevant professional ACCA qualification(s) or body (if any):
Address: 4 Parkside School Lane, Maidstone Kent ME158BF
October 2018
1
IER
Section B Disclosure
Only complete if the examiner needs to highlight matters of concern (see CC32, Independent examination of charity accounts: directions and guidance for examiners).
Give here brief details of any items that the examiner wishes to disclose .
October 2018
2
IER